Playing With Time - The History Boys

Playing With Time

 

At first glance 'The History Boys' seems like a typical Alan Bennett's  style of work: where many of his plays are a one location at a specific period of time. However, when looking deeper into 'The History Boys' Alan explores many aspects into their lives such as relationships, and a variety of sexual expressions among the teachers and students. This is show through a number of flashbacks and flash-forwards.

Flash-forwards

The first flash-forward we see in the play is in Irwin's opening monologue, where he is 'in a wheelchair, in his forties'. We then discover that this is a flash-forward when throughout the rest of the play he is around twenty-five and is able to walk, the circumstances of his paralysis is not clear until the end of the play. The flash-forward technique is used throughout the play and are usually quick dialogue changes between the boys, Timms says:

 

'The hitting never hurt. It was a joke. None of us cared. We lapped it up.'

There is a sudden change in tense which may surprise some of the audience. From this quote we realize that the hitting must come from the teacher, Hector. 

Scripps' 'narrative' voice

This technique is used mainly by one of the boys, Scripps as he observes the arrival of the new teacher, Irwin. 

'I'd been on playground duty, so I saw him on what must have been his first morning..' 

Scripps takes on narrative role. Scripps is not one of the main characters which makes him great for this role as we can see his point of view from him narrating throughout.

Casting a shadow

There is a shadow throughout the play which becomes darker as the story progresses. At the start of Act 2 there is another flash-forward of 'about five years' where Irwin is back in his wheelchair, which makes us think we havent got long left until his accident. in the flash-forward Irwin meets one of the students, identified as 'Man'. this represents the passing of time as throughout the play the term mostly used is 'boy'. The man is Posner, who is now in therapy and desperately clinging to his past.

'All the effort went into getting there and then i had nothing left.'

Posner finally see's how after school there is still other challenges that lie beyond and he is now not ready to face them and misses the security of school.

 

The end of the play

Eventhough the fate of Irwin is foreshadowed throughout and we expect something to happen, we dont expect the fate of Hector who is killed in the same motorcycle accident that paralysed Irwin. Scripps' narration of the accident is followed throughout Hector's funeral, and speak about the many theories of why the accident did happen and whether or not it was Irwin's fault they crashed as he had never been on a motorcycle before. Mrs Lintott can be seen to step outside linear time to present some of the future of the boys:

 

'They became solicitors, chartered accountants, teachers even ...'

 

Mrs Lintott may take the role of retrospective narrator because like Scripps, she has been an outsider, describing her separation from the male environment of the play as she is the only female character throughout.

 

 

History and Literature

The timescale of events withing The History Boys are thought to be about twenty years but may be wider period of time as Bennet includes historical and literary incluences in the characters. Bennet uses intertextuality to achieve this. The use of intertextuality is used through poety which is mostly by Hector. Bennet uses this to show the concerns of the characters. For example, Thomas Hardy's 'Drummer Hodge' is used to show the connection between Hector and Posner.

 

 

Posner: How old was he?
Hector: If he was a drummer, he would be a young soldier, younger than you probably.
Posner: No. Hardy.
Hector: Oh, how old was Hardy? When he wrote this, about sixty. My age, I suppose.

 

Although there is a different between age, Hector and Posner both become linked to Dummer Hodge and Hardy. This then leads to a discussion about loneliness and isolation.

 

 

 

Layers of time

The use of Philip Larkin's 'MCMXIV' expands the idea of connections through time even further. In the play the boys show their skill at recital throught reading the poem one after another. The play is from the early 21st century but is set in the 1980s and using a poem from the 1960s which describes 1914. The play suggests that we can learn things about the future of our own lives from the literature left from decades and centuries ago. Hector describes this as 'pass it on'.

 

The intertextual refrences continue throughtout the play. Historical and literary refrences move from WW1 in Act 1 to WW2 in Act 2 and includes topics such as the Holocaust which reflects the darker side of the play. Humor is also used throughout to get through the more uncomfortable moments such as the physical relationship between Hector and the boys and Irwin and Dakin.

 

 

The boys, their education and their teachers are moving into their future yet history is a main part of their characters, personalities and their lives now. As the accident is set in motion, Scripps notes:

 

' And here, history rattled over the points...'

Alan Bennet shows the boys' transformation from school to university and shows the long lines of railway which stretches backward and forwards from their past and their future.