59 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren Ling BrownSociety of Lies: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Themes
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BetaThemes
The Compulsion to Deceive
Content Warning: The source text features sexism, racism, grooming, and emotional trauma.
The title of the book indicates the primary theme, and the compulsion to deceive defines all the characters and the narrative. The multiple lies revealed in the narrative serve an array of purposes and have different consequences. Some of the false behavior is relatively slight. To get Maya into Sterling, Daisy lies that Maya’s grandfather was a wealthy Chinese investor. When Maya meets Kai, whose parents are actually wealthy investors from China, Maya continues the lie, bluffing that her grandfather “invested in buildings—uh, commercial real estate—until he passed away” (120). This novel explores the escalation of lies once begun, and the social shame of being caught out.
DuPont is central to this theme. He is aware of Maya’s lie, and he tells her, “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me” (235). What could pass for a compassionate moment is actually an odious hint that deceit is the status quo within Greystone. DuPont has no problem with Maya’s lie because he constantly practices fraud. His knowledge of her secret also confers power to him. Through the Hunt Gallery, the Hunt investment fund, and the Legacy Foundation, DuPont commits assorted financial crimes. He also helps prospective students cheat on their SAT and applications. Arguably, Maya’s lie reveals her compatibility with Greystone. She fits in with the Greystone society because she, too, will use duplicity if it helps further her interests.
This theme does, however, show that Maya’s relationship to deception is complex, and certainly more complex than DuPont’s. Her conscience and sense of moral guilt are explored through the novel’s dual timeframe, enabling her adult character to consider the actions of her younger self. While at Princeton, Maya doesn’t aggressively challenge what happened to Lila, although Naomi and Amy actively work to expose the truth about Lila and Greystone. The older Maya admits, “As the months passed, I became better able to tuck away our secret in a dark confine of my mind” (522). Lila continues to haunt Maya, a personification of her own conscience. Immediately after her death, Maya experiences emotional trauma and admits to killing Lila—though the doctors dismiss her admission as “dissociative hallucination.” At graduation, before Naomi’s death, Maya thinks she sees Lila, a ghostly prefiguring of the second death. This appearance acts as a moral catalyst on Maya: After Naomi dies, Maya has the motivation to reject the duplicity she’s haphazardly cultivated. Now ready to challenge falsehoods, Maya announces at Naomi’s funeral, “My sister’s death […] was not an accident […] Someone did this to her. And I’m not going to stop until I find out who it was” (269). Maya’s quest for the truth provokes DuPont, with DuPont using increasingly menacing forms of duplicity, including giving Maya’s daughters gummy bears. Eventually, Maya and her allies expose DuPont, Cecily, and Greystone. Done with trying to live with dishonesty, Maya declares, “I can finally breathe” (713). The statement indicates that the truth, unlike deceit, can give a person a sense of peace.
The Danger of Truth
This theme is in many ways the corollary of the first theme. It explores the ways in which deception destroys or reverses the usual moral norm that lying as bad and truth as good. Many of the characters feel compelled to lie because honesty imperils them. If the truth comes out, their lives collapse, as their identities need deceit to flourish. Kai summates the precarity of truth when she tells Naomi, “I wish I could tell you success was all hard work and intellect, darling, but it’s not. At least half is luck, timing, and the right mentors […] This is serious. You could ruin a lot of people’s lives. Please, don’t ask anyone else about it” (501-02). Kai’s “success” depends on DuPont, who helped her get a job with Big Law. Liam’s “success” also relies on DuPont. He connected him to an acclaimed tennis coach, and tennis is how Liam got into Princeton. Countless other people also owe their status to Greystone and DuPont. If their machinations become public, numerous lives will face public shame and humiliation. The situation creates a dynamic where truth becomes the enemy. At Princeton, Maya and her friends fear that the truth about Lila’s death could get them expelled or imprisoned. Ten years after their Princeton experience, their fears remain, with Kai reminding Naomi, “Your sister could go to prison for life” (504).
The truth doesn’t only endanger the novels liars: It also poses a risk for those on its side. This theme explores the ways in which those involved in large-scale deceptions try to enforce silence and compliance. The characters who want to expose the truth face death and constant hardships. Before DuPont and Cecily murder Lila, DuPont assaults her for intending to expose Greystone. When DuPont realizes Naomi and Amy are working together to counter Greystone, DuPont dispatches people to vandalize Amy’s room. He also publicly humiliates her. As for Naomi, he and Cecily kill her. Once Maya starts searching for the truth, DuPont and Cecily target her. DuPont stalks her daughter and assaults her on a subway station. With DuPont dead, Cecily tries to kill Maya herself. The relentless traumas depicted in the novel are often used to demonstrate that speaking the truth isn’t easy. An alliance with honesty requires tenacity and resilience. Maya, Naomi, Lila, and Amy confront extensive pain, and the pursuit of truth leads to Naomi’s and Lila’s deaths. This theme also allows for those with moral courage to receive rewards, if they survive. Amy gets her article published in The Times, and Maya finally finds the peace that eluded her when she avoided dealing with the truth. Though Maya worries that she contributed to the cycle of violence, engaging with the truth unburdens her: She feels lighter and free. The novel’s emotional trajectory therefore sends a clear moral message that truth is the best course.
The Pressure to Preserve Elite Status
The two previous themes combine to link to the third, which provides a motivation for most of the characters’ actions. The characters who enjoy extraordinary privileges feel they must maintain or augment them, which causes them to lie and view the truth as inimical to their interests. Maya’s relationship with Calum Fuller illustrates the dynamic. The Fullers already have a “nice home” and a privileged life, but they’re not content. The novel explores greed through their pursuit and use of elitism. To grow their status and get Calum into Princeton, the Fullers pay Maya $10,000 to take Calum’s SAT and write his application essay. In addition to the money, they get Maya an internship at the powerful bank Goldman Sachs, showing how elitism is furthered by a network of favors and relationships. The Fuller thread indicates that elitism has little to do with merit or talent. The novel suggests that people get to the top of the social hierarchy through fraud, and they stay there by maintaining the illusion that they actually deserve to be in a position of exceptional wealth and power. Elitism in the book can also be linked to power. DuPont already has an acclaimed image due to his work beyond Princeton but he seeks enhanced control and influence through his fraudulent behavior.
Maya also feels the force of privilege. She wants to rip up the Fullers’ check and demonstrate integrity, but then she thinks, “It’s not my fault the world is unfair” (367). Drawn toward the elite atmosphere and the benefits that it confers—specifically, giving Maya a great capacity to help Naomi—she vows to help him, so she becomes a part of the deleterious quest to keep an illustrious position.
Cecily’s motivation to help DuPont is love. She already has exceptional wealth and position as her family owns large swaths of Manhattan. She tells Maya, “Our love was the only thing keeping me sane” (684). But Cecily and DuPont’s “love” isn’t separate from their identities, and who they are revolves around Greystone and its schemes. Though DuPont had success outside of Greystone, the narrative makes DuPont synonymous with the secret society. Cecily, too, is inherently linked to Greystone. Aside from the fact that her family started the secret society, Cecily marries Theodore Hunt, who runs the Hunt investment fund, which gives money to Greystone’s Legacy Foundation. Cecily also runs the Hunt Gallery. About the dynamic, Maya says, “It was all linked—Hunt Investment Group, the Hunt Gallery, the Legacy Foundation—with Matthew DuPont at the core, orchestrating the scheme like a puppeteer” (707). Since DuPont and Cecily are inherently “linked” to Greystone, their “love” can’t exist without it. To be together, they need Greystone and the privileges that it confers.
