67 pages • 2 hours read
Shantel TessierThe Ritual: A Dark College Romance
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Genre Context: Dark Romance
Dark romance is a subgenre of romance that embraces more mature, violent, or ethically ambiguous themes. Dark romance titles often include protagonists who are morally gray or openly embrace their immoral tendencies. The genre often discusses taboo themes as related to sex, including abuse, violence (including sexual violence and physical nonsexual violence), trauma, and cruelty. Common tropes within the genre include organized crime, kidnapping, stalking, obsessive love interests, and “dubious consent,” particularly in the beginning of a romantic arc. All of these elements are present in The Ritual, from sexual encounters that take place under the influence of substances to murders committed on the orders of a secret society.
Dark romance has sparked controversy for allegedly normalizing behavior that would be abusive in real-world scenarios. Unlike in “lighter” romances, in a dark romance, a character who commits violence against a love interest does not disqualify themselves as a potential romantic partner. While some dark romances (including a subgenre known as “bully romance”) will see cruel protagonists apologize effusively and attempt to make amends for their bad behavior (known as a “grovel” within the genre), others rationalize such cruel behavior rather than apologize for it. Dark romances operate on their own moral scale, in which romantic partnerships are validated not by perceived morality but rather by some agreement that indicates, within the text’s logic, that the members of the partnership are allied with one another as well as emotionally entangled. In The Ritual, for example, Ryat continues committing violent acts on behalf of the Lords but shares his life with Blakely; within the genre logic of dark romance, this indicates that the characters have accepted one another as part of their “happily ever after,” the essential trait of all romance subgenres.
Dark romance titles have grown popular due to their viral support on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, which have robust book-themed communities. Popular titles include Haunting Adeline by H. D. Carlton and the Twisted series by Ana Huang.
Cultural Context: Collegiate Secret Societies
As in The Ritual, fiction often represents collegiate secret societies as all-powerful, quasi-mystical groups that have massive political, social, or financial control. Different fictional representations highlight different elements of these groups’ potential power. For example, while The Ritual emphasizes the role of sex in building political power, Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House shows magic as a central project of societies at a fictionalized Yale University.
Though these societies’ inner workings are frequently closely guarded secrets, most reports of real-world societies liken them more to elite fraternities, albeit ones that have longstanding rituals to protect their secrets. Richard Spence, a history professor who studies secret societies, describes their workings as “a kind of ritualized form of networking” (Moody, Josh. “What to Know About College Secret Societies.” US News & World Report, 2020). Some secret societies, such as Phi Beta Kappa (a nationwide academic fraternity), continued even after their workings became public.
The oldest known secret society at a North American university is the F.H.C. Society (which stands for “Fraternitas, Humanitas, et Cognitio,” or “brotherhood, humanity, and knowledge” in Latin) at the College of William and Mary, which originated in 1750. Thomas Jefferson was a known member (Coleman, George P. The Flat Hat Club and the Phi Beta Kappa Society: Some New Light on Their History. Forgotten Books, 1916). Other famous secret societies include Skull and Bones at Yale University, St. Anthony Hall at Columbia University, and the Skull and Dagger Society at the University of Southern California.
