Quote Meaning

“She’s my western front” - Dakin - Metaphor of world war II demonstrates

RELATIONSHIP Dakin’s attitude towards women
- Application of historical knowledge
- Sexist Tone
- Metaphor displays Fiona is something to be
conquered, not human
- The repeated use of this metaphor
indicates the boys have a limited attitude
towards sexual relations
"Broke through. Had the Armistice. The Treaty of
Versailles. It's now the Weimar Republic."
RELATIONSHIP

We've never had so many! Remarkable – - Surprised at Ms Lintott’s success

Headmaster - Did not expect Ms Lintott to be so
TEACHING successful, demonstrating his sexism
- Simple sentences, not as bright as the boys

'All knowledge is precious, whether or not it serves - Hector quoting A.E Houseman
the slightest human use' – Hector - Similarities
Literature - Both homosexual
“She’s my western front” – Dakin RELATIONSHIP
"Broke through. Had the Armistice. The Treaty of Versailles. It's now the Weimar Republic."- Dakin
RELATIONSHIP
"What women know or don't know has always been a mystery to me. - Hector RELATIONSHIP
“I'm in your hands. It is a pact. Bread eaten in secret” – Hector RELATIONSHIP
I'm beginning to like him more Who, me? No, Irwin – Posner RELATIONSHIP
Im black and blue Dakin RELATIONSHIP
Men are at history of course (Ms Lintott) RELATIONSHIP
"Posner envied Dakin his navel and all the rest of him" RELATIONSHIP

We've never had so many! Remarkable – Headmaster TEACHING

“Mr Irwin is more free-range?” – Rudge TEACHING
Paradox works well and mists up the windows – Irwin TEACHING
"If, heaven forfend, I was ever entrusted with the timetable, I would call these lessons A Waste of Time"-
Hector TEACHING
They're all clever. I saw to that"_ Mrs L TEACHING
"Im a Jew. I'm small...I'm f**ked"- Posner
"The hitting never hurt. It was a joke. None of us cared. We lapped it up"
“Elastoplast” - Posner
"...the First World War was a mistake. It was not a tragedy." -Irwin
"...there's no better way of commemorating something than by forgetting it"(Irwin)
“A verbal fig leaf” – Hector LITERATURE
A Sprig of Parsley? Or an umbrella in a cocktail? Are dons so naïve? LITERATURE
"Mr. Hector has an old-fashioned faith in the redemptive power of words."- Headmaster
“But I am thinking league tables” - Headmaster SCHOOLS
"Has anyone been to Rome? No? Well you will be competing against boys and girls who have"- Irwin
SCHOOLS
History is just one fucking thing after another – Rudge LEARNING
Fuck em – Rudge LEARNING
You've force fed us the facts; now we're in the process of running around acquiring flavour. Rudge LEARNING
"that some silly nonsense like this on the foreskins of Christ will come in handy so that their essays, unlike
yours, will not be dull" - TEACHING
"Mr. Hector's stuff's not meant for the exam, sir. It's to make us more rounded human beings."- Timms
TEACHING
Durham was very good for history; it's where I had my first pizza. Other things, too, of course, but it's the
pizza that stands out SCHOOLS
“I give them the wherewithal to resist it” Hector TEACHING
"Drummer Hodge" LITERATURE
'emblems of your conformity' SCHOOLS
'Clearing summer's obligatory hurdles' LEARNING
'wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire' LEARNING
'I would call it grooming did not that have overtones of the monkey-house' AUTHORITY
'Interest nil. Oddity nil. Singularity nowhere.' TEACHING
"'Do you have a life?' Or are we it? Are we your life?" RELATIONSHIP
'God's this massive case of unrequited love. He's Hector minus the motorbike' RELATIONSHIP
"Other shrunken violets you people line up." HOMOPHOBIA / RELATIONSHIP/ AUTHORITY
"Un-kissed. Un-rejoicing. Un-confessed. Un-embraced." FAILURE RELATIONSHIP
"Who says I want it to pass. The pain. The pain." RELATIONSHIP
Counts examinations, even for Oxford and Cambridge, as the enemy of education SCHOOLS
Get me scholarships, Irwin, pull us up the league tables AUTHORITY / SCHOOLS/ TEACHING
I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone. If I had gone to Oxford I’d probably never have worked
out the difference.LEARNING / SCHOOLS/ TYPES OF SCHOOL
HECTOR: But it will, Timms. It will. And then you will have the antidote ready! Grief. Happiness. Even when
you’re dying. We’re making your deathbeds here, boys. TEACHING
Rome and Florence, Venice and Perugia TEACHING / PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Think charm. Think polish. Think Renaissance Man TEACHING
 One oddity. Rudge AUTHORITY / SUCCESS AND FAILURE/ SOCIAL CLASS
Nobody thinks I have a chance in this exam. F*ck em/ SOCIAL CLASS/ LEARNING/ SCHOOLS
Ah pornography LEARNING / TEACHING
I want to get into Cambridge, sir. If I do, Dakin might love me. or I might stop caring. RELATIONSHIP/ TYPES
OF SCHOOL
Young lieutenant Dakin RELATIONSHIP/ HOMOPHOBIA
History nowadays is not a matter of conviction. It’s a performance. It’s entertainment. And if it isn’t, make it
so. HISTORY / TEACHING/ SOCIAL CLASS
Truth is no more at issue in an examination than thirst at a wine-tasting or fashion at a strip-tease.
LEARNING/ TEACHING/ LITERATURE
HECTOR: Codes, spells, runes — call them what you like, but do not call them gobbets. IRWIN: I just thought
it would be useful… HECTOR: Oh, it would be useful…every answer a Christmas tree hung with the
appropriate gobbets. Except that they’re learned by heart. And that is where they belong and like the other
components of the heart not to be defiled by being trotted out to order. TEACHING /LITERATURE
"(Resignedly) I'll come, Sir" RELATIONSHIP
The best moments in reading are when you come across something — a thought, a feeling, a way of looking
at things — which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else,
a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken
yours. RELATIONSHIP/ FAILURE/ HOMOPHOBIA
"One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a
teacher to learn is not to try and tell them" TEACHING/ FAILURE
"And we're not in the subjunctive either. It is going to happen." LITERATURE/ LEARNING
"God is dead. Shit lives." TEACHING / LITERATURE
"This is no time for poetry" AUTHORITY
"...the First World War was a mistake. It was not a tragedy." LEARNING /TEACHING
“Is that why he locks the door?"(Irwin) "So that it's not part of the system sir” RELATIONSHIP
“And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours” RELATIONSHIP

