Irwin - Mrs Sweeney's GCSE and A level English Success Guide



The History Boys: Revision guideAct One Page 3: Irwin is in a wheelchair... to Back to school. In this opening scene, Irwin, who is to be a major character in the play, is seen to be addressing a group of four MPs. He is wheelchair-bound in this scene; the significance of this fact will become fully apparent only towards the end of the play. It would appear that Irwin is here either a government politician or someone connected with government who is concerned with how policy is presented to the public and the media – what has come to be termed a ‘spin-doctor’. The challenge he is dealing with immediately is how the abolition of the right trial by jury, one of the most cherished of our civil liberties, in at least half the cases that currently come before the courts, sweeping away thereby the presumption of innocence. The proposed ‘spin’ on this radical measure is to suggest that this diminution of individual freedom should be seen as the reverse, an actual extension of it, justified by a more effective response to crime on the part of the state. Most members of the audience would surely feel alarmed at the glib nature of this ‘reasoning’ and even more by the cynical tone with which Irwin speaks to his group of MPs, themselves representatives of all those in and behind the government who would be expected to repeat this line before the media. Irwin recommends the adoption of a look of amused tolerance before the television cameras, the amusement provoked, presumably, by the idea that anyone could seriously question the wisdom of the proposed legislation, allied to the kind of tolerance of opposition which is founded on the secure knowledge that a comfortable majority in the House of Commons will allow such opposition to be ignored. Irwin has already, we hear, devised a kind of slogan which will be effective in pushing through the bill – ‘The loss of liberty is the price we pay for freedom’ type of thing. These last three words are themselves indicative of the cynical, manipulative attitude which Irwin displays towards language and the public at large. Here is someone who, it seems, is prepared to say anything, to turn truth upon its head, in order to serve the interests of those in power. Where could such an amoral, opportunistic approach to life have been nurtured, one might ask? Irwin provides the answer himself, leading us thereby into the main phase and setting for the play as a whole: Irwin: ...School. That’s all it is. In my case anyway. Back to school. Act One Page 3: Though the general setting... to Page 4: ...bow tie. There is an air of ritual about the way the sixth-form boys attend to Hector on his arrival in the classroom, each one taking what seems to be familiar, pre-ordained role in helping the teacher get out of his motorcycle outfit. The use of French terms represents a sort of parody of a school French lesson but also testifies to the academic sophistication of these students and to the complicity with which Hector himself joins in. Dakin, we are informed in the script, is a handsome boy and we shall see him exploit his youthful and burgeoning sexual allure in various ways during the course of the play. The information to the effect that Hector is a man of studied eccentricity seems, even at this early stage, to be somewhat redundant, though the word studied should perhaps suggest to us that he is quite aware of himself as playing a part for deliberate effect. If he is in some ways ‘odd’, then it is because he wishes to present himself that way. Eccentric may be at times in his demeanor, but he is no one’s fool. Act One Page 4: Classroom. To Page 7: ‘...Lucky boy! ‘Hector’s first florid words at the start of the lesson confirm this impression of studied eccentricity. His congratulations to the boys on their A Level success is more than a little tinged with irony. His praise for the high grades they have achieved is accompanied with a seeming dismissal of their ultimate significance: Hector: ...Remarkable. All, all deserve prizes. All, all have done that noble and necessary thing, you have satisfied the examiners of the Joint Matriculation Board, and now, proudly jingling your A Levels, those longed-for emblems of your conformity, you have come before me once again to resume your education... A Levels... are credentials, qualifications, the footings of your CV. You’re Cheat’s Charter. Hector, even in this ‘joshing’ with the boys, is suggesting that success at A Level is not necessarily a true indication of intellectual worth, merely a proof of an ability and willingness to ‘conform’, to fit in with ideas and methods of assessment imposed by those in authority. True learning, it is implied, cannot be measured by the regime of examinations, necessary though these might be for anyone to make their way in the modern world. Of course, these sentiments, expressed at least semi-seriously, contain further ironies. Hector, like any teacher, would not have been able to obtain his position without academic qualifications. It seems as though all of the boys here, though proposing to study History at university, have also studied English at A Level with Hector. In his role of A Level English teacher, he would have had to concern himself with the examination syllabus and all that goes with the preparation of students for timed public examinations, the results of which will affect the future direction of each candidate. Hector’s humorous deflating of the boys’ A Level achievements should be seen in the light of his own inevitable career-long complicity with the system which he here purports to belittle. It is interesting – and significant – that Alan Bennett presents us with Hector not in his role as A Level English teacher, with all its attendant orientation towards examination success, but as teacher of General Studies in the seventh term of these Oxbridge candidates. Though General Studies does, of course, exist as an examination subject, it is not always as valued by students, teachers or universities as highly as the ‘mainstream’ subjects. In any case, it seems unlikely that Hector’s classes are meant to lead tithe boys’ sitting an examination in this subject, but have, more likely, been included in their timetable as a ‘filler’, to sit alongside their intensive preparation for the Oxbridge entrance examinations. Act One Page 4: Classroom. To Page 7: ‘...Lucky boy!’ (Continued) Why does this matter? As will become apparent, it suits Bennett’s dramatic needs to present a somewhat polarised debate between, on the one hand, ‘pure’ education, divorced from concerns about examination success, and, on the other, the more narrow, pragmatic matter of playing the education and examination systems in whatever manner It takes to achieve success. Hector’s role is, we shall see, firmly cast in the first camp. Drama requires conflict and the clash of ideas and attitudes in this play involves, in consequence, something of a simplification in terms of role and characterisation. Hector himself appears to revel in the idea that nothing that happens in this General Studies class has anything to do with getting on. He knows he can rely on the enthusiasm, wit and co-operation of his students, with whom he clearly enjoys a relationship characterised by easy familiarity and a shared love of literature. The fact that his classes are meant to be a mere adjunct to the main fare in the boys’ educational diet in this seventh term does not discourage him in the least. He is quick to quote a line from the poet A. E. Houseman which can be seen to underpin the outlook of one side of the debate which takes place within the play – and continues in the real world outside the theatre: Hector: ...‘All knowledge is precious, whether or not it serves the slightest human use’. The good-natured, if slightly anarchic, banter between the boys and their teacher leads to the question of their Oxbridge applications. In what will be recognised as typically dramatic style, in both verbal and visual terms, Hector pretends to be in despair at the very idea of these aspirations – He sits with his head on the desk, a parody of despair. The quotations from King Lear which follow suggests a sophistication of humour and a literary knowledge which rings a little false for anyone with a working knowledge of the reality of sixth form classroom life. It is true that these boys often seem some way in advance of their years, in both academic and more general terms. It can be countered, however, that the play doesn’t intend or need to present a totally realistic portrait of sixth-form life in the1980s or of any other time. It is, to some extent, an idealised picture, a deliberately exaggerated version of the kind of witty, well-informed exchanges that can take place between young people themselves and between them and a teacher, though these tend in reality to be rarer and more low-key than what we hear and see in this play. The History Boys is drama, not a documentary. The references to Hector’s playful hits on their persons introduce one element that we might note at this point. Whilst the other boys talk in the present tense, both Timms and Scripps talk in the past tense, as if they are commenting on events which have already occurred. This dual time-setting is a feature which we shall find occurring elsewhere in the play, injecting a nostalgic, reflective feel to the often frenetic action. Act One Page 8: Staff room. To Page 10: Poor sods. It is fairly obvious from the start of this scene that the Headmaster wishes to speak with a degree of informality to Mrs. Lintott but does not find this easy: Headmaster: Mrs. Lintott, Dorothy...These Oxbridge boys. Your historians. Any special plans?... Their A Levels are very good. And that is thanks to you, Dorothy. We’ve never had so many. Remarkable! But what now – in teaching terms? The short speech units reflect his tentative approach. He wishes to accord Mrs. Lintott due regard for her teaching success with her last batch of A Level students and does not wish to cause an upset in suggesting – as he does - that he is left dissatisfied by these excellent grades. The fact that he is almost always referred to by his professional title is indicative of his being drawn by Bennett almost as a two-dimensional caricature of an ambitious but essentially vacuous person. What is important to him is not the individual success of the students, much less the celebration of learning for its own sake. He craves the kind of recognition and status for the school – and, by reflection, for himself – which, he feels, can only be achieved by successful Oxbridge applications in large numbers. He does appear to have genuine respect for Mrs. Lintott’s talents and examination record. She, it seems, puts the emphasis on the boys` having a sound factual basis to their historical studies: Mrs. Lintott: They know their stuff. Plainly stated and properly organised facts need no presentation, surely. To the Headmaster, however, presentation is just what he feels the prospective Oxbridge student must work on in order to have a chance of entering one of those hallowed portals of learning: Headmaster: Think charm. Think polish. Think Renaissance Man. In this the Headmaster is not necessarily wrong. In order to impress the Oxbridge admissions tutors, more than mere academic competence is required. At their interviews, the applicants will have to suggest that they have some special qualities. Can these qualities be acquired at short notice or even simulated? The Headmaster’s very modish use of Think...etc. – a speech trait more usually associated with people in business or advertising – contributes to the impression that the Headmaster has aligned himself to the somewhat specious, superficial values of the 1980s, where style rather than substance carries the day. Such concerns are a long way from the minds of the two seasoned professionals, Mrs. Lintott and Hector. Neither, we hear, is an Oxbridge graduate. Hector can now see that his failed ambition to get into Oxford was based upon a romanticised view of its ancient appeal, having settled for the more prosaic option of Sheffield. Mrs. Lintott had attended Durham, itself a long-established institution with a collegiate structure. True to her down-to-earth nature, however, she confesses that her most cherished memory of being there is her first taste of pizza. Act One Page 10: Scripps: I’d been on playground duty... to Page 12: ...classroom control. Scripps once again adopts his role of occasional narrator, recalling his first sight of the new teacher, Irwin, whom he first mistakes for a student. In his notebook he had recorded that there was something furtive... clandestine about this event and Scripps ‘intuition is proved at least partly correct when we witness the conversation between the new arrival and the Headmaster. The latter clearly sees Irwin as having a vital role to play in the preparation for Oxbridge entrance of the seventh-term students, the new man’s own Oxford background giving him a decided advantage in this proposed role. The Headmaster laments his own failure to do better than Hull as his destination as a Geography undergraduate, the presence there of the poet Philip Larkin (who was the university librarian from 1955 up to his death in 1985), being no consolation. The lines in which the prize of Oxbridge entry is contrasted with the supposed lesser experience of a redbrick university always evoke laughter in the audience, as does the reference to Rudge’s estimated best option – Might get to Loughborough in a bad year. Is the Headmaster’s elevation of Oxbridge sound judgement or naked snobbery? Does Alan Bennett’s play as a whole invite us, as members of the audience, to collude in this downgrading of the redbrick alternatives? Irwin’s contribution, according to the headmaster’s plan, is to give the Oxbridge applicants the vital polish which, he feels, is lacking, despite their high A Level grades. The Headmaster’s haziness as to whether Leighton Park is a high achieving school or a prison – it is most definitely the former! – Adds to the impression of his being a curious mixture of hard-headed realist and ineffectual bumbler. He dangles the prospect of a permanent position on the staff to Irwin on condition he can get the seventh-term boys to achieve their Oxbridge goals, though he will, for the moment, have to work alongside Hector in the guise – or under the camouflage – of General Studies teacher. The Headmaster expresses his deep ambivalence about Hector as a teacher: Headmaster: There is passion there. Or, as I prefer to call it, commitment. But not curriculum-directed. Not curriculum-directed at all. The Headmaster is clearly uncomfortable with the concept of passion in teaching, though he can allow the idea of commitment, itself a term suggestive perhaps more of duty than emotion. As has been mentioned before, Hector would have taught A Level English to the boys and they would, as Oxbridge candidates, have had to have gained good grades in that subject, as well as in their specialist subject of History. Could Hector the English teacher have been so neglectful of the curriculum or the examinations they faced? It seems unlikely. For dramatic purposes, however, Bennett chooses to present Hector as the champion and practitioner of education for its own sake, divorced from the world of examinations, thus embodying a value-system directly opposed to the utilitarian approach of the Headmaster and, by extension, of Irwin, as his appointed agent. The closing lines of the scene, with the ludicrous advice to Irwin – Grow a moustache – and the use once more of modish (I am thinking...) language again give the impression that Alan Bennett sees this character as a buffoon, though that does not mean, of course, that he is without real power and influence within the fiefdom of his school. Page 12: Classroom. Music. To Page 17: I tell you, be grateful. The appeal of this scene is essentially visual and is one which theatre audiences inevitably find hilarious. It relies heavily on the assumption that members of the audience have themselves at least an elementary grasp of the French language, so that they are able to appreciate and enjoy the absurdities of what is said and done. From Hector’s opening question to the boys, it would appear that the role-play exercise conducted in French is something of a routine in these classes. Hector agrees to the somewhat risqué suggestion from the sexually provocative Dakin that the setting for the exercise today should be a brothel, as long as the boys adhere to the conditional or subjunctive forms of French. There is method in this seeming madness, as the boys act out their