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Foreshadowing
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—The Secret History:
The prologue of The Secret History introduces the novel as a frame story leading up to the moment of Bunny's murder. Because the frame story reveals that Bunny will be murdered, the novel is infused with dramatic irony, since the characters themselves don't know this for the majority of the novel:
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. He’d been dead for ten days before they found him, you know… I have only to glance over my shoulder for all those years to drop away and I see it behind me again […] I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.
Related Themes:
