How does Alan Bennett express conflicting views about education through his portrayal of the four teachers in « The History Boys »?
How does Alan Bennett express conflicting views about education through his portrayal of the four teachers in « The History Boys »?
In this play, the author Alan Bennett wants to convince the audience that education can be approached in many different ways. In fact, through the characters of Hector, Irwin, Dorothy Lintott and the headmaster, he shows us that there is no “right” or “wrong” way of teaching.
The first educator properly introduced to the audience is Hector, a rather unusual teacher. The first scene starts in French, which is quite unexpected since Hector is a literature teacher. In this scene, we also understand Hector’s opinion about renowned universities: for him, going to Oxford or Cambridge is the same as going to another good university that is not as famous. He says: “I thought that after last year we were settling for the less lustrous institutions…Derby, Leicester, Nottingham. […] Believe also in me: forget Oxford and Cambridge”. Later on in this scene, Hector makes his students improvise a situation in French (according a special importance to the subjunctive), the pupils decide to pretend they are in a brothel, and the teacher seems interested. It shows us that his way of teaching is very different and definitely not traditional, it could even be considered as inappropriate since (as we will understand later on in the play) Hector takes advantage of his students. Hector doesn’t really prepare the students for the university exams, he is mostly preparing them for life. To sum up, I would say Hector is charismatic, eccentric and refuses to conform to modern teaching, and even though he is morally incorrect due to his sexual abuses towards the young men, he still is a good teacher, that is trying his best to make the students succeed in life.
The headmaster is another important character in the play. He has a very different point of view on education. The headmaster doesn’t really like Hector, because he likes the traditional way of
In this play, the author Alan Bennett wants to convince the audience that education can be approached in many different ways. In fact, through the characters of Hector, Irwin, Dorothy Lintott and the headmaster, he shows us that there is no “right” or “wrong” way of teaching.
The first educator properly introduced to the audience is Hector, a rather unusual teacher. The first scene starts in French, which is quite unexpected since Hector is a literature teacher. In this scene, we also understand Hector’s opinion about renowned universities: for him, going to Oxford or Cambridge is the same as going to another good university that is not as famous. He says: “I thought that after last year we were settling for the less lustrous institutions…Derby, Leicester, Nottingham. […] Believe also in me: forget Oxford and Cambridge”. Later on in this scene, Hector makes his students improvise a situation in French (according a special importance to the subjunctive), the pupils decide to pretend they are in a brothel, and the teacher seems interested. It shows us that his way of teaching is very different and definitely not traditional, it could even be considered as inappropriate since (as we will understand later on in the play) Hector takes advantage of his students. Hector doesn’t really prepare the students for the university exams, he is mostly preparing them for life. To sum up, I would say Hector is charismatic, eccentric and refuses to conform to modern teaching, and even though he is morally incorrect due to his sexual abuses towards the young men, he still is a good teacher, that is trying his best to make the students succeed in life.
The headmaster is another important character in the play. He has a very different point of view on education. The headmaster doesn’t really like Hector, because he likes the traditional way of