In both texts, gender and sexuality are presented by the authors as something which is supposed to aid the students in their learning and is a natural component of their education. Miss Brodie, for example, continuously emphasises how important being in her ‘prime’ is to her girls as it is the height of her beauty and allure as a woman. Spark portrays sexuality through this as we are made aware of Brodie’s affairs with Lowther and Lloyd and, as a result of these, Sandy and Jenny begin to explore concepts about sex which shows how Miss Brodie’s teachings about her ‘prime’ lead to the girls’ knowledge expanding regarding sexuality. The highlighted importance of sexuality by Miss Brodie shows how she is not only educating the girls about facts and history, but also helping them to mature from a very young age (which can have grave consequences that we see later through Sandy’s betrayal). Meanwhile, Bennett links sexuality and intelligence throughout the play, as seen through Dakin’s comparison of his seduction of Fiona to the First World War, “she’s my western front.” Through this metaphor we see that the boys are not only making connections between their education and their personal experiences, but also how their sexuality is influencing the way they take in information or apply their knowledge to certain topics. Bennett uses sexuality to present how the boys are maturing and growing, illustrating that it is an important and necessary part of their education which is further echoed in Hector’s declaration that education is an ‘erotic act.’ This also presents the idea that knowledge is a stimulant for sexual desires, emphasising the connection between their education and the boys’ sexuality as with the increase of knowledge, their sexual desires also increase.
The History Boys is a drama in the original form of a play. With it being written as a script to be acted out, we have to rely on the use of dialogue from the characters to convey the whole story. Due to this, it is possible we miss certain details (regarding the way the actors are told to embody a direction) but we are able to see each character’s individual personality and how each of them are affected by the education they receive. For example, Dakin and Posner are two very different characters, with Dakin being proud of his sexuality (flaunting it and bragging about his seductive endeavours) and Posner relying on poetry to convey and solidify his feelings. Posner is also very unsure about his sexuality and seeks out help from Hector, which shows us that the boys look to their teachers for education in more areas than just the curriculum. It enforces the idea that the boys’ sexuality is a key factor in their education and suggests that, in order for the boys to be fully and properly educated, they must also learn about and explore their sexuality. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is written in prose form, so Spark is able to reveal a lot more information to the reader regarding the characters’ inner feelings or details about their personalities, rather than showing it through dialogue. Spark also uses prolepsis quite often in her writing, thereby revealing future events to the reader. An example of this is the repetition of the mention that Rose Stanley “later had a great reputation for sex.” By revealing this to the reader at the beginning of the story when the girls are still in school, the novel hints towards the girls’ sexuality being more prevalent in shaping them as women than their education. It puts an emphasis on the idea that, above all else, sexuality is the main aspect of a person that needs developing, even before education.
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Characters in both texts are shown using the setting of the school to their advantage when exploring their sexuality, which the writers may have done to show that exploring their sexuality is inevitable even when in such a separated or ‘conservative’ place. In The History Boys, this is seen through Dakin’s affair with Fiona and later through his pursuit of Irwin when he asks to ‘go for a drink.’ This gives the idea that since the students are always only around each other and being made to learn, they begin to develop feelings of attraction for their superiors (in terms of the staff members). Where this should be seen as wrong since it is a relationship between a student and a teacher, the boys may not know any different due to their interactions with Hector and his groping of the boys. Similarly, we see this kind of relationship in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when Sandy has an affair with Mr Lloyd, the art teacher. Whilst this can be seen as part of Sandy’s betrayal of Miss Brodie, it also shows that Sandy has been influenced by Miss Brodie not hiding her affairs and which leads to Sandy becoming curious and exploring her own sexuality with the man in love with Miss Brodie. In both texts, it seems as though the school setting is the only place that the students get the chance to explore their sexualities (or rather, with people linked with education) and ideas about sex and that it also increases the students’ curiosity regarding this. With Miss Brodie talking so openly about her ‘prime’ and Hector groping the boys, it seems natural for the students to begin opening up their sexualities and admitting their sexual desires from an early age, which perhaps even happens without their knowledge - and this can be dangerous and lead them to do reckless things, such as having affairs with their teachers.
The History Boys is set in the 1980’s, when the age of sexual consent was sixteen (for heterosexuals, for homosexuals this was twenty one years old). Going by this law, Hector’s actions, whilst still being highly unconventional and wrong, would not be punishable by jail. However, this had reformed to sixteen for all upon the drama’s release. Regardless, in the United Kingdom, anyone under the age of eighteen is considered a child, highlighting Hector’s paedophilia and no doubt disturbing the audience upon the drama’s release in 2004. His ‘groping’ of the boys at the time of publication would have been highly criticised, though in the 1980’s the conduct would have been looked down upon in the sense that it was a teacher being involved with a student - not a teacher harassing a child. This emphasises the idea that the boys’ sexualities are being explored at too early an age and can be seen as being forced out of them. This is what results in Dakin becoming attracted to his teachers to the point that he suggests Irwin and himself become sexually involved. Furthermore, due to the boys being considered adults in the setting of The History Boys, the actions of Hector are more normalised, even to the extent that Dakin willingly gets back onto his motorcycle and accepts the risk of being ‘groped’, if only ‘for old times’ sake.’ Bennett shows the normality of sexuality and how it links with education through the character of Hector and his actions with the boys, but in a deeply disturbing way that brings a sense of disgust and discomfort to the reader.
