History Boys Quotes Flashcards
Hectors entrance
“A man of studied eccentricity. He wore a bow tie.” - “Present it to the audience with a flourish”
Rudge’s final lines
“Death is just another excuse to patronise.”
Hectors views of poetry.
“spells”, “runes”, “the antidote”, “we’re making your deathbeds here boys”. Contrasts with Irwin’s view - “Gobbets”
Hectors view of Oxbridge
“I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone. If I had gone to Oxford, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.” - “I count examinations, even for Oxford and Cambridge, as the enemy of education. Which is not to say that I don’t regard education as the enemy of education, too.”
Irwin’s view on Oxbridge students
“Groomed like thoroughbreds for this one particular race.”
Irwin - controversial
“Theres no better way of remembering something than by commemorating it” - “Truth is no more at issue in an examination than thirst at a wine tasting or fashion at a strip tease.”
Irwin’s view of history
“History nowadays isn’t a matter of conviction. its a performance. Its entertainment. And if it isnt, make it”
Posner’s rant
“I’m a Jew. I’m small. I’m homosexual. And I live in Sheffield. I’m fucked.”
Hector Breaks Down
“What made me piss my life away in this god-forsaken school? There’s nothing of me left. Go away. Class dismissed. Go.” - He is inelegant, cant use poetry as the antidote - breaks down. He says “there’s noting left of me” - suggesting that he is the symbol for the liberal education he loves. As the school modernises his duty is lost, as so too is Hector. Hector’s resignation is symbolic of the school’s changing philosophy of education: Hector’s lofty, idealistic approach to the liberal arts is fading away, replaced by the more practical methods of Irwin
Rudge’s view of History
“Its Just one fucking thing after another” - blunt and refreshing to the audience. Ironically accurate, he doesn’t play the “game” of explaining history and just sees it as a sequence of events. He, like Mrs Lintott, views this as the “bow-wow school of history”
Posner’s fate
the one that “took it all to heart” “He has long since stopped asking himself where it all went wrong.”
Dakin to Irwin
“Why are you so bold in argument and talking but when it actually comes to the point, when it’s something that’s actually happening, I mean now, you’re so fucking careful?”
Hector’s advice to Irwin
“Don’t Touch him. He’ll think you’re a fool. That’s what they think about me. I’m lucky I suppose. Dodging the Ignominy.”
