Dakin's 'Coming Of Age In The History Boys'

The History Boys
What is the most enduring emotion that you take from The History Boys?
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Beyond the immediate, beyond being a play about coming of age and the value and nature of education, The History Boys is a play about the complexities and difficulties of being a human being. Bennett goes to lengths to explore and understand the trials and tribulations of his characters, and allow his audience too to understand the character’s troubles. It would appear Bennett’s goal is for his audience to learn and develop an understanding and empathy, not only for his characters, but also for humankind and to appreciate the intricacies of human nature.

One of the most obvious examples here is the
character of Hector who, being a man of ‘studied eccentricity,’ whose lessons are engaging and humorous and whose generally cheerful outlook make him an immediately likeable character. However, this view of Hector is challenged extremely early on when it is discovered he has a tendency to molest his students as they ride pinion with him on the way home from school. This leaves the viewer in an uncomfortable situation; one cannot help but like Hector though, at the same time, one does not wish to sympathise with a teacher who gropes his pupils. Unable to fit him into convenient boxes marked ‘Good Guy’ and ‘Bad Guy’ the audience’s views are challenged. This is furthered when Hector is called upon to explain himself, when justifying his actions to the headmaster, he says that the ‘transmission of knowledge in itself is an erotic act’ which makes it so much more difficult for the viewer to justify their affinity for Hector, here he seems selfish, vain, it is as if he is trying to say ‘any contact with me is the “transmission of knowledge,”’ ‘any contact with me is an “erotic act.”’ This conversation has a significant effect on the reader. It demonstrates that Hector is deeply flawed as a character. Though this serves to make him a more well-rounded character, more developed, it does not detract from the issue of morals, in Mrs Lintott’s words, ‘a grope is a grope’ and motivations aside, it is simply unacceptable. So why does the audience still sympathise with Hector? When he is fired for his crime, because it is a crime, we feel he has been wronged. Well that’s just it. By presenting us a character who is so easy to like and yet so enormously flawed, Bennet demonstrates that is the nature of people that they cannot be seen simply in terms of good or bad but that Hector, like everyone, is a shade of grey.

This idea of people as shades of grey is seen again in Irwin, whose feeling for the character Dakin demonstrate how different his word is from his deed.
Irwin has been, thus far, a supremely confident character, who knows exactly what it is he wants to say, who will turn around and convincingly explain that the fourteen foreskins of Christ is a good subject on which to base an essay, but who, when confronted with life, reveals himself to be a nervous and uncertain character. During the scene where Dakin asks him ‘for a drink’ we see a side of Irwin yet unseen, his sentences are short and hesitant, he does not formulate an argument. While this can be largely attributed to his apparent sexual inexperience, especially when compared with Dakin, though equally it is important to realise that he is simply not that character he originally seemed, that his boisterous and know-it-all appearance was a façade to hide a real Irwin who does not have to courage to live as recklessly as his teachings would have you believe. Once again this incongruity between what he preaches and his practice make him a believable and developed character, one who the audience can sympathise with, especially as some could argue the insensitive, arrogant and ‘amoral’ Irwin we have seen previously does not invoke any sympathy from the audience. Once more, by presenting us with characters as real as we are, Bennett encourages his audience to empathise with people and understand the messiness of who we
are.

Finally, a third character who embodies this idea is dear old Posner.
From the beginning, Posner is shown to be something of an outsider to the lives of the other boys, Posner notes that because he ‘was late growing up’ he is ‘not included in this kind of conversation’ here referring to a conversation between Dakin and Scripps about being groped by Hector on the bike, combine this with his poignant and often darkly humorous and self-depreciating lines and the audience cannot help but sympathise with him. Which means that when we learn of Posner’s future, at the end of the play, it bears all the more impact. First, it is in stark contrast to how the other boys have fared after they had left university; after hearing of the success of the other boys Posner’s ‘periodic breakdowns’ carry far more emotional weight; secondly, as Mrs Lintott points out, he is the one who ‘truly took everything to heart’ and, as far as the viewer is concerned, Hector did everything right with Posner; he taught him well, as illustrated at the end of act one, didn’t molest him and encourages him to learn and grow as a human being – ‘He makes you want to [learn poetry], sir.’ And yet, Posner is without a doubt the one who has been least prepared for life. What is the viewer meant to take from this? Is it Hector’s teaching that is at fault? After all, other boys think Hector to be a ‘fool,’ ‘a joke’ and so it is possible that they took Hector’s teachings with a pinch of salt and, as a result, achieved
more from life. Or is it due to Posner’s sheltered life and relative immaturity? Dakin says Posner is ‘too young.’ This exclusion from arguably an essential aspect of growing up could mean that Hector’s ‘antidote’ of ‘sheer calculated silliness’ rather than educate Posner has the opposite effect and harms him because he has not had the “poison.” Of course, it is also possible that simply because he was not suited to university, in Posner’s own words, ‘all the effort went into getting there and then [he] had nothing left.’ It is probable that simply by being a human being with different needs and desires, what allows some to excel (his classmates became ‘pillars of society’), does the opposite for him. Though, whatever the reason for Posner’s deterioration, it makes him a complex and, in some respects, a relatable character, we all have a bit of Posner in us, and it leaves the viewer deeply saddened to see him fall from a promising student, he got a scholarship, after all to a lonely and sad wreck. It makes the viewer appreciate that being alive is as intense and experience for everybody else as it is for us and forces the audience to re-evaluate the way in which they see people and their view their lives. It puts us in others’ shoes and demonstrates that they have the same melting pot of emotions broiling inside them and that we need to understand an honour the beautiful mess that is the human mind.