The “Commodification of Education”: Alan Bennett’s "The History Boys" (2004)

 

The “Commodification of Education”:  Alan Bennett’s The History Boys

 

Social Mobility

Initially, Alan Bennett’s play The History Boys (2004) explores the intricacies of social aspiration with Bennett asserting that it broadly reflects his own particularly painful teenage experiences.  The play is set in  the 1980s in “Cutler’s”, a Yorkshire grammar school which seeks to give its largely working class students the educational benefits that Bennett himself experienced, and the chance to achieve social mobility by gaining a coveted Oxbridge place.  IN the introduction to the Faber & Faber 2004 edition, Bennett identifies himself with the character of Posner, an innocent yet intellectually precocious boy with an unbroken voice, painfully in love with the sexually confident Dakin. Posner’s Jewishness sets him apart even more than his choirboy demeanour, but like all his provincial classmates, he is pushed hard by a school desperate for status. Bennett, understanding the outsider, explores the price that must be paid to compete successfully. Despite winning an Oxbridge place Posner is a casualty of the education system; in later life “he lives alone in a cottage he has renovated himself, has an allotment and periodic breakdowns”.

Intellectual Chameleons

A group of Cutler’s students are set upon gaining Oxbridge entry, “bettering themselves” by becoming “more rounded”.  Like their teachers, the boys realise that there is more to “betterment” than knowledge, although they are unable to articulate this in any detail.  Bennett understands the naively imprecise notion of their aspiration. In 1951, when he was  interviewed at Cambridge for a highly prized university place, he became aware of the gulf in social class and manners between himself and the over-confident boys from public schools; “…we grammar schoolboys were the interlopers; these slobs, they seemed to me, the party in possession.” (Bennett, 2005) There was nothing in the behaviour of his “betters” to aspire to, which deflated much of his purpose.  He saw their easy passage and ultimate reward as “simply a certificate waiting in a pigeonhole” (ibid.) and realised, intellectually at least, that he was far from inferior.  He knew that in order to achieve any sort of acceptance, he must adapt rather than improve.  Bennett therefore presents Cutler’s students as having to be like himself, intellectual chameleons who had todisguise their social and cultural shortcomings in order to sneak into an exclusive club they believed they wanted to join but whose rules they barely grasped.

Addressing Failings

In The History Boys, this institutionalised sense of inadequacy is the starting point for the school. Facing stiff competition from more notable public schools for prized Oxbridge places, the students’ cultural shortcomings are acknowledged and condemned as, at best, inescapably bourgeois. Cutler’s School needs to both disguise and circumvent these failings. Three teachers share this task.  Firstly, Lintott delivers the A level History syllabus factually and meticulously.  Then, Hector, via “General Studies” attempts to broaden and deepen the boys’ outlooks (and Oxbridge chances) by instilling an abstract appreciation of art, poetry and music.  Thirdly, Irwin, appointed to address these failings, works cynically.  He focuses on the boys’ exam techniques in an attempt to both second guess Oxbridge examiners and impress them in examinations and at interview.

Concealing Inferiorities

Lintott’s approach is sound but unimaginative.  The head recognises this, but seems unable to identify exactly what more he requires from his staff.  Initially, Hector’s “General Studies” seemed to fit the bill, embellishing Lintott’s content-based approach with wider cultural references.  Hector’s philosophy is to accentuate the romantic and aesthetic, referencing Hardy, Wilde, and, more specifically, Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”.   Keats’ esoteric demand for personal integrity encapsulates and inspires Hector’s disdain for practicality. Unfortunately, this proves to be less successful than the head had anticipated, largely because Hector’s references, while engaging, are too abstract and are often culturally alien.  Contradicting Hector and rejecting the subjectivity that a romantic approach demands, Irwin disdains any value placed on personal “truth” by emphasising practicality.  Enraging Hector, Irwin encourages detachment, pushing the students to adopt a variety of objective positions and opinions and to argue both for and against unlikely scenarios (“History is not a matter of conviction”) if they are to enter the lottery of Oxbridge acceptance with any hope of success.  It is within this context of  the need to conceal apparent inferiorities through deception (“ a dialectical debriefing”) that the other central theme of the play takes shape: the nature, function and purpose of education itself.

A Patina of Culture

Bennett lines up his forces deftly.  While Felix, the headmaster, is happy to support Hector’s work making acceptable reconstructions of the boys he is, ironically, obsessed with the empirical “truth” of data.  He wants to measure success; hopefully, in increased numbers of Oxbridge places.  The single-mindedness of the headmaster’s campaign reflects Bennett’s despair at a league-table culture of ticked boxes.  The boys’ “A” levels may be “excellent”, but the head insists on more.  Unfortunately, obsessed with appearance, he cannot find ways to disguise his disdain for morality. He seems prepared to go to any educationally dubious lengths to enable the students to be recognised as “renaissance men”. Felix vaguely demands that they acquire a patina of “culture” to succeed at interview.

Hector’s quest for truth and beauty recognises the first of these criteria but not the second. His use of Broadway show tunes, Stevie Smith poetry and philosophical quotations emphasises personal growth, not units of currency to be exchanged for Oxbridge acceptance.  He reacts strongly to Irwin’s calling such experiences “gobbets”.  Hector’s work in developing less cognitive, more quirky and “interesting” attitudes is primarily random and, essentially, not measurable. He offers outlandish creative scenarios to enable the boys to contextualise and culturally revise Ms. Lintott’s “facts”.  “You give them an education.  I give them the wherewithal to resist it.”