Act 2s

"It's this making it up I can't get used to. Arguing for effect. Not believing what you're saying. That's not
history. It's journalism."
Mrs L: "Can you, for a moment, imagine how dispiriting it is to teach five centuries of masculine
ineptitude?"
"What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket."
"History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men."
Rudge: "How do I define history? It's just one f*cking thing after another."
Posner: "All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere, then
I found I had to go on" 60
Hector: "What made me piss my life away in this god-forsaken place? There's nothing of me left." 65
Felix/ Headmaster: "It isn't that he doesn't produce results. He does. But they are unpredictable and
unquanitifiable" 67
Mr L(about Posner): "He lives alone in a cottage he has renovated himself, has an allotment and periodic
breakdowns." 108
Dakin: "I asked him what the difference was between Hector touching us up on the bike and him trying to
feel up Fiona." 102
Crowther: "He was stained and shabby and did unforgiveable things, but he led you to expect the best. Even
his death was a lesson and added to the store 107
It's subjunctive history. Dakin
Don't touch him. He'll think you're a fool Hector
Hector's a joke. Dakin
Love apart, it is the only education worth having. Scripps
Pass it on, boys. That's the game I wanted you to learn. Hector
"No. But this is history. Distance yourselves"- Irwin
"No, no, everyone likes Mozart. Somebody more off the beaten track"- Irwin
"I hesitate to mention this, lest it occasion a sophisticated groan, but it may not have crossed your minds
that one of the dons who interview you may be a woman."- Mrs L
"The Hun, if i may so characterise the fair Fiona"- Dakin
"Remember also, our puny efforts notwithstanding, you will be up against boys and girls who will have been
taught better than you."- Irwin
"And you too Dorothy, of course, who laid the foundations"- Headmaster
I do not think there is time for his kind of teaching anymore"- Irwin
"there was a contract between him and his class"-Akthar
'Afterwards I couldn't face the wheelchair' Dakin
'But Rudge is right... his crap or my crap, it makes no difference' Hector
'At least you lied. And lying's good isn't it?' Dakin
I’d Just like to graduate to a chair (Posner