Headmaster

Question 1

‘I am thinking Classroom Control’ (Headmaster to Irwin)

Answer 1

Shows how he believes in an almost autocratic style of teaching. Control the class and they will listen. 
This is almost the antithesis of Hector and his trust-based methods of teaching.

Question 2

‘I am thinking league tables’ (Headmaster)

Answer 2

Shows how he takes the ‘modern’ exam focused view (Margaret Thatcher). It also shows how he only cares for his own success and how he looks to prospective parents, rather than the success of the boys.
In a way, this is representing the dehumanising effect of the modern application of education. It’s turning into a business (‘I hadn’t thought of you as a battery chicken Rudge’ pg33)

Question 3

‘He loved language. He loved Words’ (headmaster about Hector)

Answer 3

Shows again how the Headmaster is all about how people perceive him. He wanted to seem as if he knew Hector and if there was nothing going on underneath when in fact the audience, the boys, Mrs Lintott and Irwin all know differently. (‘I would hate to turn out boys who, in later life, would claim to have a love of literature, or speak of the love of language, and their love of words’)

Question 4

‘Fuck literature and Plato… and Oscar Wilde and all the other Shrunken violets you people line up.’

Answer 4

Represents the common view of the 1980s on homosexuality. It shows that in fact, the boys attitude towards Hector, Irwin, Posner and even (to an extent) Dakin is not the social norm. It shows how the Headmaster is not just upset at the fact it was with students but is instead upset over the fact that it is with men. Homophobic.