parody of life in the brothel in perfect French. We might note that Scripps is able to provide piano accompaniment to the farcical theatricalities taking place by playing the melody to La Vie en Rose, a song associated with the French chanteuse Edith Piaf, which she recorded in 1946. This is perhaps just the first of a number of examples within the play where the playwright ascribes to one or more of these 1980s sixth-formers a somewhat unlikely knowledge of and taste for the popular culture of an earlier age – Bennett’s own, to be more precise. The arrival in the classroom of the Headmaster, accompanied by Irwin, only adds to the air of farce as the play’s ‘fall guy’ not only goes along with the explanation given by Hector – and supported by the acting of the boys – to the effect that the scene being played out is, in fact, set in a hospital for the war-wounded, but also begins to accede to Hector’s insistence on French alone being spoken in the classroom. When he does, in irritation, break off from this charade and introduce Irwin to Hector, explaining the newcomer’s proposed role, the older teacher reacts in typically exaggerated fashion: Headmaster: I am thinking of the boys. Hector: I, too. Non. Absolument non. Non. Non. Non. C’est hors de question. Whether this is a genuine reflection of Hector’s feelings about having to share his timetable slot with a new teacher, deeply-felt distaste for the Oxbridge entry situation or just bluster is hard to say. It is possibly a mixture of all three. The question of who is to accompany Hector on his motorcycle journey home is one which, it becomes apparent, occurs with some regularity. The full picture does not become clear until later in the play. There is a general reluctance amongst the boys to take on this role. We might note that Dakin is first to be asked and the first to refuse. Posner expresses his disappointment at the continued rejection of his offers, whilst Scripps grudgingly acquiesces from a sense of Christian duty. Dakin’s remark to Timms, who, like Posner, doesn’t fit the bill according to Hector’s taste and choice, suggests that he himself has had enough painful experience of being a pillion passenger on Hector’s machine to assure them that they should be grateful. We shall return to the question of the motorcycle rides later in this Commentary section. Act One Page 18: Irwin: (distributing exercise books)... to Page 22: ...one should have targets. It is clear from the start of this scene that Irwin intends to be provocative. In branding the work of various seventh-term boys as Dull...Abysmally dull... the dullest of the lot, the new teacher is obviously attempting to challenge and subvert their estimates of their own worth. These students, who have absorbed the facts-based priorities of Mrs. Lintott, are now berated for the sheer competence displayed in their work, in which he has found no traces of the qualities – Interest... Oddity... Singularity – which he himself espouses. The initial response of the boys, long-used to the eccentricities of Hector, is to assume that Irwin is merely making a clumsy attempt to follow in the same tradition. They continue to make that assumption as they react to his mention of the fourteen foreskins of Christ said to be in existence at the time of Christ, including the authentic prepuce in Rome. After all, they are near-adults, living at a time when openness of expression about sexual, religious and racial matters has long been the order of the day. Self-consciously ironic remarks about what does or does not constitute a racist remark merely underlines the impression which they, in their turn, are keen to convey to Irwin, namely the fact that they are beyond being easily shocked or impressed by a display of verbal pyrotechnics. Irwin, however, is made of sterner stuff and he proceeds to stress the relevance of his previous remark by talking of the students with whom they will be in competition for the Oxbridge places. Being mostly from lower-middle class, northern backgrounds, none of the boys has visited Rome, whereas, insists Irwin, their competitors – or many of them – will have done so, as well as taking another centres of Italian Renaissance culture. They will have vital cultural stores on tap, from which they can draw in their Oxbridge examinations, including arcane information about dubious ‘relics’ of Christ’s body at the time of the Reformation. Such information – the more esoteric the better – is just what is needed in order to make the required impression on the bored examiners on whom they will have to make an impression if they are to have any chance of success. Their class background puts them at a severe disadvantage compared to their counterparts from the higher and more secure echelons of the social scale: Irwin: You should hate them... Hate them because these boys and girls against whom you are to compete have been groomed like thoroughbreds for this one particular race. Put head to head with them and, on the evidence of these essays, you have none of you got a hope. Crowther: So why are we bothering? Irwin: I don’t know. I don’t know at all. You want it, I imagine. Or your parents want tithe Headmaster certainly wants it. But I wouldn’t waste the money. Judging by these, there is no point. Go to Newcastle and be happy. Act One Page 18: Irwin: (distributing exercise books)... to Page 22: ...one should have targets. (continued)The boys quickly realise that this is not just the posturing for the sake of it. There is the question of their Oxbridge entries at stake here and that is no laughing matter. Having gained their attention, Irwin skillfully lets slip the idea of another way. There is only time, before the bell goes, to answer possibly to Timms’ seemingly joking suggestion that for them to cheat might be their only solution. An indication that the balance of power and influence within the classroom has suddenly altered in Irwin’s favour comes with his final trenchant remark to Dakin, the unofficial leader of the group and its most confident spokesman: Irwin: Don’t take the piss. There isn’t time. Dakin himself seems reluctant to acknowledge any such thing as the class chat after Irwin’s departure, dismissing the latter as a wanker, desperately trying to shock them into admiration for his racy modernity. After Scripps’ report to Dakin on the latest experience as Hector’s pillion passenger, it is by now clear to the audience, if it were not beforehand, that the routine in these situations is for the teacher to indulge in a spot of what might be termed ‘mobile molestation’ of the student involved. For the boys, as for Scripps in this latest instance, it seems as though this is something which they are, with varying degrees of reluctance, prepared to endure for the sake of indulging the revered Hector. This aspect of the play’s narrative, both here and later, is bound to cause a degree of unease amongst at least some of the audience and will be discussed at more length later in this guide. There is then an interlude in the narrator mode, as first Posner and then Scripps speak to the audience in retrospect, Posner about his feelings of being excluded from these ‘adult’ discussions and Scripps on Posner’s own burgeoning feelings of sexual attraction for Dakin. The object of this passion expresses his wish that Hector would express his homosexuality more openly and less dangerously, before himself indulging in a spot of very heterosexual jousting with Rudge over their respective conquests. Dakin, it emerges, is currently involved in ‘in-house’ activities with no less than Fiona, the secretary of the Headmaster, thereby fulfilling the latter’s exhortation on the need for targets. In this play, questions of ‘performance’ in education and sex are frequently entwined. Act One Page 22: Staff room. To Page 23: And how many children had Auden, pray? This short scene features a somewhat desultory conversation between the two teachers, Mrs. Lintott and Hector, who are of a different generation to Irwin. The new teacher is described by Hector as depressingly clever, whilst he sees the good-looking Dakin as sad. Mrs. Lintott is disinclined to allow Hector to indulge in such a romanticised view of a student, the bluntness of her alternative assessment of the one in question coming as something of a shock to both her fellow-teacher and the audience. He claims to see his own aim as a teacher as to lead his students to question or resist the more conventional effects of colleagues such as Mrs. Lintott. She herself bemoans the tendency of teachers to project the favourite reading material of their own younger days on to the current curriculum. This remark has a certain irony in a play in which the songs and films from the era of the playwright’s own youth feature so prominently! The historian is equally dismissive of Hector’s idea, quoting a poem from W. H. Auden, that a degree of mental discomfort – neurosis, in the poem – is beneficial to the growing child, pointing out that he bachelor Auden had no direct experience of children. The scene serves as a short interlude between the two classes conducted by Irwin. The skeptical, down-to-earth outlook of Mrs. Lintott and the romanticism and self-consciously liberal approach of Hector are both far removed from the pragmatism of their new colleague, for whom the ends justify whatever means necessary. Act One Page 23: Classroom. To Page 29: ...the class filters back. Irwin continues his challenging of the boys to think in directions which run counter to the received attitudes of academic orthodoxy. As the boys reel off the conventional points which they have learned about the First World War, he admits that they are sound enough for any student with good redbrick institutions like Bristol, Manchester or Leeds as the heights of his ambitions. For Oxbridge entry, however, something more or, at least, something different is required. To Scripps’ indignant claim that these points are all true, Irwin retorts somewhat testily that this consideration is utterly irrelevant: Irwin: What has that got to do with it? What has that got to do with anything? Though we might feel that this is cynical in the extreme, it is important to recognise that, in this and later scenes, Bennett never makes Irwin say or suggest anything which is so extreme as to render him a risible caricature. He certainly encourages his Oxbridge students deliberately to formulate unorthodox, iconoclastic positions on historical questions, in order to impress the examiners with their originality of thought. The examples he discusses, however, are never such as to be entirely devoid of intellectual merit. So here, as he develops at some length a counter-thesis on the causes of the First World War, it is done with a well-informed persuasiveness that suggests that he himself is more than half sincere. It is interesting to note that it is Dakin whom Irwin specifically challenges over an interpretation of the conflict: Irwin: You were the one who was morally superior about Haig. Dakin: Passchendaele. The Somme. He was a butcher, sir. Irwin: Yes, but at least he delivered the goods. No, no, the real enemy to Haig’s subsequent reputation was the Unknown Soldier. If Haig had had any sense, he’d have had him disinterred and shot all over again for giving comfort to the enemy. We might feel that Irwin’s challenge to the boys’ thinking on historical material is mixed with a more personal dimension in his dealings with this particular student. Act One Page 23: Classroom. To Page 29: ...the class filters back. (continued)When some of the boys, perhaps reflecting the pervasive influence of Hector’s teaching, attempt to put forward the war poets as touchstones of truth about the conflict, Irwin is able to point out that their testimony in verse has to be seen alongside the biographical details of two of the best known of them, Sassoon and Owen, both of whom showed dedication to their duties, a notion which the by now resentful Dakin regards as pure provocation. Again Irwin is at pains to point out that, in the context of competitive public examinations, truth is no more at issue... than thirst at a wine-tasting or fashion at a striptease. This statement of educational pragmatism taken to the very limit is not, however, given the last word or lasting impression in the discussion at this juncture, as Philip Larkin’s moving poem MCMIV, picturing the queue of men enlisting for the war, is recited in consecutive extracts by no less than five of the boys, culminating in the poignant final line – Never such innocence again. Irwin’s response to this is revealing. He is clearly surprised to find these boys so immersed in this poem, or any poem, that they know it by heart. We are told that he shouts his parting line of Not that it answers the question. Can we infer that Irwin, in his frustration and anger, is simultaneously dismissive of any literary contribution to the debate and threatened by those who do cherish such work? The truth put forward by a historian may be countered by an alternative interpretation of the known facts but the unique insights and expression of the artist are not so easily dealt with, even – or perhaps especially – by an opportunist like Irwin. In the by now familiar post-lesson debriefing amongst the boys, the language of trench warfare is now employed in Dakin’s extended metaphor by which he describes to Scripps and Posner the progress of his attempted seduction – or, more accurately, his ‘feeling up’ – of Fiona, his prized territory. Somewhat pedantically, Posner defuses the charge of Dakin’s description by questioning the appropriateness of the metaphor, given Fiona’s presumed willingness to be so captured. As her young lover confesses to a growing regard for Irwin, despite the put-downs he has experienced from him, Posner is left to confess to Scripps that he is both pained and intrigued by Dakin’s recounting of his triumphs. Whilst the latter’s approach to sexual conquest is primarily, if not exclusively, physical in nature and motivation, Posner expresses his hopeless infatuation for Dakin through the words of Richard Rogers’ classic Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. How many schoolboys in the 1980s would have been familiar with this song, first heard in the 1940 Rogers and Hart musical Pal Joey, which was performed on the London stage in the 1950s? Very few, in all likelihood. But once again, Bennett defies Mrs. Lintott’s strictures, heard in the last scene, by foregrounding an item of popular culture from his own youth, rather than one from the time of the play’s setting. It is, no doubt, a beautiful song and its rendition by a soprano voice in the theatre creates a poignant moment, the anachronistic element only serving to highlight Posner’s own increasingly desperate feelings of isolation. Act One Page 29: Hector: Well done, Posner. To Page 34: It really is. The next scene appears to segue on from the previous one, with the end of Posner’s song and Hector’s compliment marking its opening. The interaction between the latter and the boys in the class which follows might lead one to suppose that, in total contrast to Irwin’s utilitarian approach to teaching, which judges what is good as what works, Hector’s methods are totally lacking in structure or end-product. Yet that would, surely, be a short-sighted view. True, he does not have examination technique as a prominent part of the lesson and the teaching itself seems to invariably involve some sort of game or ‘larking around’. But we need to see that in this scene, as with the previous French role-play, that there is, above all, a ready response from the boys. They seem to share his delight in literary trivia and the rapid-fire sharing of references and quotations. One of Hector’s abiding influences on the boys will surely be their carrying away into adulthood certain assumptions about the arts –that they are a source of fun and of mental exhilaration and that the interchange of ideas and cross-references can be stimulating social activity. Above all, Hector’s own breadth of knowledge – of literature, music and film – will inevitably leave its impression on them. His erudition is at the heart of Hector’s being as a teacher and as a human being. Knowledge, learning and an appreciation of beauty in all its forms – these are the values which he espouses and lives out every day in his classroom. No ulterior goal or ‘target’ is needed. We might note that the cultural allusions cited within the lesson are derived from classical literature, (Shakespeare, Kafka, Coleridge and, later, Whitman), from classical music, (Posner once more displaying his wide-ranging knowledge of that medium by offering the Mozart reference) and from