Alternatively, Spark presents Miss Brodie as a woman who teaches for influence and control rather than directly for sexual awakenings, those being more of a by-product from her teaching methods and the relaying of her personal stories. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is set in the 1930’s, a time when Hitler was rising to power and Mussolini, one of the men Miss Brodie admires, was leading the fascist party. We can see some fascist qualities in Miss Brodie herself, presenting her as a danger to ‘her girls’ with her idea that if you ‘give [her] a girl at an impressionable age...she is [hers] for life.’ This suggests that Miss Brodie knows she can manipulate the girls and uses it to her full advantage, often reminding them of the fact that they are ‘women’ who ‘must’ recognise when they are ‘in one’s prime.’ With Spark portraying Miss Brodie this way, it gives the impression that Miss Brodie is of course dangerous and also creates a sense of worry for the girls. We also see similarities between the men like Mussolini and Hitler as during their reigns they both brainwashed and manipulated the people in their parties and countries to follow their ideals, just like Miss Brodie is doing to ‘her girls.’ By branding them as her own, Miss Brodie is putting a sort of tag on the girls that they belong to her, like objects, which would be against the beliefs of women being strong and independent that Miss Brodie carried and also that feminists today advocate. Spark uses these possessive pronouns to convey Miss Brodie’s attachment to the girls and her determination to make prodigies out of them, as though she is building her own party or ‘army’ of sorts consisting of girls just like her. On the book’s publication in 1969, the public may not have reacted well to this portrayal of Miss Brodie as the effects that the rule of Hitler and Mussolini had on people throughout the world was extremely negative and may have impacted people in the UK as well.
Feminist literary theory suggests that women deserve to be equal to men in all aspects of life, which is scarcely shown in most older forms of literature. Spark portrays feminism in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, though in a slightly contradictory way. Miss Brodie is the epitome of a confident, independent woman who embraces her gender and basks in her own ‘prime’ whilst also shaping the minds of young girls into the way she thinks. She encourages the girls to ‘recognise’ their own ‘prime’, encouraging them to embrace their identity as women. Whilst doing this, however, Miss Brodie also brandishes the girls as her ‘own’, like objects she wishes to control, which is against what feminism calls for. It is exactly the same as women being controlled by men, though in a more subtle way, which can confuse the reader as it doesn’t seem right for a woman who believes in feminism to contradict her own beliefs by doing this. Miss Brodie is also depicted as a great leader for her girls, despite Sandy’s betrayal of her, and is a good symbol for non-conformity. Through Miss Brodie’s teachings and her efforts to make the girls the ‘crème de la crème’, we see how exactly she is raising the girls to be exactly like her as Mr Lloyd begins to paint her girls, yet somehow the portraits always, ‘in a magical transfiguration’, resemble Brodie. This suggests that Miss Brodie was a strong female presence in Lloyd’s life that left a great impact and emphasises the likeness of Miss Brodie to the girls.
In The History Boys, Bennett portrays the lack of equality for women in the 1980’s through Mrs Lintott’s character. Mrs Lintott is referred to as ‘Totty’, a nickname which implies a sexually desirable girl or woman, which detracts from her position of authority as a teacher to the boys and a professional worker in general. The use of the nickname can be used to stereotype women as nothing more than objects of sexual desire, suggesting that even in schools the female teachers are still treated as though they have no other purpose than to please. It is also suggested that Mrs Lintott has less value than the male teachers as the headmaster wants a completely new teacher who is ‘young’ and has a ‘moustache’ rather than allowing Mrs Lintott, who knows the boys, to teach them herself even if she may be just as qualified. The idea that a man would be a better teacher than a woman emphasises the lack of equality between the genders and shows that gender was a very important aspect in school life; a man would help the students advance more than a woman would. The fact that the students are repeatedly referred to as ‘the boys’ enforces the stereotype that ‘boys will be boys’, which was used to excuse the degradation of women through sexual harassment and also the undermining girls and women. Dakin’s own degradation of Fiona with his statement that her body is ‘ground’ to be ‘reconnoitered’ shows this element of boyish misogyny and the way women were only regarded as important when it came to sex or when they would boost the appearance of a man, like a trophy. Mrs Lintott voices her view on this when she says that history is just ‘women following behind with the bucket’, again highlighting a stereotype that women are made only for cleaning and taking care of men. Bennett is using gender here to display a clear hierarchy that has been dominant for many years in the education system and is now being demolished and proved wrong as women gain deserved equality with men.
In conclusion, both texts present the clear idea that gender and sexuality have more importance in education than just general facts and knowledge through the exploration of the students’ sexual personas which are influenced by not only their surroundings, but the adults who are teaching them. In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the eccentricities of Miss Brodie’s character and her willingness to show the girls how to embrace their identities causes the girls to grow up somewhat in a similar way to her and experiment with their sexuality throughout their school life. The girls are also never told by Miss Brodie that they will be looked down upon because of their gender, but that they should take pride in being a woman and utilise their own ‘prime’. This is contrasted in The History Boys, however, when Mrs Lintott admits that she is seen as lesser due to her gender. Despite this, both authors successfully convey the primacy of gender and sexuality over education and how it is a natural and necessary part of education.
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