Comparing Hector and Irwin

Compare 2 different teachers from ‘The History Boys’ and explore the way they are presented using quotations and reference to linguistic techniques

Both Hector and Irwin have very different approaches to education and how students should be taught. Despite the generation gap suggesting that Hector, the older individual, should have a sterner, traditional approach to learning and Irwin, the younger man, should have a more liberal attitude, the roles are in fact reversed.

Hector is motivated by the desire to feed knowledge to his students just for the sake of knowing it: ‘all knowledge is precious, whether or not it serves the slightest human use’. In contrast, this is very different to the Headmaster’s utilitarian view and Mrs Lintott’s teaching method of ‘force-feeding facts’. Hector teaches his students to his own curriculum of ancient literature and language, whereas Irwin strictly teaches what is needed in the exam.

Irwin believes that education is a temporary, disposable concept. Education isn't something for when his students are ‘old and grey and sitting by the fire’. It’s for an exam in a month’s time and after that, what they have learnt will be useless. Similarly, he teaches his students to ‘get through’ an exam, as if his only purpose of educating young people is so that they can pass an examination, so that they have the knowledge and facts that will cause them to ‘not fail’. In other words, he is teaching them not to fail an exam, rather than to exceed in life- which is what Hector is trying to do.

However, Bennett destabilises the truth with little or no distinction between who the ‘bad’ character is and who the ‘good’ character is. Although Bennett has the audience discover later in the play that Irwin is not the well-intentioned young supply teacher he is presented to be originally (he is employed to try and help the boys succeed after all). The audience also discover that Hector is physically inappropriate with his students and uses his love of literature and history to try and excuse his actions.

The eccentric English teacher frequently switches from speaking English to French ('Last time was the last time also...I, too. Non. Absolument non.')  and this suggests that Bennett is trying to make Hector cover up something and try to keep secrets. This makes Hector difficult to understand and the audience feel as though he’s hiding something, which is eventually found out to be true. As well as this, Hector is first presented in the play by Bennett as someone dressed in motorcycle leathers, which is unusual of a stereotypical teacher, and the students removing his clothing one by one. The stage directions showing this specify that each boy removes an item (of clothing) which could be Bennett's way of representing that it is specifically the students that dismantle his pretentious façade and not a particular event or period in time. The students are the reason he has the armour on in the first place and also the reason it is taken away.

Not only does this scene show him to be a secretive person, it could also be seen as Bennett showing foreshadowing for what happens later on in the play: Hector being stripped of his pretentious, skewed morals and shown for the person he really is- a paedophile who justifies himself with norms in the past and turns his students into anti-conformists so that he has more control of them. It could also be said that as Hector is traditionally a heroic name, Bennett's character is hiding behind his misleading name as well as his inappropriate behaviour.

He tells the impressionable students that 'outside his classroom they are slaves' and that inside it, they are ‘free’; allowed to say anything they want and to express themselves however they see fit. During the brothel scene, Hector gives Dakin a lie to tell regarding what they are really doing in their lesson so that the headmaster won't get suspicious. He also says in French 'Tell our dear headmaster what you are doing' almost as if to normalise the situation. This is Bennett's way of showing Hector's calculating way of turning the students bitter towards the outside world and his way of making them feel more comfortable with him: "Whatever I do in this room is a token of my trust. I am in your hands." In this way, it’s his false pretence of respect (calling the students ‘sir’) that allows Hector to manipulate the students into thinking that what happens to them when on ‘pillion duty’ is acceptable, and that they are the ones that are in control when they are with him.

On the other hand, Irwin is not entirely innocent himself. Bennett shows him as being associated with ruins and ruination, first at the beginning of the play when he is seen in a wheelchair and next when he is at the abbey. This could be seen as a way of subtly telling the readers that something in Irwin is ‘broken’ or decrepit. It could also be argued that Bennett is showing Irwin as someone who causes destruction as well as someone whose personality is influenced by it, as in the play, as soon as Irwin starts teaching the students, he loses control. Just as Hector uses inappropriate humour (the brothel scene) to try and interest the students, it doesn't take long before Irwin catches onto this way of teaching and starts referencing the 'fourteen foreskins of Christ'. It could be that Bennett is trying to tell the audience that just as Irwin is trying to mimic Hector's way of teaching, even if it's only to get the boys' attention, Irwin is also going to act inappropriately with his students, just as Hector did.


 In the narrative at the beginning of the play, Irwin, the teacher turned TV Historian, is trying to take basic human rights away without the British Public noticing. For the audience, the jump from the Irwin who is trying to get students into Oxbridge into the one who is trying to win around MPs is so massive because it’s only later on in the play that we see the more deceitful character come to light. This is shown when Irwin is telling the students about how it would be more beneficial to lie about certain degrees of their personalities and interests in order to get into Oxford (‘of course, you can make it seem like you’re telling the truth’). Even though Irwin lies, he’s honest about lying and the impact it has on both him and the situation on hand. Bennett portrays him as knowing that he’s being deceitful but he never tries to take the blame off himself or cover it up with lies which Hector was doing to try and excuse his behaviour.