medieval history, all alongside another somewhat anachronistic element in the form of the pastiche of the film Now Voyager, which was released in 1942. Again we might wonder just how likely it would have been in reality to have found sixth-formers in 1980s Sheffield familiar enough with such material to be able to do a passable ‘take off’ of it. Or had Lockwood and Timms watched this period piece specifically in order to impress Hector? Either way, weight feel that this classroom is as much a reflection of an earlier time as of the Thatcher era. The aftermath of this class sees Rudge giving Mrs. Lintott his estimation of Irwin’s teaching methods and philosophy. He pays his former teacher the compliment of saying how much he now values her emphasis on the ordered presentation of factual knowledge, as opposed to Irwin’s more free-range approach. He reports that Irwin’s encouraging him to become familiar with the Carry On films – another anachronism? – is based not on the idea that these films have any intrinsic artistic merit in themselves but on the notion that their enduring popularity gives them a degree of incremental significance if only as social history. The stiffness of Irwin’s language, which Rudge is here quoting verbatim, contrasts not only with the bawdy humour of the Carry On films themselves but also with Hector’s spontaneous and, at times, irreverent delight in culture for its own sake. Irwin’s further points, as quoted by Rudge, about the likelihood of Orwell, had he been alive, writing about the Carry On films and of his joining the National Front (a far-right political party active in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s), smack of a rather crass desire to impress the boys with specious remarks. The closing lines suggest that neither Rudge nor Mrs. Lintott is particularly impressed. Act 1 Page 34: Timms: Where do you live, sir? To Page 41: ...through an exam. The mood at the start of Irwin’s next class seems to be rather sour. The boys’ questions about Irwin’s life and their responses to his advice on approaches to historical questions are quite different from the banter in which they engage with Hector. Irwin is disinclined to talk about anything to do with his personal life, insisting instead that, if they are to get themselves noticed as students of history, then they must adopt a position which is nothing less than perverse: Irwin: The wrong end of the stick is the right one. A question has a front door and a back door. Go in the back, or better still, the side... Flee the crowd... History nowadays is not a matter of conviction. It’s a performance. It’s entertainment. And if it isn’t, make it so. Scripps, in narrator mode, explains that Irwin’s subsequent career as a historian was based upon just these principles: Scripps: Find a proposition, invert it, the look around for proofs. That was the technique and it was as formal in its way as the disciplines of the medieval schoolmen. The boys themselves are apparently quite immune to this particular brand of iconoclasm and when the conversation turns to Hector, they give ironic answers to Irwin’s questions about the older teacher and his teaching methods. At one level, they appear to be satirising Hector’s ways and to be endorsing the utilitarian approaches of the new teacher. However, their exaggerated politeness, with sir repeatedly used, suggests that their attitude is less than reverential towards either man. It’s as if they know that, as receptors of these conflicting pedagogical philosophies, they are pawns in a game over which they have limited control or influence: Irwin: Does he have a programme? Or is it just at random? Boys: Ask him, sir. We don’t know sir. Akthar: It’s just the knowledge, sir. Timms: The pursuit of it for its own sake, sir. Posner: Not useful, sir. Not like your lessons. Akthar: Breaking bread with the dead, sir. That’s what we do. Act 1Page 34: Timms: Where do you live, sir? To Page 41: ...through an exam. (continued)The boys can sense, too, that Irwin’s unprofessional probing of them about Hector is based on a degree of insecurity which becomes particularly evident when literary references are thrown into the debate. Whilst the boys, consciously projecting Hector’s influence into the proceedings, quote lines from Auden and Stevie Smith, Irwin’s only response is to encourage them to use such material in the Oxbridge entrance examination. Again, there is more than a touch of irony in the boys’ responses, as Posner is happy to let him know: Akthar: We couldn’t do that, sir. That would be a betrayal of trust. Laying bare our souls, sir. Lockwood: Is nothing sacred, sir? We’re shocked. Posner: I would, sir. And they would. They’re taking the piss. The boys’ insistence on playing out a scene from the 1945 film Brief Encounter, complete with Scripps’ accompaniment on the piano, another obvious borrowing from Hector’s lessons, only serves to reinforce the impression that they are, at least for the time being, determined to spike Irwin’s guns. He himself fails to appreciate the humour of the situation: Irwin: God knows why you’ve learned Brief Encounter. Boys: Oh very good, sir. Full marks, sir. Irwin: But I think you ought to know this lesson has been a complete waste of time. Dakin: Like Mr. Hector’s lessons then, sir. They’re a waste of time, too. Irwin: Yes, you little smart arse, but he’s not trying to get you through an exam. The boys’ talent for spoof and parody goes well beyond films of the 1940s, extending to the battle for their hearts and minds which is taking place daily at the school. Though Hector may have their hearts, the lure of Oxbridge entry may yet tithe balance in Irwin’s direction. Act 1 Page 41: Staff room. To Page 44: ‘...the Wondrous Cross. ’In the previous scene, Irwin had seemed uneasy at dealing with the personal questions which came his way from the boys or with the pervasive influence of Hector on their lives. Mrs. Lintott is, by comparison, much more secure within her own personality and with her position in the school, which allows her to talk about herself with a dry irony. It is Irwin, significantly, who brings up the question of Hector’s name, as if the latter were an irritating rash which he, Irwin, cannot resist scratching. Following Mrs Lintott’s mention of Hector’s surprising wife, (given his activities on the motorbike, perhaps a surprise for the audience too), her colleague relates an encounter he has recently had with Posner. The student has confided to the teacher his developing awareness of his own homosexuality, the ‘confession’ being presented on stage as it took place, simultaneously within Irwin’s conversation with Mrs. Lintott. Interestingly enough, Irwin is quick to add that his sympathy did not extend to a similar confession on his side, leaving us, perhaps, to wonder what form any such revelation would take, if it ever happened. Irwin makes a subtle distinction between the literature which Posner has been reading on the subject –leaflets designed to provide guidance and support to the troubled adolescent, presumably – and literature – novels, plays and poems – which might present a less reassuring perspective, based on writers’ personal experience. Posner, aching with suppressed love for Dakin, then sums up his existence in a particularly pithy fashion: Posner: I’m a Jew. I’m small. I’m homosexual. And I live in Sheffield. I’m fucked. This invariably elicits laughter from a theatre audience, though it is possibly the incongruity of the complaint about Sheffield – surely not the worst of locations in which to spend one’s formative years –which guarantees this response. Act 1Page 41: Staff room. To Page 44: ‘...the Wondrous Cross.’ (continued)Posner’s confiding in Irwin over this personal matter leads the latter to continue the probing into Hector’s teaching which had begun in the previous scene. Here Posner’s response is defensive. Quite rightly, he feels that Irwin is attempting to take advantage of the situation, telling the young teacher you shouldn’t ask me that, sir. His discomfort is made plain by his repeated requests to leave, though he does go as far as to assert that, far from its being forced upon them, one of the effects of Hector’s teaching is a desire to learn poetry by heart. Posner can recognise, in a way that Irwin himself seems to struggle to comprehend, that what happens in Hector’s classroom is a direct denial of the naked, unprincipled pragmatism so strongly recommended to the boys by the new teacher. The limits of Hector’s appeal to Posner, however, are suggested by the reasons he gives for his not having approached him about his own situation. Hector, he claims, would have resorted to literary references as his way of giving the boy some kind of contextual support. For all its delights, Posner is now at a stage in his life when he does not want to be offered only and continually the reflections of life presented by art. He needs to engage with reality and, for that, Irwin is the man. Finally, Scripps, in narrator mode, gives us a further reason as to why it is to Irwin that Posner has come with his confidences. The student knows, with a lover’s instinct and intuition, that his feelings for Dakin are shared by the young teacher. The scene concludes with Posner’s singing, not with a secular love song this time but Isaac Watts’ 1707 hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. We can only surmise that Posner empathises with the outpouring of feeling expressed in its lines addressed to Christ: Love so amazing, so divine Demands my soul, my life, my all.Act 1 Page 44: Dakin: So all this religion...to Page 47: Shit As before. Posner’s song segues into the following scene, which this time features a conversation between Dakin and Scripps. The latter attempts to explain how and why he has been drawn to Christianity, definitely a minority pursuit for young men in 1980s Britain. Scripps talks of this romance with God, but, overall, he doesn’t make the most convincing case for his beliefs. He is, no doubt, reluctant to open up to a sceptical fellow student like Dakin beyond a certain well-defined extent, preferring to couch his theological musings in typically irreverent terms. God’s this case of unrequited love, he explains, He’s Hector without the motorbike. Bennett is here attempting to give Scripps an individuality, as he has done already with Dakin himself and Posner. Scripps’ hesitating spiritual quest is a counter part to the dawning of sexual self-awareness experienced by Posner and the more blatant heterosexual self-promotion of Dakin. All three are, in their different ways, attempting to come to an understanding of themselves and their place in the world. It is important to see that the boys do not merely constitute one homogenous mass but that, for all that they have in common as members of the Oxbridge class, they each manifest an individual outlook and, as we shall discover late in the play, will go on to live quite distinctly different lives in adulthood. When Scripps and Dakin go on to academic and literary matters, we find Dakin making some interesting points about literature in general, in particular his idea that what comes to be written is essentially consolation, the recording of the experience of losers. Even when joy is at the heart of the experience, he asserts, it is written when the joy is over. Finished. These are very personal insights which Dakin has, significantly, arrived at, as he admits, through Irwin’s influence. Up till now he, like the other boys, has been in thrall to Hector’s vision of the unrivalled place and contribution of literature. Now he feels as if he has been granted permission to question the assumptions underpinning such reverence. Whilst Irwin’s ideas relating to how they should approach the Oxbridge entrance examination has met with some resistance amongst the boys, it is interesting to note that his influence is beginning to make an impact in a more profound sense. The clash of values which is inherent in the play, between Hector’s prizing of the arts and learning for its own sake and Irwin’s utilitarian approach, is rendered more complex when weeklies, as Dakin is beginning to do and as Posner has articulated in the previous scene, that Hector’s own values can be called into question and that art is not a substitute for life. It only remains for Dakin to find that a little learning is a dangerous thing – especially if you mispronounce the name of a giant of philosophy, Kneeshaw for Nietszche. The realisation of this amusing gaffe is painful for Dakin, because he made it in front of someone whose regard he craves – Irwin. Act 1Page 48: Irwin and Hector. To Page 49: Gobbets! The clash of values comes to a head in this short scene. Irwin appeals to Hector to give his seal of approval to his attempts to get the boys to utilise every aspect of what they have learned in the forthcoming entrance examinations. As Irwin admits, the boys give the impression of regarding the knowledge and experiences gained in Hector’s lessons as sacrosanct, too precious to be sullied through use in an examination. Hector’s agreement is short-lived, appalled as he is by Irwin’s use of the term gobbets to describe the miscellaneous pieces of cultural awareness gleaned in the former’s lessons. Hector is, presumably, insulted by the word’s connotations as disposal scraps of trivia, making an attractive, useful display: Hector: What did you call them? Gobbets? Is that what you think they are, gobbets? Handy little quotes that can be trotted out to make a point? Gobbets? Codes, spells, runes – call them what you like, but do not call them gobbets. Irwin: I just thought it would be useful...Hector: Oh, it would be useful... every answer a Christmas tree hung with the appropriate gobbets. Except that they’re learned by heart. And that is where they belong and like the other components of the heart not to be defiled by being trotted out to order. Whilst the sympathies of the audience have, surely, been much more with Hector than his younger colleague so far in the play, many amongst them might begin to feel that his passionate defence of his principles is laudable, but possibly a tad precious. Irwin is right, in his turn, to be equally insistent that examinations are a fact of life and that the lives of the boys will be hugely affected by their performance in the imminent entrance examinations. Whilst Hector reminds Irwin that life, implicitly including all the artistic expression that nourishes it, goes on after the examinations, we must by now share Irwin’s ambition for the boys – whether, in his case, based on professional dedication, ego or other motivations. Hector has perhaps begun to sound a little less heroic and Irwin a little less demonic. Act 1Page 49: Headmaster and Irwin. To Page 50: Posner knows, I’m sure.Once again, the Headmaster stands out as the one caricature in the play as he again resorts self-consciously – as indicated by the speech marks in the script – to the advertising-like jargon of on stream. He is clearly in a mood of extreme irritation and Irwin’s honest admission that Oxbridge entry always carries with it an element of a lottery does not go down well, eliciting a four-letter invective which makes Irwin almost a sympathetic figure in comparison. His own continuing obsession with Hector’s supposed hold on the boys leads only to the Headmaster’s fatuous comments on the relative values of knowing and knowing about literature, the key point about the latter being its measurable use: Headmaster: Mr. Hector has an old-fashioned faith in the redemptive power of words. In my experience, Oxbridge examiners are on the lookout for something altogether snappier. After all, it’s not how much literature they know. What matters is how much they know about literature. Chant the stuff till they’re blue in the face, what good does it do? That such views emanate from the leader of an educational establishment is depressing indeed. Bennett is possibly using the Headmaster’s blatant philistinism to make Irwin appear more human and complex in comparison. The two of them share a predominantly utilitarian view of education – what is good is what is useful – but the younger man does, for the most part, avoid the ludicrous extremes of the Headmaster. Mrs. Lintott’s assertion that in this benighted profession... the chief enemy of culture in any school is the Headmaster will, perhaps, strike a chord in the hearts of a number of teachers. She does, however, in her dry style, distance herself from Hector, whom she sees as someone whose horizons and ambitions in the classroom are of a quite different order to those of herself, who is content to teach a subject as efficiently as possible, without