If you asked me what aesthetically pleasing sub-genre of books and film, it would be dark academia. Is that an oddly specific question? Yes. Do I think about it often? Also, yes. (Can you even think of a better ice breaker?)
When I read, I want to be sent to a life I’ve always wanted to live. I like to fall in love with the books I read, sometimes even copying their mannerisms and small quirks, but if there is anything on earth I will be a sucker for anytime, it is dark academia. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (also the author of The Goldfinch which has a movie adaption coming) is my current read, and I’ve been not-so-proudly up until 1 or 2 a.m. each night reading it. Old brick buildings, the smell of old books and paper wet with ink, revolved around the classics, in this case Greek language and literature.
The Secret History follows 6 classics students at a fictional college in Vermont, 1980. As drama unfolds and secrets are revealed, the students look to feel that wonderful power that the greek gods had known; immortality. On the way, they find themselves on a path of murder, lies, and deep history that will change the courses of their lives.
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is seen as a classic example of dark academia, and a model for many books after. However the sub-genre has a disappointing consequence, it is extremely male heavy both in book authors and their characters. I find there to be very plausible reasons for this, one being that the classics have been traditionally taught to the brightest young male scholars there are, and while passing that tradition down keeps in in a gender confinement that it may never leave. I expected from a female author such as Tartt that she would turn this on it’s head and write a book with strong and smart female characters, but I was mistaken. Interestingly enough only one out of the six main characters is a girl, and she is not given many lines or much character development.
This triggered my thinking about why authors write a story that they don’t have a deep attachment to or self interest from a reflection of themselves in the piece. This happens everywhere throughout literature, even though Donna Tartt is a brilliant writer and an extremely driven woman, she still chooses to write about young white men with privilege beyond compare. Is it simply to make the book more marketable, or is it something more?
At first that is just what I believed. Tartt was attempted to mirror her audience, and in that case made a white male book for white males. However, I quickly shot this down. Authors like Tartt do not write books for the paycheck, they write for themselves. This brought me to my next conclusion which I still stand upon now; Tartt writes about young straight white men because that’s all she’s read, and that is all that is successful.
In order to be considered a great american writer, you must look at those before you; Hemingway, Salinger, Fitzerald, Steinbeck, Twain; all writing about the never-ending complexities of man that bring nuisance to what is seen as the norm. These are the books that have inspired writers like Donna Tartt since she grew up with them, and those are considered the great pieces of literature. To rationalize her purpose, it is monkey see monkey do. Tartt, and many women writers after her, still write to fit the mold of the great classics, all formulaic yet still iconic.
The overarching theme here is that women authors continue to follow the mold that as been made by thousands of men before them, but still do not choose to pave their own path for the adversity that would ensue. I quite frankly find it disappointing when such authors have a great opportunity to reflect different types of people in the lense of a genius storm of complexities, yet will still stick to the norms. This is a call to women to reclaim Dark Academia, and this time make it reflective of who’s writing it.
Feminist Patron Saints 