Alternatively, Hector is dishonest about being honest. He uses what was acceptable in other time periods such as ‘The transmission of knowledge is in itself an erotic act. In the Renaissance…” to try to deflect the blame away from him and to try and justify his actions. When before his character seemed almost endearing and wise as he dropped in random pieces of knowledge, Bennett now shows him as being someone quite pretentious and cowardly, hiding behind his own words in order to avoid telling the truth. It could be said that he has force-fed himself ‘reasons’ for allowing his behaviour to continue just as the students have choked down the knowledge they need to get into university. As well as this, just as Hector has previously ignored the rules for hitting Timms in the past, he’s also ignored the rules for engaging in inappropriate behaviour and just as hitting students would have been acceptable many years ago, the rule on relationships with students has also become outdated, which both Hector and Irwin find difficult to grasp.




Inside the classroom as well as personality wise, the two men both have very different styles of teaching. Bennett shows Hector as not using exercise books in his teaching but as being more histrionic, for example by using music (Paif plays at the beginning of the brothel scene) to try and engage the students as well as give them the impression that they are in a safe, relaxed environment where they are encouraged to be open about their thoughts. He also lets the students decide what they want to learn, such as on the occasion when he uses language to try and manipulate the boys: 'Where would you like to work today?' However, this means that the students aren't always learning about things that are necessary, shown when the students are speaking French even though that is not something that is going to be in the exam. This further reinforces the idea that Hector sees education as being for knowledge, not exams, as learning a foreign language is both useful and rewarding. This is something that Irwin would never do, so Bennett is reiterating that the two teachers both have very different attitudes to education. This gives the impression that Hector has been created as being a person with the mentality that no subject is off limits and there are no boundaries, which as we know is a representation of both his method of teaching and his relationship with the students.






Irwin, on the other hand, is the complete polar opposite. Bennett makes Irwin uses exercise books in the stage directions, shown when he is throwing exercise books onto the desk, and this histrionic gesture is also symbolic of reality coming down with a bang. After the freedom of Hector's classroom, the students are now being jolted into real life with the sharp crash of exercise books hitting the table. Irwin also uses bathos to try and belittle Dakin as Bennett presents Dakin as having a very high opinion of himself, and the teacher's use of bathos knocks him off his pedestal a little. Dakin is very used to being showered with praise and admired by everyone who knows him, for example Hector and Posner, so when Irwin refers to his essay as 'the dullest of the lot', it's embarrassing for him and this could be an explanation as to why Dakin then goes on to desire Irwin's attention so much: because he wants to impress him and make Irwin have a high opinion of him as well as everyone else. Leading on from this, when Dakin ceases to impress Irwin with his intellectual ability, he starts to use his physical appearance to try and get positive attention from Irwin. Although Dakin is portrayed as being very full of himself and very over-confident, Irwin somehow manages to make Dakin feel insecure, and this is a feeling Dakin isn't familiar with ('I don't know why I want to impress him so much'). In this way, Irwin is walking precariously on the teacher-student boundary line so he has this in common with Hector, although Hector has clearly crossed the line long before Irwin arrived.






As a contrast of Hector's attitude to exams and education, Irwin is very much motivated by his desire that the students do well in their exam and because of this, sticks very strictly to the school curriculum. Whereas Hector taught his students pop-culture references of the 1980s and taught them how to talk to a prostitute at a brothel in French, Bennett has Irwin mention examiners frequently as a constant reminder that the boys are being taught for an exam grades: phrases like 'think bored examiners' reiterate that the boys are being taught to show off and get on the good side of the examiners, as if that will improve their performance in the exam.



































In conclusion, Hector and Irwin are both very different teachers with contrasting ideas about education and how children should be taught. One believes in teaching to an exam curriculum and the other believes in learning just for the sake of having knowledge. But both teachers have behaved inappropriately with students at times: Hector on the motorcycle and Irwin as he started to develop a crush on Dakin. They are both manipulative; one is just a lot more honest about it than the other.
Bennett destabilises the truth for the audience, presenting neither as good nor bad as they both have good qualities. For example, Hector believes that education should be passed down as Bennett reminds us in the last line of the play ('That's the game I wanted you to learn boys. Pass it on.')
and that students should enjoy learning and have control over what it is they are being taught. Irwin on the other hand does genuinely want the boys to get into the universities they want and he doesn't want it for the selfish reasons the Headmaster does. Bennett uses the characters in The History Boys to show us as the audience that there are always grey areas, that no person is ever completely good or bad and that education continues long after school finishes.