necessarily engaging with the students on a personal level: Mrs. Lintott: Forgive Hector. He is trying to be the kind of teacher pupils will remember. Someone they will look back on. He impinges. Which is something one will never do. Is there a suggestion here – especially in the trying to be – that Mrs. Lintott sees Hector’s approach as involving a gratification of his ego, as well as his infusing his students with a love of literature and learning? Irwin is still disturbed by the idea that the boys are holding back parts of not only their store of knowledge, the parts they pick up with Hector, but also, no doubt, of their commitment to himself as a teacher. He gives the impression, possibly false, of not being aware of Dakin’s physical attractions, whilst, in contrast, Mrs. Lintott appears to be fully aware of the sexual dynamics at play within the group of students. By now, Irwin’s provocative iconoclasm when talking to the boys in the classroom sits somewhat uneasily alongside his reticence and diffidence in his dealings with his fellow professionals, especially when the subject impinges on more personal realms. Act 1Page 50: Scripps: About halfway... to Page 53: ...it isn’t normal.This scene is pivotal in that it marks the beginning of the end of Hector’s teaching career. Scripps, in narrator mode, introduces the scene in which Hector is summoned to the Headmaster’s office. Typically erudite banter based upon the latter’s having attended Hull University, where the poet Philip Larkin was Librarian, soon gives way to much more pressing matters. It is clear that the Headmaster is apoplectic with anger and outrage at having heard from his wife, an eye-witness, of Hector’s ‘fiddling’ routine on the motorcycle. Hector’s response is to quote lines from the poem Wenlock Edge by A. E. Housman, himself a homosexual. There is a hint of misogyny, perhaps, in Hector’s dismissal of the Headmaster’s question as to what the Headmaster’s wife knows of all this: Hector: I have no idea. What women know or don’t know has always been a mystery to me. One feels that this mystery is one which Hector finds less than intriguing. What led Hector to get married in the first place and the nature of his ‘married’ life are matters left for our conjecture. The ‘outing’ of Hector does, in fact, prove opportune for the Headmaster as it allows him to put into effect two decisions he must have been mulling over for some time previously. Hector, now accused of purveying some cockeyed notion you have of culture, must now share with Irwin the General Studies time with the Oxbridge boys and he will have to bring forward the date of his retirement. He will, to all extents and purposes, be sacked. Hector’s own defence at this point is, first, to claim that Nothing happened, followed by an appeal to tradition: Hector: The transmission of knowledge is itself an erotic act. In the Renaissance…Hector is presumably here attempting to assert the implicitly sexual dimension to any teacher-pupil relationship, the leading into enlightenment akin to a seductive act. (After all, the words ‘education’ and ‘seduction’ each stem from the same Latin root – ducere, to lead). The Headmaster has no time for such notions, dismissing the likes of Plato, Michelangelo and Oscar Wilde, along with the rest of the panoply of famous homosexual artists and teachers, as shrunken violets. For him, school is definitely not an environment in which such ‘flowers’ should be cultivated. Act 1Page 50: Scripps: About halfway... to Page 53: ...it isn’t normal. (continued)The dramatic and moral aspects of this scene and of Hector’s alleged sexual transgressions will be discussed more fully in a later section. It is worth mentioning here, however, that the reactions and sympathies of an audience are likely to be quite mixed. Some might conceivably share the Headmaster’s utter incomprehension of and disgust for Hector’s errant behaviour. Irrespective of the homosexual element itself, it has to be admitted that Hector has chosen to indulge his sexual appetites during the ritual motorcycle rides, these acts involving young people who are themselves at a stage in their lives when they are coming to terms with their own sexual natures. The fact that the boys, with varying degrees of willingness, have colluded in what took place would not distract many from their verdict that this was a case of exploitation, in which the trust and influence which the teacher had with the students were misused for essentially selfish ends. The fact that Hector has been seen in the play up to now as the champion of liberal values in education would merely serve to add a charge of hypocrisy to the original indictment. Yet, surely, at least within the world of the play, things are not so black-and-white. First, as has been mentioned, none of the boys was forced into participation. Dakin himself seems very secure with his own overwhelmingly heterosexual identity and there is nothing in the play to suggest that any of them suffers any real trauma through being pillion passenger on these occasions. They are, it seems, willing to indulge Hector, such is the extent of their devotion to him. In the end, Hector’s covert sexual dalliances are seen by the boys as little more than a slightly tiresome aspect of his eccentricity. We are never really given an insight into Hector’s own more profound feelings on the matter. There is, no doubt, and always has been, an implicitly erotic element to his position as a teacher who stands in front of classes of adolescent boys every day, taking a key role in their intellectual development through exploring and enjoying great literature together. In this, Hector would not, assuredly, be a unique case, any more than it is unheard of for a student to develop strong personal feelings for a teacher. What makes the difference is Hector’s willingness to go beyond the implicit into the realms of the much more explicit. The extent to which Hector can be regarded in this context as being playful, honest, subversive, naive, hypocritical or pathetic must be left to the individual spectator or reader. The play overall, it could be argued, leaves such judgements somewhat in the air, a degree of ambivalence being central to its overall appeal. Act 1Page 53: Hector has just seen... to Page 57: ...leaving Dakin and Posner wondering.Most of this scene involves a one-to-one ‘tutorial’ between Hector and Posner, as they discuss Thomas Hardy’s poem Drummer Hodge. We note that Hector has just emerged from his meeting with the Headmaster and we can only guess at the state of mind he is now in, as he sits in his motorcycle gear. What emerges from the playing out of this scene – and what is especially apparent in performance – is the sympathetic figure cut by Hector as he leads his young student into a deeper understanding and appreciation of Hardy’s poem about a youthful life cut short. Hector shows Posner the significance of the young soldier’s being given a name in the poem, as well as the stylistic links to his beloved Larkin. Hector suggests that the frequent use of ‘un’ as a prefix by both poets is significant: Hector: And with both of them it brings a sense of not sharing, of being out of it. Whether because of diffidence or shyness, but in a holding back. Not being in the swim. Can you see that? It is not hard to see in this a degree of empathy on Hector’s part, a veiled admission of his own essential loneliness and sense of exclusion, to which a lifetime of suppressed sexuality has, no doubt, contributed. The fact that his sympathetic audience is Posner, the self-conceived misfit, only adds to this impression. The culmination of these musings leads to perhaps the most moving lines in the whole play, as Hector defines the way in which reading can breach the sense of isolation in a uniquely intimate fashion: Hector: The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things –which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours. There is a particular feeling of intimacy here in the shared enjoyment of the poem and in the imparting of such insights from teacher to pupil. The transmission of knowledge is in itself an erotic act, as Hector had claimed in the previous scene, and he very nearly puts this idea into practice, as he reaches out his hand. In the circumstances, it is perhaps fortunate that neither Hector nor Posner act upon whatever feelings they may be experiencing at this juncture. Hector’s declining of Dakin’s ‘reporting for duty’ leaves both boys to ponder what has happened to cause this break in tradition. Despite the teacher’s customary lapse into literary quotation – this time from Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost – this final scene of Act One ends on a sombre note. In the short term, at least, Hector’s star is all too clearly on the wane. Act 2Page 58: Irwin is about five years older... to Page 63: It is BBC2.Just as Act One had opened with a ‘snapshot’ from Irwin’s post-teaching life, so here we see him, again in a wheelchair, delivering to camera a commentary to accompany a television programme on pre-Reformation monastic life, with particular focus on Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire. Though Irwin has by now changed profession, there are immediate echoes of his provocative teaching approach with the Oxbridge boys in his opening lines: Irwin: If you want to learn about Stalin study Henry VIII. If you want to learn about Mrs. Thatcher study Henry VIII. If you want to know about Hollywood study Henry VIII. We might recognise here a ‘soundbite’ approach to popular history, the crispness of the phrasing being more important than the content itself. What is being said is secondary to how it is being expressed. The medium is the message. Also familiar in the classroom is Irwin’s extended references in the video sequence to the monks’ toilet arrangements. Isn’t this the same man who suggested that a knowledge of the fourteen preserved foreskins of Chris textant at the time of the Reformation could be useful in a History examination? His taste for the catchy phrase is further in evidence – God is dead. Shit lives... And there is an incrementing excrement. This is where history and show-business meet head on, where the teacher adopts some of the style and approach of the game-show presenter. With the microphone off, Irwin himself confesses that his whole approach is meretricious... eye-catching, showy, false. The wheelchair, seen previously at the start of Act One is, he admits, helpful, as Disability brings with it an assumption of sincerity. One wonders how such a person can live happily with this acute awareness of his own cynicism. Act 2Page 58: Irwin is about five years older... to Page 63: It is BBC2. (continued)The Man character to whom he is addressing these remarks is, it emerges some lines later, the adult Posner, who is himself in something of a delicate psychological state post-Oxford, where things didn’t workout. Given all that we have seen in Act One, it is interesting to hear him speak of his efforts to gain his place at the university: Man: All the effort went into getting there and then I found I had nothing left. I thought I’d got somewhere, then I found I had to go on. Of course, this wouldn’t be the first or last case of someone finding that the pursuit of a university place leads to anti-climax and a subsequent lack of direction. Man/Posner has apparently written a journalistic piece on Irwin. No mention has been made, he stresses, of a liaison between Irwin and Dakin, though there was, he insists, a mutual attraction. Irwin is adamant that there is no story and is dismissive of both Posner and his line of questioning. Irwin resumes his glib television commentary, his assertion that the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII could be seen as marking the apotheosis of the monastic movement being again typical of the kind of extreme paradox he has used to encourage the boys to adopt in their approach to the Oxbridge examinations. One might question how far such paradoxes can be pushed before they become meaningless. This positioning of a scene in a time-setting following that of the main action of the play adds an element of intrigue, as the audience would be naturally curious to learn more about how the events at the school could have led to this outcome. A shadow has also been cast over the comedy which had been so prominent in the earlier scenes of the play, as, in addition to Hector’s imminent demise, we know that Posner’s fraught nature has not found solace in adulthood, any more than Irwin’s own cynical pragmatism has given way to intellectual integrity. Then there is the question of Irwin’s wheelchair. And what was the situation between him and Dakin? Act 2Page 63: Classroom. to Page 67: ...sitting at the table.The repetition of the word Apotheosis carries over from the previous scene, with Posner trying in vain to engage the attention of the sombre and distracted Hector with a reading of the definition of the word from the dictionary. Is there an irony in the reference to Moment of highest fulfilment, given that, for Hector, his days of fulfilment in the classroom are about to come to a conclusion? This, the first scene of Act Two to be set in the classroom, has, in certain regards, a familiar feel. There is the customary witty banter from the boys and one more episode in which a parody of a scene from a 1940s film classic is played out by a couple of them for Hector to identify, which, after some deliberate simulation of ignorance from the teacher, he assuredly does. Just another of Hector’s slightly anarchic classes, then? Not exactly, no. The one obvious difference stems from the fact that this is his first class with the whole group since his meeting with the Headmaster and the decision on his enforced early retirement. The boys are confused by his initial lack of response to their suggestions for a bit of the ‘alternative’ education which has become a hallmark of Hector’s teaching for so long. He is not, he insists, in the mood, and the boys’ mention of the word fun merely throws him into further gloom, as he wonders if this is all that he and his lessons amount to in their eyes. His subsequent outburst is as shocking to the audience as it is to the boys, as all are inclined to wonder, perhaps, if this is just another piece of eccentric classroom posturing: Hector: Shut up! Just shut up. All of you. SHUT UP, you mindless fools .What made me piss my life away in this god-forsaken place? There’s nothing of me left. Go away. Class dismissed. Go. Act 2Page 63: Classroom. To Page 67: ...sitting at the table. (continued)Possibly Hector himself has, after a lifetime of being ‘on show’ in the classroom, a problem in distinguishing between personal and public dimensions and behaviour. As he says himself, there’s nothing of me left. By this he means, we might surmise, that his channeling of his imaginative energies into the teacher role and daily performances has left him feeling denuded of any essential self which is not connected to his classroom persona. The programme to the 2006 National Theatre touring production of the play included the text of an early poem The Schoolmaster by Philip Larkin, so admired by both Hector and Bennett. The final stanza has a resonance which we might apply to this part of the play: It was acted as he planned: grown old and favourite, With most Old Boys he was quite intimate –For though he never realised it, he Dissolved. (Like sugar in a cup of tea.)Hector, realising that his long classroom career is about to come to an abrupt end, appears to be experiencing something very similar to this feeling of dissolution. His breaking into tears is particularly puzzling for the students, leaving them unsure as to how to respond. Scripps, in narrator mode, tells us that, as the nearest to him, he ought to have been the one to reach out and touch him – but he did nothing. Only Posner offers any tangible form of sympathy and support, patting the teacher awkwardly on the back. Normal service seems to have been restored with the participation in the film parody and Hector’s seeming delight at his triumph, but we would be unwise to believe that this is anything more than a skillful covering up of his real feelings. The scene ends with Hector left alone in the classroom. Act 2Page 67: Headmaster: Did he say... to Page 69: Twat, twat, twat. This scene combines further examples of the Headmaster’s philistinism with, paradoxically, a thought-provoking exposition of what some would say was one of the besetting ‘sins’ of the education service in modern times – the emphasis on measurable targets and criteria as a means of assessing the worth of a teacher, an institution