 Recurring Unpredictability

Hector’s lofty tone indicates his intellectual superiority, but alienates him from the unimaginative head as it does not produce tangible results.  Bennett’s positive presentation of Hector’s vulnerable and fragile idealism is seen as weakness by Felix.  Hector advocates an impossibly ideal life lived for spiritual growth rather than for work and wages. He takes the moral high ground. By introducing Irwin’s cynical machinations as a counterpoint, Bennett cleverly ensures that Hector’s conviction and integrity ethically outweigh any other shortcomings, positioning Hector’s heartfelt yet highbrow aspirations above his all-too-human frailties. Posner’s sympathy towards Hector and his methods, seen in a one-to-one discussion of a tender Hardy poem, indicate where Bennett’s sympathies lie; Bennett sees himself in Posner’s character: “I wince to hear my own voice” (Bennett, 2005).  Interestingly, this relationship owes much to the bond between the sensitive pupil, Taplow, and the strict classics master, Crocker-Harris, depicted in Rattigan’s “The Browning Version”.  

While Hector insists on acknowledging intangible yet fundamental truths, Irwin appeals more to the boys’ pragmatism and flexibility.  While Hector forces the boys towards aesthetic judgements which are at odds with their experiences, Irwin teaches that such “truths” are not fixed and can be exploited for gain. Yet while Hector scorns Irwin’s base practicality, Irwin accepts and understands the philosophy behind Hector’s intentions, recognising that it makes his own work easier.

Sexual Tensions

Bennett’s exploration of sexual tensions at Cutler’s functions to mirror aspects of the play’s educational debate.  Hector, ironically named after a classical hero, seems to adopt the role of a Greek “erastes”; an older man responsible for the all-round education of older post-pubescent boys in his charge. Bennett creates him as a pederast, deemed acceptable for “erastes” in ancient Greece. Hector therefore sees his ministrations as a “benediction”, or a display of patronage, rather than an assault; the amused responses of the class encourage Hector to pretend to himself that his action is in keeping with a classical tradition and is neither sexual or threatening.  This notion is supported by his avoidance of Posner, the one student to openly express homosexual desire. Bennett here suggests that Hector believes that his intentions are, to a degree, honourable in that they are aimed at those he knows are unlikely to want to respond.   Irwin reveals his sexuality when Dakin rejects both Hector’s physical “benediction” and educational influence.   Dakin’s sexual advances to Irwin, who characteristically has chosen to conceal the “truth” of his nature, represent Dakin’s rejection of Hector’s pedagogy.  Irwin struggles to maintain professional distance; like his university career and teaching philosophy, his sexuality is ambiguously veiled in order to suggest a range of possible truths.

Imaginative or Utilitarian?

As Hector insists that the boys divest themselves of their inherently utilitarian, bourgeois aspirations, Irwin seizes upon these very qualities and suggests that Hector’s esoteric beliefs can be turned to their advantage.  They will impress when exploited carefully. If, echoing Wilde, Hector argues that all art must necessarily be useless, Irwin gives these lofty ideals a context and a purpose that the boys can understand.  

Exploiting much of Hector’s foundation, Irwin’s principles are successful, and all the boys achieve an Oxbridge place.  Yet Bennett, examining his own personal development, questions the cost.  Hector’s cultural elitism may have been aimed at awakening and valuing personal truths.  Bennett, however, seems to imply that this is overshadowed and devalued by Irwin’s approach, very much a product of the 80s, a time of profit seeking and utilitarianism.   His cynicism resonates successfully with the practical natures of the boys when he downplays high ideals and integrity in favour of opportunism.  Hector acknowledges that Irwin’s superficiality will lead the boys to develop successful mental agility, but despairs that the price is moral ambiguity. 

An Ambiguous Hero

Bennett’s implication is that only by applying the weight of Hector’s culture to Irwin’s cynicism can the boys can find balance and success. Yet despite identifying the importance of combining the two approaches, Bennett cannot help but tacitly favour the purity of Hector’s liberal humanitarianism, despite- or perhaps because of- all his flaws. This results in Irwin becoming an unlikely villain, a representative of dissimilation by default. He does not oppose Hector, but undermines him, which has a more profound effect.  Hector is killed carrying Irwin on his motorbike; Irwin leant the “wrong way” and unbalanced the machine.  In educational terms, Hector’s “useless” philosophy has, effectively, been killed off.  Yet despite his undoubted altruism, Irwin does not triumph. He is badly injured and moves from Cutler’s into a “government” post via flashy history documentaries on television.  Irwin’s approach is journalism, not education.  Dakin, Irwin’s greatest admirer, becomes a “tax lawyer”. The future of education seems unclear.  We do not see who replaces Hector and Irwin.

The winner is the headmaster, a manager/accountant whose motivation is for survival, for whom students exist as pieces of data.  He measures success in Oxbridge places gained rather than in addressing individual emotional and spiritual needs.  He parades as an educationalist but is in fact the antithesis of education.  He is a liar, a fool and a sex-pest, but nevertheless seems to be steering the school successfully towards meeting quantifiable targets.  The future actions of the school are not clear, but Bennett clearly believes that education in the 1980s has become a shabby contributor to Thatcher’s free-market Britain. The head’s disingenuously smug speech at Hector’s memorial service adds insult to injury by heaping empty praise upon his now-defunct ways.  There is no doubt that a philistine, utilitarian philosophy is in the ascendency.  Bennett’s own words indicate that the end of the play is deliberately depressing: “I have no time for an ideology masquerading as pragmatism that would strip the state of its benevolent functions.” (Bennett, 2005)

 

Further Reading:

Alan Bennett “Untold Stories”  Faber & Faber 2005

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