“Heck she liked the job. It was not exactly President of the Republic, but for a fourteen-year-old who wanted out of her the house, it paid, and kept her in the world while she waited for-for her Glorious Future to materialize” (Diaz, 103)

The first sentence is necessary for the following one to be better understood. We can assume from the wording that the job Belicia managed to earn is one that she would have reason to dislike. The narrating voice is surprised however, that she has come around to tolerate and even appreciate the work that is now required of her by employment.The following sentence is the author’s reasoning as to why exactly this job that most would find intolerable was instead highly convenient for her. By mentioning her age and desire to leave the house, we see she is a rebellious teenager looking to separate from her parents and start her life. Though this job may not be as prestigious as the office of the President, it was one enough to leave her more than grateful because of its significance. Her actually running away from her parents is both unrealistic and not what she truly wants. Belicia is looking for an improvement of her current condition by either a change of environment or responsibilities. With this job, she now has something that can both keep her held down and serve as a source of income while she optimistically awaits for her life to unfold in her favor.

“Maybe I’m just like a victim of robbery or rape or something…I don’t have a name for the thing that happened to me, but I don’t feel safe any more” 

The novel opens up with a first person voice who sets the scene following the traumatic loss of her arm to injury. Even though the format of the story is from the first person point of view, it doesn’t take long for a reader to notice the personal tone the narration is done in. Her recounting of the events surrounding the tragedy is shady to say the least. She is unable to coherently answer the police’s questions due to being under sedation along with only being concerned with the whereabouts of her love interest Kevin. Consequently as a result, the story is told in an emotionally driven context; allowing  a reader to either to determine her reliability  on their own. This specific quote takes place following her first time-travelling episode and she is obviously  shook. She has no way of even describing to Kevin what she has just experienced; who reveals she had only been gone for seconds rather than the minutes she is certain she had been absent for. Further reading reveals that her imediate thought afterwards is on the likelihood of the event reoccurring or maybe even continuing where it left off and the possibility of this happening at an inconvenient time. The presentation of this in the text clearly reveals her panic and vulnerabilty that can either persuade a reader to find her honest and credible or hysterical and unreliable.

The text of Secret History features the claim that often historical events remembered and commemorated are treated simplistically and rarely looked at objectively. Most revolutions for example are remembered for the change they bring without consideration being placed to the other factors involved; not all of which proving worthy of romanticizing. The Haitian revolution of 1791 involved arguably the most successful slave revolt in history. The Haitian people of both free and formerly enslaved managed to revolt against their masters and successfully fend off French, British and Spanish efforts of military repossession that soon followed. These achievements paired with government establishment however were not enough for the Western World.

European nations such as France along with the early United States consciously refused to recognize Haiti as a nation. Furthermore, well aware of its development into a slave economy, southern Colonial America feared the consequences of a similar revolt within their land. In response, direct censorship and manipulation of media sources played a role in formed opinions of the entire movement as “The slave rebellion was drained of political and historical context in the American periodical press and became instead a theater of horror and gore perpetrated by animalistic brigands loosed from their chains.”. Unfortunately, the claims of the papers served to be partial exaggerations rather than complete fabrications. The established republic by the newly self-emancipated drew inspiration but also quickly looked to distinguish itself from France. We can see this within the first chapter we learn that “The first official flag of the new Haitian Republic appropriated the tri-color model of France. The blue band to represent the blacks and the red to commemorate their blood were retained…the white band however, was discarded. The symbolic act of stripping whiteness from the flag was doubled by the strategic, if tragic, massacre of the remaining white French inhabitants in 1804.”. Those fearing local slave revolt were hardly in the wrong as the threat of violence in acts of retaliation quickly began to materialize.

“…my mean task would be as heavy to me as odious, but The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead And makes my labors pleasures.” (ACT III, Scene I, lines 4-7)

Ferdinand, the son of the King of Naples is the speaker in the selected quote above. Prospero and his daughter Miranda are the individuals he mentions within his verbalization. Due to the separation following the shipwreck, his automatic assumption is that everyone else has perished and that he is alone on the island until encountering Prospero and his daughter Miranda. Ferdinand develops an almost instant infatuation with Miranda and instantly observes and develops preference to her displayed kindness over the paranoia-driven mistreatment he experiences at the hands of her father Prospero. Her demeanor is further described by Ferdinand as making his toil considerably bearable.

Prospero’s mistrust of Ferdinand can be understood in the context of Prospero’s background revolving around the circumstances of his daughter and his own relocation to the island that he recounts to Miranda in Act I. Prospero has a bias against any passenger aboard the ship that he encounters; specifically Ferdinand in this example and Ferdinand himself recognizes the mistreatment he experiences and points out the contrast in character between Miranda and her father, with both examples serving as characterization of Prospero in the play.