or any initiative or activity. Mention has been made in a previous section of the impact of school league tables upon life at all levels in schools in the last few decades. The application by politicians to education of principles and practices deriving from the world of business has been a prominent feature since the 1970s. We might also take note of the fact that individual teachers are now regularly assessed in terms of their classroom performance, the applicable criteria often being extensive in number and organised on the assessor’s sheets in neat rows and columns. Schools themselves are subject to regular ‘Ofsted’ inspections, with findings available to the media and general public, a process which involves the compilation and presentation by the school involved of voluminous amounts of data. This is indeed the age of ‘measurable outcomes’. The aspects of teaching, learning and the whole school experience which are not easy to quantify – such as the infusion of a love of learning or a student’s growth in self-confidence and feelings of self-worth – go largely unrecognised by officialdom, inevitably so. The Headmaster’s expression of his frustration with Hector’s approach to teaching should not, therefore, be seen merely as yet another sign of the former’s lack of fitness to be in charge of an educational institution but rather as a very accurate reflection of a mind-set which has been pervasive in educational thinking and practice in recent years: Headmaster: Shall I tell you what is wrong with Hector as a teacher? It isn’t that he doesn’t produce results. He does. But they are unpredictable and unquantifiable and in the current educational climate that is no use. He may well be doing his job, but there is no method that I know of that enables me to assess the job he is doing. There is inspiration, certainly, but how do I quantify that? This takes us back to the very heart of the clash of values which was such a prominent theme in Act One. We are made aware that the Headmaster’s loathing of Hector is based at least as much on his inability to recognise any value in any activity which cannot be quantified by pre-determined and approved criteria as on the latter’s homosexual dalliances. This in turn reveals a profound insecurity within the Headmaster and his like, which leads to such insistence on measurable outcomes being used as a prop for their own lack of belief in the deeper, transformational potential of education. Act 2Page 67: Headmaster: Did he say... to Page 69: Twat, twat, twat. (continued)The Headmaster’s crass reference to his celebration of Hector’s departure in the marital bed is as cringe-inducing as his descriptions of Hector’s actions on the motorcycle. His overblown sense of self-importance makes an interesting contrast with the dry irony which characterises the utterance of Mrs. Lintott on his departure. Here Bennett gives her a speech in narrator or, more accurately, ‘chorus’ mode, as she comments on the action, specifically her role both within the play itself and within the staffroom community: Mrs. Lintott: I have not hitherto been allotted an inner voice, my role as patient and not unamused sufferance of predilections and preoccupations of men. They kick their particular stone along the street and I watch. I am, it is true, confided in by all parties, my gender some sort of safeguard against the onward transmission of information...though that I should be assumed to be so discreet is in itself condescending. I’m what men would call a safe pair of hands. It is as if Bennett as playwright were issuing a kind of apology for not only the, at times, ridiculously self-absorbed behaviour the male characters but also for the fact that Mrs. Lintott is the only female character in the play, with a role largely confined to her passive acceptance of confidences of more pivotal figures like Hector, Irwin and the Headmaster. The reference to her lack of an inner voice is an ironic admission on Bennett’s part of the fact that the play presents us with a somewhat enclosed world of male characters and their inter-relationships. The impact on this world of any female influence is strictly limited. It is perhaps a measure of Mrs. Lintott’s own frustration at the confined nature of the school setting that, in the closing phase of the scene, she resorts to ‘laddish’ four-letter expletives in describing the Headmaster to Irwin. Her verdict on Hector as a teacher is particularly interesting in that she does not provide an entirely uncritical endorsement of her colleague, as a counter to the narrow condemnation of the Headmaster earlier in the scene. She maintains her unsentimental, down-to-earth attitude and perspective, refusing to accord Hector the role of spiritual liberator he seems to envisage for himself. Mrs. Lintott never loses sight of the harsh world of social inequalities which awaits all students, which no amount of enlightened classroom experience will soften: Mrs. Lintott: When I was teaching in London in the seventies there was a consoling myth that not very bright children could always become artists. Droves of the half-educated left school with the notion that art or some form of self-realisation was a viable option. It’s by the same well-meaning token that it’s assumed still that every third person in prison is a potential Van Gogh. And love him though I do I feel there’s a touch of that to Hector... or what’s all this learning by heart for, except as some sort of insurance against the boys’ failure? As has been mentioned before, Bennett does not present us with a simplistic form of educational debate within the play, nor does he allow Hector to be seen as a heroic embodiment of unquestioningly superior values. Mrs. Lintott reminds us forcefully of the realities of the social context within which we must view the action of the play. Act 2Page 70: Boys come in... to Page 74: The bell goes.In this scene, Hector and Irwin share the General Studies class, as decreed by the Headmaster. From a dramatic point of view, this allows us to see the ‘adversaries’ together and for Hector to reveal his full contempt for his younger colleague’s classroom approach, specifically to the treatment of historical material. In the preliminary banter, Timms neatly defines the perceived difference between the two teachers when responding to the question as to whose class it is: Timms: ...It depends if you want us to be thoughtful. Or smart. The topic which Irwin chooses to focus upon is the Holocaust, the systematic murder of some six million Jews during World War Two. The question soon arises as to whether this topic can be taught just like any other historical phenomenon or whether the sheer scale of the barbarity and suffering involved puts it beyond academic study. Akthar puts the case for the former perspective :Akthar: It has its origins. It has its consequence. It’s a subject like any other. Perhaps predictably, such a dispassionate approach elicits dissent from Hector, who abhors the idea of student trips to concentration camps: Hector: Do they take pictures of each other there? Are they smiling? Do they hold hands? Nothing is appropriate. Justas questions on an examination paper are inappropriate. How can the boys scribble down an answer however well put that doesn’t demean the suffering involved? And putting it well demeans it as much as putting it badly. By now we know Hector well enough to recognise that his distaste for the convenient packaging of knowledge, not least for examination purposes, is anathema to him. But we might question the implications of his point of view here. At what point is it ethically justifiable to write anything about a topic such as the Holocaust? Who should write such works and for what purpose? Is the mere reading of accounts of the suffering itself demeaning to the victims? Furthermore, what about the subject matter of his own treasured works of literature? Is not real human suffering portrayed in King Lear and a myriad other works of the imagination? Is not the portrayal of suffering at the heart of most great literature? Hector may choose to take the moral high ground in this debate but, like all debates within the play, the truth is shrouded in ambiguities. Act 2Page 70: Boys come in... to Page 74: The bell goes. (continued)What also irks Hector is Irwin’s approval and encouragement of neat phrasings relating to profound questions of human experience, be it the philosopher Wittgenstein’s work being reduced to a dinky formula or the reference by Posner to the processed nature of the deaths in the camps, Hector being fully aware that the student’s Jewish background means that he feels a depth of personal engagement with the subject unappreciated by Irwin. Posner’s perspective puts him at odds with the detached approaches suggested by Lockwood and Dakin, who are by now beginning to sound very much like disciples of Irwin in their taste for the unorthodox ‘take’ on historical material: Lockwood: ...given that the death camps are generally thought of as unique, wouldn’t another be to show what precedents there were and put them... well... in proportion? Scripps: Proportion! Dakin: Not proportion then, but putting them in context. Posner: But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained then it can be explained away. Rudge: ‘Tout comprendre c’est tout pardoner.’ (Hector groans.) Irwin: That’s good, Posner. Posner: It isn’t ‘good’. I mean it, sir. At the conclusion of the scene, Irwin sets out his own position on the duty of the historian towards the past, including even such horrors as the Holocaust. There is, above all, the need to Distance yourselves, to put one’s self, presumably, beyond personal and moral dimensions. For him, the challenge is to anticipate the perspective of society towards the most recent past. There is, surely, more than a hint of opportunism in the word anticipate, as if the historian were to line up alongside the fashion designer in attempting to second-guess and shape the taste of the public in the future. Between the perhaps unrealistic purity of Hector’s ideals and Irwin’s lack of principle, there is now revealed to be a huge gulf. Act 2Page 75: Irwin: I thought that went rather well. to Page 77: ...turn me into Proust.The ‘fall-out’ from the lesson in the previous scene shows us Irwin pleased with the impact he feels he is making with the boys and their thinking, whilst Hector continues to express his disgruntlement at the evidence of this being so. Parrots is how he sees the boys in their readiness to respond to Irwin, whilst we notice another sign of the balance of influence in the witty but irreverent ‘joshing’ of Irwin by Dakin and Scripps, which is reminiscent of how they have been accustomed to talk to Hector. It is interesting too to see that Irwin himself reacts with cool aplomb to their discussions as to whether he can be described as disingenuous or meretricious, this being indicative of his growing ease with the boys and of his confidence in his own standing with them. He is now secure enough to cede to them that the literary works studied with Hector are more immune to changing cultural fashions, art having a different shelf-life altogether. One feels that this immutability is not necessarily an attractive feature for Irwin. Dakin, for whom Irwin had initially shown some disdain, now feels able to address the young teacher as coach and to confess to the relatively sceptical Scripps that he has never wanted to please anybody the way I do him, girls not excepted. When the two students talk of Hector’s dabbling in genital massage on the motorcycle, it is with the amused air of a generation for whom sexual exploration of any kind is not a matter for scandal, moralising or undue seriousness Dakin: Are we scarred for life, do you think? Scripps: We must hope so. Perhaps it will turn me into Proust. Act 2Page 77: Headmaster’s study. to Page 79: ...grew a moustache?The rise in Irwin’s stock in the eyes of at least some of the boys does not, however, leave him invulnerable to the ire of the Headmaster, whose primary consideration from the start has been the public image of the school. A complaint from Posner’s father regarding Irwin’s dispassionate approach to the Holocaust as a historical topic is a matter of considerable concern for the Headmaster, who is not appeased by Irwin’s reference to what the boys were asking or to the more general perspective to such questions of the historian. The four-letter tirade – Mr. Irwin. Fuck the historian – which follows is a salutary reminder to the young teacher that, in a large public institution like the school, the regard of those in power can waver unpredictably. The likes of the Headmaster are no more interested in questions of historical perspectives than they are in the art-for-art’s-sake liberal humanism of figures like Hector. They are themselves too aware of the pressures upon them from parents, governors, politicians and the media to be much concerned with or loyal to any particular academic or philosophical principle. Consequently, anything which brings the institution into potential disrepute is a very serious matter and the feelings of individuals like Irwin of comparative little value. The latter has to see that, whilst his being a contrast to Hector, in terms of teaching style and willingness to be pragmatic in preparing students for examinations, might initially put him in the Headmaster’s ‘good books’, he cannot presume to rely on this favour if parents’ feathers are ruffled. Unconventionality – whether from a Hector or an Irwin – is essentially threatening to those who prize stability and public esteem. The Headmaster’s advice to Irwin in growing a moustache is an indication of his fundamental lack of respect for the classroom practitioners in his midst. Act 2Page 79: Posner sings a verse... to Page 81: ...marks for it.It is sometimes difficult to assess the degree of sensitivity or warmth possessed by Irwin. His earlier brashness has been seen to give way to a more restrained manner, possibly as a result of his growing acceptance as both a teacher and a human being by the boys. Here, with Posner, he initially comes across as a sympathetic figure, admitting to the student that his approach to the teaching of the Holocaust had been too dispassionate, whilst affirming that in time, it would become an abstract question like any other. When, however, Posner goes on to ask what he should do if the topic were to feature in the coming examination, Irwin’s reply could be seen as a reversion to his earlier crassness, or is it a new-found ability to look at his own pragmatic tendencies in an ironic light? Irwin: Surprise them. You’re Jewish. You can get away with a lot more than the other candidates. Equivalent would be Akthar singing the praises of empire. The complex webs of influence and attraction are highlighted as Scripps declares that Dakin’s handwriting is beginning to resemble that of Irwin, whilst Posner is willing to admit that a similar tendency on his part is a result of his imitating Dakin. The latter, meanwhile, who confesses that the teacher is a frequent topic of his own conversation, much to the annoyance of his school secretary girlfriend, reveals to Scripps that he has considered the idea of seducing Irwin. His assumption that this would be responded to favourably is endorsed by Posner, who, with a lover’s acute sensitivity to competition, has noticed the teacher’s own longing glances: Posner: ...Our eyes meet. Looking at Dakin. Apart from the possibility of any of these threads assuming a more solid shape in the future, one might begin to wonder about Irwin’s sexuality, should the perceptions of the two students prove to be accurate. More particularly, there arises the question as to whether his own implicit lack of honesty and transparency with regard to this aspect of his life could have any influence upon an overall impression of evasiveness in his personality and upon his favouring of a manipulative approach to truth in his role as historian. Act 2 Page 82: Hector, Irwin and Mrs Lintott are sitting... to Page 91: Good luck.The imminence of the Oxbridge entry examinations and interviews leads to a session in which all three teachers – Hector, Irwin and Mrs. Lintott – participate in an attempt to imbue the boys with the requisite skills and tactics. Inevitably, there are wide divergences in the points of view of the trio, their respective principles and egos clashing to no little comic effect. It is Irwin who plays the most active role in these preparations, his by now customary pragmatism leading him to advise against an avowal of not only any thespian tendencies but also, with regard to musical taste, of a liking for a composers hallowed