The
History Boys
Akthar, Crowther, Dakin, Lockwood, Posner,
Rudge, Scripps and Timms are the ‘History Boys’, the best
and brightest at Cutler’s Grammar School, chosen to pursue the
academic Holy Grail of a place at Oxford or Cambridge. Like most teenage
boys, they are preoccupied with sport and sex but for the next term,
their adolescent urges must be shelved as they prepare for the gauntlet
of written and oral examinations that will decide their future.
The
embers of the boys’ ambitions are fanned into flame by a Headmaster
who is determined to usher them into the hallowed halls of Oxbridge
not so much for their own benefit as to earn himself a place in the
league table and so, into the record books. His students are not children
of wealth and privilege and their academic achievements represent a
potential triumph for the school and by extension, himself. But his
History Boys, however bright they may be, lack ‘flair’.
Without consulting the other members of staff, the Headmaster hires
Irwin, recently arrived from Oxford, to whip the boys into shape for
their entrance exams and ensure that Cutler’s Grammar does not
miss this opportunity for glory.
Irwin’s
arrival and with it, an aggressive academic ethos that favours spin
and winning over traditional scholarship and learning, immediately creates
unease in the staffroom. Hector, the English teacher appointed to coach
the boys in General Studies, is dealt the hardest blow. A maverick instructor
whose methods range from the mildly eccentric to the downright scandalous,
Hector is indulged by the boys. His flights of fancy and wandering hands
are regarded by his students as harmless. Although they tease him mercilessly
and can’t say precisely what he is teaching in his scattershot
way, the boys like Hector and sense that they are learning from him.
Hector’s
ally is Mrs Lintott. Her history classes are old-fashioned, and by-the-book,
packed with names and dates that the boys must know by heart in order
to pass tests. Lintott knows that her methods are dull but she believes
them to be sound and the boys respect her authority.
Irwin
immediately nails his colours to the mast, taking the History Boys out
of their Physical Education class and away from their Bible-quoting
P.E. instructor to deliver a lecture about their infinitesimal chances
of getting into to the top universities if they don’t learn a
few tricks. The boys file out of this first lesson muttering about the
new teacher but he has struck a nerve and by the second class, they
are listening intently as Irwin instructs them to jettison the facts
in favour of arguments that will dazzle the eye of a jaded examiner.
Dakin
is troubled by Irwin’s classes and frustrated in his efforts to
win the new teacher’s approval. A good-looking boy with the primal
instinct to seduce anything that crosses his path (including the Headmaster’s
secretary, Fiona) Dakin suspects that his charms are lost on Irwin in
a way they are not lost on others - Hector, for example, or Dakin’s
classmate Posner who worships him from afar (the youngest boy and a
late-developer, Posner nevertheless has a precocious understanding of
his place in the universe).
Irwin
is intrigued by the boys’ ability to call on vaguely apposite
morsels of poetry for every occasion (‘gobbets’ as he calls
them) and while they initially echo Hector, protesting that a poem has
no purpose, they soon come around to Irwin’s goal-oriented way
of thinking. The shift in their loyalties is demonstrated on a class
outing to an ancient abbey when the boys follow their young master through
the ruins, leaving Hector and Mrs Lintott behind.
Although
Hector’s groping while giving them a lift on the motorbike is
tolerated by the boys (they are old enough to know to block his advances
with a well-placed book), when he is spotted by a lollipop lady and
reported to the Headmaster, Hector’s fate is sealed. He is advised
that he will not be returning for another term and furthermore, that
half of his classes will now be turned over to Irwin.
Hector doesn’t rise to his own defence except to suggest that
the transmission of knowledge is in itself an erotic act. This is rejected
outright by the Headmaster and a deflated Hector returns to his classroom.
Posner is there, waiting for a lesson. Hector expertly leads the boy
through a poignant recitation of Hardy’s poem, Drummer Hodge.
Mrs
Lintott petitions the Headmaster to let Hector work out his time but
she leaves without further argument upon learning the charges against
him. Dakin and Scripps also discuss Hector’s dismissal which Dakin
has, of course, learned of from his girlfriend, the Headmaster’s
secretary.
The
day of reckoning draws closer. The boys rehearse their interviews with
Lintott, Irwin and Hector standing in as examiners. Hector is shouted
down when he suggests that the students should just try telling the
truth. It falls to Rudge, a talented rugby player widely assumed to
be the boy least likely to succeed, to sum up what they have learned
in the preceding months of feverish study.
Having
established (through a discussion about the life and works of WH Auden)
that Irwin might be susceptible to his charms after all, Dakin waits
for him in the schoolyard. Irwin, however, is clever enough to turn
the attempted seduction into a history lesson and Dakin is overjoyed
when the new teacher seems impressed with his “subjunctive”
interpretation of historical events.
The
boys head off to their interviews at Oxford and Cambridge. Hector, Lintott
and Irwin wave them goodbye and remain behind for meetings with the
Headmaster in which Hector’s future is revealed.
The
boys marvel at the opulence of the campus and college buildings. Dakin
stops in to see the porter at the college Irwin attended and is surprised
to learn there is no record of Irwin’s name. Rudge finds his own
name rings a bell with a member of the board of examiners.
At
last, the envelopes arrive, announcing what fate lies in store for the
eight star students of Cutler’s Grammar School. The results are
a triumph for the Headmaster and a vindication of Irwin’s teaching
methods.
Returning
to school, Dakin again corners Irwin, this time knowing he has the upper
hand. Irwin tells the truth about his ‘time’ at Oxford.
In a spirit of gratitude and fellowship (and using a part of speech
that would please Hector) Dakin suggests that Irwin might like to perform
fellatio on him. A rendezvous is fixed for the following Sunday. When
Dakin later recounts the episode to Scripps, the churchgoing Scripps
is dubious. Although he admires Dakin’s élan, Scripps thinks
that a magazine subscription or a box of chocolates would be a more
appropriate ‘thank you’ for a favourite teacher.
Scripps
is even more intrigued as he follows Dakin to the office where Dakin
quizzes the Headmaster in matters of moral relativism. Is a teacher
who attempts to feel up a boy on a motorbike really any worse than a
headmaster who attempts to feel up his secretary, Dakin wonders? Invoking
the dismissal of Cardinal Wolsey to lend historical weight to his argument,
Dakin is chased out of the Headmaster’s office but very soon,
Hector is reinstated.
The
celebration will be short-lived: although his passenger will recover,
Hector will not survive his last journey on the motorbike. The boys
will go on with their studies and from there, most of them will go on
to other things. Irwin will find an ideal medium for his brand of scholarship.
‘History’,
as Rudge would say, is ‘just one fucking thing after another’.
