Main Theme of History Boys: Analytical Essay

Throughout the play Bennett has made Dakin to appear the most confident and self- assured out of the boys but the audience later find out that this is just an act to cover up his vulnerability. An underlying theme in the history boys is sexuality and throughout the play the audience see that Posner is the only boy that is completely open about his sexuality and struggles with the stigma in 1980’s. Posner and Dakin both have different personalities that contrast with each other but I think that their emotions in the play are undermined which has led me to feel sympathy for them.

Dakin is commonly seen as a straight alpha male character. With little observation Bennett makes Dakin come across as a shallow and self-absorbed character but in reality, he uses this to hide his insecurities and vulnerability. In the first few parts of the play he talks about his relationship with the headmaster’s secretary, Fiona.’ She’s my Western Front’¦ and the beauty of it is, the metaphor really fits. I mean, just as moving up to the front-line troops presumably had to pass the sites of previous battles.’ Bennetts method is to give Dakin an extended war metaphor to refer to his one-sided relationship with Fiona. The sentence ‘moving up to the front-line troops.’ Suggests that Dakin only sees Fiona as land to be conquered. This makes me feel pity on Dakin as further on into the play we find out that he only boasts about Fiona to try and justify his alpha male character to his friends and objectifies her to add on to the illusion of him being a dominant heterosexual male. This adds on to me feeling sympathy for him because behind the mask of confidence he has made, is a young boy who is possibly struggling with their sexuality. Through the play Bennett shows Dakin slowly express his feelings for Irwin. But he only uses little hints such as. ‘bring a little sunshine into his life. It’s only a wank, after all.’ This paints a picture to the audience that Dakin does find Irwin attractive and likes him in a sexual way, but doesn’t want anything serious to escalate from it.’ bring a little sunshine into his life.’ Shows that Dakin is still trying to be seen as an arrogant, self-centred character by the rest of the boys. I think Bennett’s method is to make the audience more aware of Dakin’s sceptical sexuality. It also points to the fact that Dakin needs help as he is struggling with his sexuality since he makes it into a joke about ‘bringing a little sunshine into his life.’ To attempt to conceal his vulnerability and reassert the dominance back to him.

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Posner is a representation of what it is like to be an openly homosexual boy in the 1980s, Bennett expresses Posner as an isolated and helpless teen. ‘I’m a Jew. I’m small. I’m homosexual and I live in Sheffield. I’m fucked.’ In this, Bennett uses short sentences I think he uses this method as it emphasises the anger of how Posner feels and makes the audience feel sympathy as it draws attention to the hassle Posner goes through and what he will encounter in the future. This could be one of Bennett’s methods to try foreshadow a unfavourable future for Posner. The repetition of the word ‘I’m’ connotes that Posner has a lot of hatred towards himself and highlights the fact that he is a lonely and detached character plus the fact that he is going through these problems alone. This makes me feel sympathy for Posner as it displays how much of an outcast he is feels compared to the boys moreover it helps the audience envision how hard life is like to be in Posner’s shoes: an openly gay teen in the 1980s. in the play Posner illustrates the feeling of not being at home and amplifies this by reciting the ‘drummer Hodge poem.’ Bennetts method in this is to give Posner a poem which is used to reciprocate how he is feeling. A line in the poem says ‘its homely northern breast and brain grow to some southern tree.’ This is about not feeling at home which links to how Posner feels. I also think Bennett in this scene tries to show a close relationship between hector and Posner, Posner being a stand in for drummer Hodge in the conversation and hector for the poet Thomas Hardy. Posner is a boy navigating his own difficulties in life, while hector is a skilled interpreter of literature, giving Posner some guiding principles to live by. In this scene of the play both of the men discuss their frustrated desires, where they share the same feeling of failure and being a social outsider, I think this is largely because of their homosexual desires. Bennett shows in this scene that Posner looks up to hector as a role model and this makes me feel empathetic for Posner as this is one of the many scenes we see of him expressing a glimpse of how he feels and how sad his life is.

Furthermore, this leads into act 2 when the audience find out the inadequate fate Posner ended up with. In the scene, Mrs Lintott turns to Posner, who she says is the ‘only person who truly took everything to heart.’ Posner lives a reclusive life in a cottage, having ‘periodic breakdowns.’ He reads a lot at the library, and lives a shadow life online, and has many friends. This suggests that Posner remains an outsider and doesn’t balance the drive for worldly success that Irwin tried to instil in him but has obviously understood hectors teachings in a way that the other boys do not. This makes me feel sympathy for Posner as it adds on to the fact he is still unhappy and alone, plus it shows that he is still not accepted in society and doesn’t fit in. ‘he has a host of friends’¦ though only on the internet.’ This emphasises my point of Posner still not being able to fit in and shows how he has detached himself from reality, isolating himself from social interactions with people. I think Bennett’s method is to portray the fact that openly gay homosexuals in the 1980s were withdrawn and lonesome since this was a topic that was dismissedignored back then.