as Mozart. The predictable irony in Hector’s response appears to be lost on Irwin, to whom the notion of telling the truth seems to have a certain novelty value, if nothing else: Hector: May I make a suggestion? Why can they not all just tell the truth? Irwin: It’s worth trying, provided, of course, you can make it seem like you’re telling the truth. Mrs. Lintott, who had previously complained of not having been given an inner voice, now expresses, in her typically dry manner, a degree of exasperation at the exclusively male perspectives implicit in this coaching session, not least the assumption that their interviewers will be themselves exclusively male. More profoundly, the references to what she sees as the feminine approach of the philosopher Wittgenstein, himself a homosexual, leads to an implied criticism of Irwin’s ‘masculine’ willingness to manipulate truth for the sake of attaining set goals, which, given what was said in the previous scene, is somewhat ironic. Her distaste for the tendency of male television historians to indulge in hyperbole is expressed in some of the funniest, most memorable lines in the whole play: Mrs. Lintott: I’ll tell you why there are no women historians on TV, it’s because they don’t get carried away for a start, and they don’t come bouncing up to you with every new historical notion they’ve come up with... the bow-wow school of history. History’s not such a frolic for women as it is for men. Why should it be? They never get round the conference table. In 1919, for instance, they just arranged the flowers then gracefully retired. History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket. One feels that there is a lifetime of barely suppressed resentment behind this outburst, with no great show of solidarity forthcoming from her two male colleagues, who, she observes, find this undisguised expression of feeling distasteful. Mrs. Lintott’s invective perhaps suggests the clash of principles between Hector and Irwin is no more than a posturing, an extension in the realm of ideas of the propensity towards conflict which men have indulged in throughout time. Act 2Page 82: Hector, Irwin and Mrs. Lintott are sitting... to Page 91: Good luck. (continued)The farcical nature of the posturing involved in the approach to the interviews the boys are due to attend at their various Oxbridge colleges is captured by some brilliantly observed touches, such as Rudge’s remembering that Miss said to say film not films and his impressing Hector with the entirely bogus information regarding the golfing abilities of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. We are clearly in a situation here where it doesn’t so much matter what you say as the way you say it. And all this to claim a place in the country’s most prestigious centres of learning. The final phase of the scene has Dakin and Irwin alone together. Remembering the former’s admission to Scripps in the previous scene that he has considered seducing his new teacher, whether this be out of mischief, a desire to ‘expose’ Irwin’s homosexuality or to please his new hero figure, we can only be aware of a certain eroticism overhanging the conversation between the two, in which, we are told in the script, Dakin is more master than pupil. The latter picks up on Irwin’s relatively innocuous answer to his question as to whether he believes they, the boys, will be happy at their Oxbridge colleges, should they be successful: Irwin: You’ll be happy anyway. Dakin: I’m not sure I like that. Why? (Irwin shrugs.) Uncomplicated, is that what you mean? Outgoing? Straight? Irwin: None of them bad things to be. Dakin: Depends. Nice to be a bit complicated. Irwin: Or to be thought so. How’s Posner? Act 2Page 82: Hector, Irwin and Mrs. Lintott are sitting... to Page 91: Good luck. (continued)It is as if the mention of Posner has become the lightening conductor, bringing to earth the electrical charge generated in the elliptical exchanges above. Dakin is hardly being subtle in his suggestiveness, whilst Irwin’s or thought to be so is a gentle put-down to perhaps both Posner’s own cultivation of his fraught image and Dakin’s own claiming of something similar. The double-edged nature of the student’s questions is parried skillfully by Irwin, who is no doubt aware of the sexual overtones but keeps things on an academic footing, though one feels this is not achieved without some effort on his part: Dakin: How does stuff happen, do you think? People decide to do stuff. Make moves. Alter things .Irwin: I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Dakin: No? (He smiles) Think about it. Irwin: Some do... make moves, I suppose. Others react to events. In 1939 Hitler made a move on Poland. Poland...Dakin: ...gave in. Irwin: (simultaneously)... defended itself. Irwin: Is that what you mean? Dakin: (unperturbed) No Not Poland anyway. Was Poland taken by surprise? Irwin: To some extent. Though they knew something was up. What was your essay about? The sexual tension is relieved by the pair’s moving on to the relatively safe ground afforded by further consideration of the topic of how to impress the examiners in the history examination. By now Dakin has absorbed enough of Irwin’s emphasis and influence to have become adept at the game of avoiding the obvious in the treatment of topics by highlighting the impact of what might be seen as chance circumstances. The relatively detailed expositions of his two examples from World War Two serve to defuse the charged atmosphere built up in the cryptic exchange quoted above. Dakin is able to link Hector’s obsession with the subjunctive form – the mood you use when something might or might not happen – with this approach, which he calls subjunctive history. Irwin’s smile is surely a reflection of his admiration for the student on a number of levels. One is, however, left with the impression that there is unfinished business between this pair, with Dakin holding all the aces. Act 2Page 91: Boys and staff... to Page 92: ‘...For the long littleness of life.’In this short scene, the Headmaster, in organising a photograph of the boys and staff, manages to belittle both Posner, condemning him to his usual place on the floor, and Hector, who is deliberately excluded from the shot. The absurdity of the Headmaster is nowhere more obvious than here, whilst Hector’s quoting from Frances Cornford’s lines about Rupert Brooke comes as a welcome and healthful relief, irony once more helping to deflate the pomposity which seems to emanate so freely from the Headmaster :Headmaster: ...Now, boys. Look like Oxbridge material. No negative thoughts. Threshold of great things. Hector: ‘Magnificently unprepared For the long littleness of life.’ As we shall see in the following scene, a sense of life’s littleness is very much at the heart of Hector’s outlook and mood as he comes to the end of his career. ThemesThemes have been broken down into sections with quotes relating to each characters position within these themes.History (different views/representations of)As the play’s title suggests, one of Bennett’s main preoccupations in The History Boys is the subject of history. The character of Irwin is representative of many modern historians in search of untrodden ground. Irwin teaches his boys to take some hitherto unquestioned historical assumption and prove the opposite. Using this theory, Irwin makes the short leap from history teacher to journalist to government spin-doctor, whose job it is to prove that the loss of trial by jury does not impinge on civil liberties, but instead broadens them.For Irwin, history is not a matter of conviction, and he encourages the boys to be dispassionate, to distance themselves. This is a theory which works well when he is teaching the Reformation, but causes controversy when the class moves on to discuss the Holocaust. In a key scene, Irwin, Hector and the boys argue over whether the Holocaust should be studied, and if so, how. Whilst Hector’s approach – to perceive the Holocaust as an unprecedented horror – may seem typically naive, Posner points out that to put the Holocaust ‘in context is a step towards saying that it can be… explained. And if it can be explained then it can be explained away.’ The History Boys highlights the responsibility of the historian, and asks questions about the approach the historian should take in studying the past.(See the extension sheet on references for further information)Quotations‘How do I define history? It's just one fucking thing after another’?( Rudge-85)‘History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men.’ (Mrs Lintott-85)‘ History is women following behind with the bucket.” (Mrs Lintott-80)“[talking about the Holocaust]'But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.''But this is History. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be... even on the Holocaust.’‘It's subjunctive history.’ ‘ You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.’ (Dakin-90)‘History nowadays is not a matter of conviction.It’s a performance. It’s entertainment. And if it isn’t, make it so.’?(Irwin-35)‘History’s not such a frolic for women as for men. Why should it be? They never get round the conference table’ (Mrs Lintott-84)‘Story-telling, so much of it, which is what men do naturally (Mrs Lintott-22) ‘…having taught you all history on a strictly non-gender orientated basis I just wonder if it occurs to any of you how dispiriting this can be?’ (Mrs Lintott-83)Education (The purpose of)The play begins as the boys return to school after receiving their A level results and follows them as they set to preparing in earnest for the entrance examinations for Oxford. While Hector insists throughout the play that his lessons are to guide the boys in life, the Headmaster and Irwin have differing educational goals. Their plan is to teach the boys how to pass the test, to give their work polish and make them stand out. The History Boys pits these duelling philosophies on education—learning for life and learninghow to pass a test—against one another, encouraging us to examine what truly is most practical in our own educational system.Quotes‘…or what’s all this learning by heart for, except as some sort of insurance against the boys’ ultimate failure?’(Mrs Lintott-69)‘Turning facts on their head. It’s like a game.’(Dakin-80)‘I would call it grooming did not that have overtones of the monkey house.‘Presentation’ might be the word’(Headmaster-8)And they are bright, brighter than last year’s. But that’s not enough apparently’ (Mrs Lintott-10)‘…teachers just remember the books they loved as students’ and shove them on the syllabus’ (Mrs Lintott-23)Irwin‘The wrong end of the stick is the right one. A question has a front door and a back door. Go in the back, or better still, the side... Flee the crowd... History nowadays is not a matter of conviction. It’s a performance. It’s entertainment. And if it isn’t, make it so. (38)‘Education isn’t something for when they’re old and grey and sitting by the fire. It’s for now. The exam is next month.’ (49)‘I sympathise with your feelings about examinations, but they are a fact of life (48)‘Dakin: Like Mr Hector’s lessons then, sir. They’re a waste of time, too.Irwin: Yes, you little smart arse, but he’s not trying to get you through an exam. (38)‘…truth is no more at issue in an examination than thirst at a wine-tasting or fashion at a striptease.’ (26)Hector‘It’s to make us more rounded human beings’ (Timms-38)‘Hector never bothered with what he was educating those boys for’ (Mrs Lintott-107)‘Akthar:It’s just the knowledge, sir.Timms:The pursuit of it for its own sake, sir.’(37)‘Hector:All knowledge is precious, whether or not it serves the slightest human use’. (4-7)Hector: … proudly jingling your A Levels, those longed-for emblems of your conformity, you have come before me once again to resume your education... A Levels... are credentials, qualifications, the footings of your CV. Your Cheat’s Visa. (4)‘Headmaster: Mr Hector has an old-fashioned faith in the redemptive power of words. (49)‘Mrs Lintott: Forgive Hector. He is trying to be the kind of teacher pupils will remember. Someone they will look back on.’‘You give them an education. I give them the wherewithal to resist it’ (Hector-23)WomenWomen are completely side-lined in the play, but this doesn’t mean that the role of women could not come up as a theme.It could be said that they are significant by their absence.Women in the play are side-lined just as they are in society and education as a whole.Mrs Lintott is the only women with a voice in this play.Quotes“History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.” (Mrs Lintott-85)‘…the predilections and preoccupations of men. They kick their particular stone along the street and I watch.’(Mrs Lintott-68)‘Women so seldom get a turn for a start. Elizabeth I less remarkable for her abilities than that, unlike most if her sisters, she did get the chance to exercise them (Mrs Lintott-83)‘…and that I should be assumed to be so discreet is in itself condescending. I’m what men would call a safe pair of hands’ (Mrs Lintott-68/69)‘…a feminine approach to things: rueful, accepting, taking things as you find them (Mrs Lintott-84)‘It’s not our fault, miss. It’s just the way it is.’ (Timms-84)‘…there are no women historians on TV, it’s because they don’t get carried away for a start, and they don’t come bounding up to you with every new historical notion they come up with…’ (Mrs Lintott-84)Women as sex objects:‘Lecher though one is, or aspires to be, it occurs to me that the lot of women cannot be easym who must suffer such inexpert male fumblings, virtually on a daily basis.’ (Dakin-77)‘chases her round the desk hoping to cop a feel’ (Dakin-29)‘She’s my western front. Last night for instance, meeting only token resistance. I reconnoitred the ground…’ (Dakin-28)‘I asked [the headmaster] what the difference was between Hector touching us up on the bike and him trying to feel up Fiona (Dakin-102)POETRY AND LITERATUREAt first glance, The History Boys appears to be just one reference after another. If the boys or Hector are not quoting Auden, they are performing scenes from Shakespeare, or from 1950s films. Hector is the main representative of this theme.For Hector, poetry and literature are part of his preparing the boys for life. When Timms complains that he doesn’t always understand poetry, Hector says: ‘Read it now, learn it now, and you’ll know it whenever. We’re making our deathbeds here boys.’Hector sees poetry as a way of understanding life, making sense of the endlessly complicated world. Posner says he sees literature as ‘elastoplast’, and when confronted by the headmaster about his behaviour on the motorbike, Hector comments this is ‘just the time’ for poetry. Irwin, on the other hand, has a different use in mind. Soon after arriving at the school, he sees the boys have this amazing resource of quotations; ‘gobbets’ that could be used to make their ailing essays more interesting to the examiner who will decide if they are offered a place at university or not. Lockwood describes Mr Hector’s stuff as‘nobler’ than what the boys learn with Mr Irwin, but Hector himself describes it as a waste of time. During the course of the play, the boys change from being very resistant to Mr Irwin’s teaching style to embracing it fully. Even Rudge says all the right things at his interview – ‘Wilfred Owen was a wuss and Stalin was a sweetie’.However, it is Hector who is given the last line in the play. His often-criticised teaching methods are given a defence: ‘Take it, feel it and pass it on. Not for me,not for you but for someone, somewhere,one day.’(See the extension sheet on references for further information)Quotes‘Poetry is good up to a point. Adds flavour’ (Irwin-26)‘…They’re being learned by heart. And that is where they belong and like the other components of the heart not to be defiled by being trotted out to order. (Hector-48)‘It’s not education. It’s culture (Akthar-39)“I don't always understand poetry!' (Timms-40)'You don't always understand it? Timms, I never understand it. But learn it now, know it now and you will understand it... whenever.” (Hector-40)“The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours”?(Hector-56)InnocenceThe History Boys deals quite heavily with the issue of growing up. Not only does the future of the boys hang in the balance with the entrance exams, but the school’s reputation lies squarely upon their shoulders. As Hector and Irwin battle over educational ideologies, the boys become aware of how the world works, no longer simply clinging to route memorization of facts and quotes. They are forced to stepoutside of their childlike innocence and stake claim to a more critical and cynical assessment of their surroundings. The play also takes on the issue of sexual identity, as the boys deal simultaneously with Hector’s sexual abuse and the confusion of trying to find their own identities.THE ‘FIDDLING’One of the liveliest discussions we had in rehearsals was on the subject of what Hectordoes with the boys on the motorbike. In the hands of a different playwright, the image of a teacher touching his students’ genitals would be sinister, if not downright disturbing, but in The History Boys it becomes a source of amusement for the boys – at least until it proves to be Hector’s undoing and the end of his teaching career. Part of the reason we are not disturbed by Hector’s actions, either as a reader of the play or as an audience member, is because Hector does not force himself on the boys. He offers them a lift home which they are free to decline or accept, knowing what they are agreeing to. Far from being forced into sexual contact against their will, Dakin even goes so far as to say he wishes Hector would ‘just go for it’. The motorbike is another reason why the fiddling is benign rather than threatening. The fact that this all takes place on the back of a moving vehicle creates a humorous rather than sinister picture. Alan Bennett explained where this idea came from. Once, as a teenager, he was hitchhiking in Wales, and was picked up by a passing motorcyclist. As they sped along,Alan became aware that the motorcyclist was reaching behind in order to touch hispassenger’s crotch. When he realised that Alan was not interested, the man pulled over, and left him in the middle of nowhere, near a deserted quarry. Alan Bennett laughed as he told us the anecdote, and we laughed too – his natural sense of humour brushed away any idea that Hector abuses his position of power, or that the boys would be ‘scarred for life’.‘Are we scared for life, do you think’ (Dakin-77)HOPE AND FAILUREThe theme of hope and failure plays a large part in The History Boys. Whilst the boys seem to have everything to live for – the rest of their lives ahead of them – Hector, and to an extent Mrs Lintott, are placed in stark contrast. Theirs is a life of failedambition. Mrs Lintott asks the boys if they realise how dispiriting it is to teach ‘five centuries of masculine ineptitude’. She does not think of herself as bold, as she confesses in Act Two. Hector tells Irwin not to teach: ‘It ought to renew… the young mind; warm, eager, trusting; instead comes… a kind of coarsening. You start to clown. Plus a fatigue that passes for philosophy but is nearer to indifference.’ Even Posner, an exceptionally bright student who is later awarded a scholarship,goes on to drop out of university, and ‘has periodic breakdowns. He haunts the locallibrary and keeps a scrapbook of the achievements of his one-time classmates’.The theme of loneliness recurs throughout much of Bennett’s writing, and is particularly apparent in his series of monologues Talking Heads. The former Director of the National Theatre, Richard Eyre, has described Bennett’s writing as ‘‘all about unrealised hope and defeated expectations’’. It could be argued that just as Hardy’s‘Drummer Hodge’ reaches out and touches the hands of Posner and Hector, so Bennett’scharacters’ feelings of isolation and loneliness, touch his audience.Main CharactersHectorHector is the focus of more scenes than any other character, it is his life which is celebrated in the final scene of the play and it is his words which provide the conclusion to the piece.What is obvious from the scenes in the classroom is the depth of the bond between Hector and the boys. He knows them as individuals and the class, individually and collectively, regard him as much more than just one of the teachers they have encountered in their school careers. It is not hard to see why this should be so. His erudition is such as to appear not in any way a kind of showing off by an adult before impressionable young people but a manifestation of someone for whom literature has always provided the truest and most dependable source of wisdom and guidance in life. His enthusiasm for writing and writers is infectious and we see on numerous occasions the boys’ ability and readiness to contribute quotations and references of their own in discussions with him and with Irwin, a trait which the latter appears to find more than a trifle unsettling. As Mrs Lintott states about Hector and the effect he has on students, He impinges (p. 50).Although there is a seeming lack of direction and purpose to Hector’s lessons, yet the very fact that the boys appear to have previously studied English with him at A Level and done well suggests that his methods cannot have been totally unfocused. Even in the set-piece of the General Studies ‘brothel-scene’ (pp. 12–16), he insists that the students use the conditional or subjunctive forms in their French. In other words, Hector has the enviable knack of ‘sugaring the pill’, of making learning fun. Of course, this involves taking risks and the success of this approach is dependent upon the trust established between the teacher and the class. This bond is apparent in the way the boys show, initially at least, a reluctance to respond positively to Irwin’s encouraging them to use every available piece of knowledge, including literary works, in their Oxbridge History examinations, the irony in their voices on p. 39 notwithstanding:Akthar:We couldn’t do that, sir.That would be a betrayal of trust.Laying bare our souls, sir.Lockwood:Is nothing sacred, sir?We’re shocked.The seemingly anarchic approach to teaching and learning is troubling to Irwin, who keeps asking the boys about what actually happens in Hector’s lessons and complains to Hector himself (p. 48) and to the Headmaster (p. 49) about the reluctance of the boys to utilise their Hector-inspired knowledge in the context of the preparation for the imminent examinations. Less surprisingly, the Headmaster is frustrated in his attempts to classify the gifts of the English teacher within the established framework, complaining that his methods are unpredictable and unquantifiable and in the current educational climate that is no use (p. 67).The scene in which Hector discusses the Thomas Hardy poem Drummer Hodge with Posner (pp. 53–56) is one of the most moving in the play and shows to us, in beautifully written naturalistic language, a side of Hector which is quite different from the exuberant classroom performer. His spontaneous explication of the poem and its celebration of the short life of the young soldier is that of the natural teacher who exudes warmth and sensitivity alongside literary insight. The lines in which he talks to Posner of the best moments in reading (p. 56) are, arguably, the finest in the whole play.Hector is not afraid to express his distaste for the kind of utilitarian approach to learning epitomised by Irwin. He winces at Irwin’s use of the word gobbets to describe the handy little quotes that can be trotted out to make a point:Hector:Oh, it would be useful... every answer a Christmas tree hung with the appropriate gobbets. Except that they’re learnt by heart. And that is where they belong and like the other components of the heart not to be defiled by being trotted out to order.(p. 48)Likewise, Hector is appalled at the idea of a phenomenon like the Holocaust being taught in school just like any other topic:Hector:They go on school trips nowadays, don’t they? Auschwitz. Dachau. What has always concerned me is where do they eat their sandwiches? Drink their coke?Crowther:The visitors’ centre. It’s like anywhere else.Hector:Do they take pictures of each other there? Are they smiling? Do they hold hands? Nothing is appropriate. Just as questions on an examination paper are inappropriate.How can the boys scribble down an answer however well that doesn’t demean the suffering involved?And putting it well demeans it as much as putting it badly.Irwin:It’s a question of tone, surely. Tact.Hector:Not tact. Decorum. (p. 71)It could be said that Hector’s high moral tone here is tinged with a degree of jealousy at the thought of his position as the boys’ favourite teacher being threatened by the arrival of the younger man who has his own idiosyncratic ways with which to impress their young minds. Equally, his dismissal of the practical application of knowledge, including in examinations, can be seen as something of an indulgence. He owes his position as a teacher, after all, to the qualifications he possesses and in decrying the competitive nature of the university entrance, not least to Oxbridge for those, like the boys here, with no established tradition in their families, he is ignoring a large slice of their current reality.Self-indulgence and a wilful ignoring of reality are charges which might equally be laid against Hector (and the playwright?) with regard to his conduct with selected boys on his motorcycle trips. Despite the existence of his somewhat unexpected wife (p. 41), Hector’s homosexual proclivities are not in doubt. What is in question is the wisdom of his establishing the tradition of riding home on the motorcycle accompanied by one of the boys on the pillion seat, with groping of their private parts as part of the package. The boys are prepared to indulge him, with varying degrees of reluctance, as a manifestation of their devotion to him, but, when his behaviour is exposed, both the Headmaster (pp. 52–53) and Mrs Lintott (p. 95) are both surely right to dismiss his claims that what took place was something profound. In his choice of boys, Hector has been snobbishly selective, never picking the physically slight Posner, ironically the one homosexual student amongst them. Dakin insists that Hector’s a joke...That side of him is (p. 101). The truth is, surely, that Hector, in attempting to relieve some of the physical frustration resultant from his life as a closet homosexual, has exploited his position with the boys. Though the play presents the student participants like Scripps and Dakin as being cheerfully unscarred by the experience, in reality things could have been quite different.In the latter stages of the play, the fragility of Hector’s world which lies behind the persona he sustains in the classroom is revealed. On p. 65 he shocks the boys with an outburst expressing the disgust he feels towards his own life:Hector:Shut up! All of you.SHUT UP, you mindless fools.What made me piss my life away in this god-forsaken place? There’s nothing of me left. Go away. Class dismissed. Go.Later, on pp. 94–95, he confides to Irwin, whom he perhaps sees as, in some respects, his younger self, differences of educational philosophy notwithstanding, how teaching has led to a kind of coarsening of the spirit, trapping the self in the fixed role as clown, until the falsity of the situation makes the boys become merely work. He warns Irwin against becoming involved with Dakin, to whom he can see the younger teacher is attracted, advising him instead to sublimate such feelings, with the occasional booster, a process which can last you a lifetime.We see Hector as very much a flawed hero. However much devotion and loyalty he may inspire amongst his students and however enlightened his approach to education and teaching, he knows that he has paid a high price for living through his work. From a generation for whom the more liberal, post-1960s climate, in terms of attitudes to homosexuality, came too late in life, he has channelled his suppressed sexual energies into his life in the classroom. His close – and, on the motorcycle, dangerous – relationships with his students and his immersion in the world of literature have, until now, allowed him to cope with what is, by his own estimation, an unsatisfactory and unsatisfying existence. Despite this, it is Hector whose life is celebrated at the end of the play, by students and colleagues whose lives he has touched, in many cases profoundly. Like many a hero from literature, it is his inner turmoil which gives his character substance and humanity.Quotes‘I am an old man in a dry season’ (66)‘Hector is a mad of studied eccentricity.’(stage direction-4)‘Your teaching, however effective it may or may not have been, has always seemed to me to be selfish…’(53)‘Child, I am your teacher. Whatever I do in this room is a token of my trust. I am in your hands. It is a pact. Bread eaten in secret’ (6)‘It’s locked against the Forces of Progress, Sir’ (36)‘…as he dropped you at the corner, your honour still intact’ (77)‘He was a good man, but I do not think there is time for his kind of teaching anymore.’ (109)‘He was stained and shabby and did unforgivable things but he led you to expect the best.’ (107)IrwinTo an extent, Irwin exists as a counterpoint to Hector and his ultra-liberal approach in the classroom, providing the embodiment of the opposite extreme in the debate on educational values which underpins much of the play. Whilst Hector purports to despise the pursuit of examination success, Irwin’s whole strategy as a teacher of History to the boys as they prepare for their Oxbridge entrance examinations is to encourage them to find and adopt positions on historical phenomena as much opposed to orthodox interpretations as possible, so as to impress their examiners with their supposed originality and freshness of insight. Whilst his initial use of ‘shock tactics’ with the boys, including his disparaging of their written work and the mention of the fourteen foreskins of Christ (p. 18), do not overly impress them, his influence upon them grows perceptively. Dakin, who had originally dismissed Irwin’s iconoclasm as a predictable attempt to show he’s still in the game (p. 21), is the one who feels himself coming to appreciate the new teacher’s ways, including his continued and provocative insistence on the mediocrity of his work. Bennett never portrays Irwin as a ridiculous figure. His emphasis on the need for the boys to produce answers which go well beyond the merely competent, using any means – Turning facts upon their head, as Dakin puts it (p. 80) – and scraps of knowledge in order to stand out from their competitors, may offend a purist like Hector, but it is a tactic grounded in an appreciation of the realities of Oxbridge entrance procedures. Irwin knows – perhaps from painful personal experience, given that he admits to Dakin that his own application to Oxford ended in failure (p. 99) – that the dons are likely to be impressed with unorthodox approaches, seeing them as signs of the much-prized capacity for independence of thought. State school candidates like the boys in the class need to be able to compete with those whose family and class backgrounds have afforded them greater opportunities to obtain a veneer of academic sophistication. The success of the applications proves the efficacy of Irwin’s approach. In this sense, we could say that Irwin has the best interests of the boys at heart and proves to have made a telling contribution to their quest for academic and social betterment.The play does, however, give us glimpses of darker, less admirable sides to Irwin. Whilst his encouraging of the boys to manipulate historical material might be, in the context of the highly competitive Oxbridge entry procedures, understandable and justifiable, we are shown in the scenes from his post-teaching career that he has extended this extreme pragmatism into later life. His television persona again uses dubious shock tactics in order to impress his mass audience, whilst, in the first scene of the play, his later position at the heart of government shows him distorting language in a cynical ploy to pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate. The calculating nature of Irwin can, perhaps, be recognised in the school scenes not only in his approach to the teaching of History but in the way he keeps asking the boys about what happens in Hector’s lessons, how they come to know lines of poetry by heart and why they are not prepared to contemplate the use of knowledge gained with Hector in his own lessons. Out of the classroom, Irwin appears much more diffident than when in front of the group, seeming unsettled by the very idea of Hector’s spontaneity and the apparently unstructured nature of his approach to teaching and learning. It is as if he cannot understand this very antithesis of his own clearly focused, goal-driven outlook. When Irwin, in the final scene, opines that Hector was a good man, but I do not think that there is time for his kind of teaching anymore (p. 109), one feels that this is stated with some degree of satisfaction. The future, he must recognise, belongs to such as himself. The fact that he survives the accident which killed Hector is, perhaps, symbolic of the fading of the old liberal ethos in the world of education, to be replaced by one much more hardened and suited to the modern era.There remains the question of Irwin’s sexuality. He is, of course, one of three characters in the play who are seen to express their homosexual identities in different ways. Where Hector indulges in furtive fumblings on the motorcycle, talking sententiously of the laying on of hands, and Posner’s open displays of adolescent yearning for Dakin are replaced by hints of profound unhappiness in adulthood, Irwin initially seems to wish to hide his true nature. Though, significantly, it is to him that Posner turns to talk of his own burgeoning homosexual feelings, the young teacher is careful, as he tells Mrs Lintott, not to give any idea of that he might be in the same boat (p. 42). Posner, however, can see only too clearly that Irwin himself is attracted to Dakin and, when that supremely confident student makes his advances to him, Irwin’s cool handling of the loaded language about the invasion of Poland (pp. 89–90) is followed by a more active response to Dakin’s more blatant suggestions on pp. 99–102. The fact that it has taken an approach from a younger, heterosexual person for Irwin to emerge from a situation which Dakin describes as a kind of lying (p. 99) is significant. The accident which kills Hector prevents any further development of the situation and we might presume that, in later life, Irwin has reverted to conducting his sexual life in a discreet, if not covert, fashion. Bennett is, perhaps, suggesting that Irwin’s inherent dishonesty as to his real sexual identity is part of an overall and abiding lack of integrity about this figure.Quotes‘You are very young. Grow a moustache.’ (12)‘Have a heart. He’s only five minutes older than we are (21)‘I enjoyed your programmes but they were more journalism than history. What you call yourself now you’re in politics I’m not sure.’ (108)‘…How come there’s such a difference between the way you teach and the way you live?’ (100)‘I did go to Oxford, but it was just to do a teaching diploma.’ (99)Mrs LintottAlthough Mrs Lintott – Dorothy – is not given as many lines as Hector or Irwin, she does play an important role within the play, not only as the only female character but also as a teacher who does not indulge in either of the extremes of classroom practice associated with her two colleagues. She is obviously a more than competent teacher, the boys having gained high A Level grades in History under her tutelage. She doesn’t particularly involve herself directly in the struggle of ideas (and egos) between Hector and Irwin, not making undue protestations at the Headmaster’s assumption that the boys need more than she can give them if their Oxbridge applications are to be successful. She does not believe in showing too much of a human face in front of the students and realises that she will never impinge (p. 50) on the lives of the boys in the way Hector does, not that, in all probability, she would want to.In conversations with colleagues, she adopts a tone of wry detachment, always ready to spot and deflate with sardonic humour any manifestations of pomposity, as with the Headmaster, or the tendency which she sees in Hector towards casting a romantic sheen over his own repressed sexual longings. There is an obvious warmth between these two old colleagues, but Dorothy is rightly disinclined to see Hector’s behaviour on the motorcycle as anything less than foolishness. We might assume that she has been wounded by her husband’s desertion of her (p. 22) and that her impatience with masculine pretence is one consequence of this. She talks sympathetically with Irwin, giving him various bits of advice on how to deal with situations, without ever being condescending or overbearing.Dorothy is a woman in the man’s world of the boys’ grammar school and understandably finds dispiriting (p. 83) the unspoken assumption of the boys and her two teaching colleagues that the Oxbridge interviewing process would be an all-male affair. In the same scene, her expressions of frustration extend to the experience of teaching five centuries of masculine ineptitude (p. 84). History as it is recorded and studied, she insists, is essentially a male view on a world where males have a virtual monopoly on power:Mrs Lintott:‘...History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men.What is History? History is women following behind with the bucket.’ (p. 85)This is the one instance in the play when Dorothy allows her mask of irony to slip, allowing us to see a more passionate side to a character who, for the most part, prefers to remove herself from the fray. She is the bedrock of education, as women are the bedrock of history. Quotes‘they know their stuff. Plainly stated and properly organised facts need no presentation, surely (8-10)‘One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.’ (42)‘You’ve force-fed us the facts; now we’re in the process of running around acquiring flavour.’ (Rudge-33)Their A levels are very good. And that is thanks to you’ (Headmaster-8)The HeadmasterThe Headmaster – Felix – is arguably not so much a character as a caricature. Unlike Bennett’s approach to the other teachers, there is no attempt on the writer’s part to ‘flesh out’ the monochrome portrait of an officious autocrat who is only too happy to play the number-crunching games associated with the modern world of education. There are no shades of grey or ambiguities in this figure, who serves as the butt of much of the comedy within the play. His desire for enhanced numbers gaining Oxbridge entry from his school has, one feels, less to do with a cherishing of academic excellence or a genuine concern to see boys from ‘ordinary’ backgrounds break through into the hitherto privileged worlds of Oxford and Cambridge than a need to bask in the reflected glory that accompanies such success. His speech is riddled with ridiculous attempts to sound ‘hip’, whilst in conversation with his teachers he is inevitably patronising or dismissive. Even Irwin, chosen especially to be the agent of the revolution guaranteeing Oxbridge success, is treated without real respect, being urged to grow a moustache in order to improve his discipline with the boys (p. 12). He is contemptuous of Hector’s old-fashioned faith in the redemptive power of words (p. 49) but, like a true hypocrite, is happy to speak in glowing terms of just this quality at the English teacher’s memorial service (p. 106). The only indications of a private life are the mentions of his wife’s working in a charity shop, from where she observes Hector’s behaviour on the motorcycle, and Dakin’s awareness of his being a rival for the sexual favours of Fiona, the school secretary. In his defence, it could be argued that Felix is merely accommodating to the spirit of the age. Like any head of an educational establishment, he would feel under pressure from a variety of sources – local and national governments, school governors, parents, ambitious students, local media etc. – to produce results in terms of examination success and Oxbridge entry. Whilst there is a touch of the grotesque in the portrayal of this figure by Bennett, Felix serves perhaps an indication of the destructive and dehumanising effect of the modern application to the realm of education of criteria imported from the harsh, competitive world of business and commerce. Quotes‘…the chief enemy of culture in any school is always the Headmaster (Mrs Lintott-50)‘I was a geographer. I went to Hull.’ (11)‘But I am thinking league tables.’ (8)The BoysThere are eight boys in the seventh-term Oxbridge class but it is fair to say that, whilst Bennett has given them a strong group identity, he has individualised three of them, leaving the rest to blend into the collective background.As a group, the boys show a suitably irreverent attitude towards both Hector and Irwin. With the first, this is all part of the complex relationship which exists between teacher and students. Their devotion to him, based presumably on previous years of his teaching methods, is evinced by the warmth of the atmosphere which exists in his classes, by their shared enjoyment of both canonical literature and the films of his own youth, and, more darkly, their willingness to indulge in the ritual abuse on his motorcycle. With Irwin, they show an initial resistance to both his rather obvious attempts to shock them into attention but gradually become more appreciative of his emphasis on the need for presenting unorthodox cases in their entrance examinations. In all the classroom scenes, they show an impressive – many would say unrealistic – familiarity with works of both literature and historical issues. Throughout the play, they display a mixture of youthful promise mixed with the wariness of their generation towards the claims of both established authority and its would-be alternatives. Scripps is, in many ways, the most sympathetically drawn character amongst them. It is he who is quick to join in the games based upon classic films by providing suitable piano accompaniment or acting a role, he joins in the brothel scene, can produce a literary quotation readily and knows how to pronounce Nietzsche. He is happy to admit to Dakin his own decision to involve himself in Christian belief and worship, but he wears this commitment lightly, cheerfully accepting the ribald responses of his friend, who has much more secular tastes. Scripps is given the final lines of appreciation for the life of Hector, contradicting Irwin’s assertion that his methods were no longer appropriate by insisting that Love apart, it is the only education worth having (p. 109). It is a mark of Scripps’ seniority, as it were, that Bennett entrusts him with the role of narrator at various points in the play, as if he were the one person most able, both then and later, to appreciate the full implications of what was happening. He seems to be reasonably well-adjusted in adulthood, his career as a journalist on a quality newspaper providing an appropriate outlet for his capacity for serious reflection, with the possibilities existing of his turning to more creative work.Posner is, as Mrs Lintott states in the final scene of the play, ... of all Hector’s boys... the only one who truly took everything to heart, remembers everything he was ever taught... the songs, the sayings, the endings; the words of Hector never forgotten (p. 108). It is significant that he turns up for Hector’s tutorial on poetry whilst Dakin defaults, preferring to look over old examination papers. He goes on to share with the teacher a moving scene in which they are united in their appreciation of Hardy’s verse, as well, perhaps, as by their common sense of exclusion from the heterosexual mainstream. Posner does not attempt to hide his sexuality and, though his passion for Dakin is a source of anguish, his capacity for self-mockery prevents him being too distraught over it, at least initially. Posner gets into his chosen Oxbridge college by slavishly following Irwin’s system of turning received ideas on their head in the entrance examination, which in his case involves him, a Jew, writing about the Holocaust with what the dons praise as a sense of detachment (p. 96). He is prepared to deny his heritage and his better judgement in order to impress. Ultimately, Posner is unable to cope with the adult world, cutting a tragic figure in the first and last scenes of Act Two. He is undone, arguably, by this same inability to assert any true identity apart from devotion to and reliance upon the regard of others.Dakin is the only boy who is obviously happy at the end. He was always the most confident about his own sexual attractiveness. He matured early and is disinclined to take anything to heart. He is not unkind or thoughtless but the world has always been open to him – Hector, Irwin, Posner and Fiona all make room for him – and this allows him to move through it with ease. He makes the best use of both Hector and Irwin and, in return, attempts to give them what he thinks they want. He has some intellectual depth, his theory that literature is actually about losers (p. 46) being the response of someone who does at least take an overview, whilst he is the one who understands Irwin’s pragmatism the best. Dakin saves Hector’s job, though this is achieved by blackmailing the hapless Felix. Dakin does not seek a personal faith or credo, like Scripps, nor is beset by insecurities, like Posner. He shows no musical talent, as do the other two, and he offers no literary quotations or references in the classroom. His acute awareness of the power dimensions of historical situations is matched by a similar insight into the dynamics of the rivalry between Hector and Irwin. Like his mentor, Irwin, Dakin is destined to prosper, untroubled by self-doubt or scruples.Of the rest of the group, only Rudge is given an individuality remotely comparable to these three. He comes across as the least sophisticated of them all, though this might be a front, as he is bright enough to write and talk at the entrance examinations in ways designed to impress. Describing himself as dull and ordinary (p. 86), he never seems to expect anything from school, university or himself. He picks up on Irwin’s methods readily enough and is prepared to use them, though the irony in his judgement of the new teacher’s ways which he confides to Mrs Lintott – It’s cutting edge, miss. It really is. (p. 34) – shows that he’s well aware that it is all some kind of game. He seems to get on well with Dorothy, whose own teaching methods are characterised by a down-to-earth practicality. It is to her that he gives his memorable verdict on history as a process and a subject – just one fucking thing after another (p. 85). Rudge appears to be genuinely proud of his career as a house builder, resenting perceived criticism from Mrs Lintott and decrying his years of being patronised. It is difficult to see just what overall impact his educational experience has had on him in a more positive sense.Akthar, Lockwood and Timms are less well defined as individuals, though we can note that all three seem to take especial pleasure in ‘ribbing’ both Hector and Irwin with their questions, usually accompanied with the appellation of ‘sir’, which only serves to enhance the effect of gentle mockery. They provide much of the verbal wit and vitality of the classroom scenes.QuotesDakin‘Irwin does like him. He seldom looks at anyone else.’ (Posner-81)‘…he was the one who made me realise you were allowed to think like this’ (47 Talking about Irwin)‘I don’t understand it. I have never wanted to please anybody the way I do him, girls not excepted.’(76-Talking about Irwin)Posner‘Sir, I think I may be homosexual’ (41)‘Oh Poz, with your spaniel heart. It will pass.’ (Scripps-81)‘But I want to get into Oxford, Sir. If I do, Dakin might love me.’ (42)ScrippsI figure I have to get through this romance with God now or else it’ll be hanging around half my life.’(45)Whole text questionsAbout the History1. History itself is a subject in the play. In the play Dakin calls Irwin’s methodsubjunctive history, the history of what might have been. Do you think there isvalue in Irwin’s approach to looking at historical events? Why or why not?2. In addition to world historical events we are also given a glimpse at thepersonal histories of the characters in the play. What do their personalhistories reveal? How do their remembrances differ?3. Much of the play is not about poetry but literature. Many of the poets quotedwrote during World War I. What resonances exist between the young men atwar and the young men in the play?About the Play1. The three teachers, Mrs. Lintott, Mr. Hector and Mr. Irwin, have strikinglydifferent teaching methods and goals. Discuss the merits and disadvantagesof their competing pedagogies.2. Irwin says he does not think there is time for Hector’s type of teaching anymore. What does he mean? What is lost with the loss of Hector?3. Hector is a problematic character in the play. He is a gifted teacher butsome of his actions are inappropriate. Can one reconcile Hector’s behaviorwith his teaching?4. Mrs. Lintott is the lone woman in the play. What is her role both as aneducator and historian? Is it significant that she is surrounded by men, both inthe school and in her work? How do you interpret her outburst about the role ofwomen in history?5. The characters in the play occasionally step outside themselves to comment onthe action of the play, either within the moment or sometimes from a perspectiveyears later. How does this commentary help us understand the play? ................
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