Character Analysis — Supporting Characters

While Hector and Irwin dominate the intellectual debate, the supporting characters in The History Boys are far from passive. Each boy, and each adult, contributes to the play's exploration of education, identity, and the relationship between knowledge and power. Examiners reward responses that demonstrate a detailed understanding of the full ensemble.

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The Boys

Dakin

Aspect	Detail
Role	The most confident and sexually assured of the boys
Key trait	Charisma, ambition, and a transactional view of relationships
Sexuality	Heterosexual but sexually experimental — pursues Irwin
Future	Becomes a tax lawyer — successful but conventional

Dakin is the alpha male of the group. He is handsome, articulate, and sexually confident — the boy most likely to succeed in conventional terms. He has an affair with the Headmaster's secretary, Fiona, and also pursues Irwin.

Key characteristics:

• Treats relationships as transactions — sex and power are linked in his world
• Is genuinely intelligent but uses knowledge as currency rather than for its own sake
• Functions as a catalyst — his pursuit of Irwin brings the play's sexual tensions to a crisis
• Represents the Irwin model taken to its logical conclusion — everything is a strategy, including intimacy

"I'm going to have him. Like Hector has us." — Dakin (about Irwin)

Examiner's tip: Note the deliberate parallel Dakin draws between his pursuit of Irwin and Hector's treatment of the boys. This line reveals Dakin's awareness of power dynamics in teacher-student relationships — and his willingness to exploit them.

Posner

Aspect	Detail
Role	The most vulnerable and emotionally sensitive boy
Key trait	Intelligence combined with profound loneliness
Sexuality	Gay — openly in love with Dakin
Heritage	Jewish — adds layers of outsider identity
Future	Becomes a teacher — isolated, perhaps repeating Hector's patterns

Posner is the play's emotional heart. He is:

• Openly in love with Dakin — unrequitedly, painfully, with no prospect of reciprocation
• Jewish — making him a double outsider (sexuality and religion)
• The most genuinely engaged learner — he responds to Hector's poetry with authentic emotion
• The character who carries Hector's legacy — but at a devastating personal cost

"I'm a Jew. I'm small. I'm homosexual. And I live in Sheffield. I'm fucked." — Posner

This quotation — blunt, comic, and devastating — encapsulates Posner's self-awareness. He understands exactly how the world sees him.

Examiner's tip: Posner's future is the play's most tragic revelation. He becomes a teacher, living alone, repeating Hector's patterns — "fiddling with" boys or perhaps just carrying the same loneliness. Bennett suggests that genuine emotional engagement with education can be as destructive as it is enriching.

Scripps

Aspect	Detail
Role	The narrator figure and moral observer
Key trait	Religious faith and self-consciousness
Sexuality	Heterosexual
Future	Becomes a journalist

Scripps functions as the play's conscience and commentator. He is the character most aware that what is happening has moral significance. He keeps a diary and observes the others with a journalist's eye.

• He provides narration at key moments, stepping outside the action to address the audience
• His religious faith gives him a moral framework the other characters lack
• He is less flashy than Dakin but more perceptive
• His future as a journalist connects to the play's interest in how stories are told and shaped

Rudge

Aspect	Detail
Role	The "thick one" — the least academically gifted
Key trait	Practical intelligence, common sense, directness
Future	Becomes a headmaster — the most ironic outcome

Rudge is played for comedy but his role is significant:

• He represents practical intelligence as opposed to academic intelligence
• He gets into Oxford by having a parent who works there (as a college servant), not through academic brilliance — highlighting the role of social capital in Oxbridge admissions
• His future as a headmaster is deeply ironic — the least intellectual boy ends up running a school
• He functions as a reality check on the others' intellectual posturing

"I don't do - technically, I don't do - literature." — Rudge

Lockwood, Timms, Crowther, and Akthar

These four boys have less individual development but serve important collective functions:

Character	Key trait	Function
Lockwood	Physical, athletic	Represents conformity and social normalcy
Timms	Cheeky, comic, slightly subversive	Provides comic relief; challenges Hector directly
Crowther	Large, good-natured	One of the more tolerant boys
Akthar	Muslim background	Adds ethnic and religious diversity to the group

Examiner's tip: Even if a question does not specifically ask about these characters, referencing them shows breadth of knowledge. For instance, Timms's cheeky challenges to Hector reveal that the boys are not passive recipients — they actively engage with and question their teachers.

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The Adults

Mrs Lintott (Dorothy)

Aspect	Detail
Role	History teacher — the boys' original and ongoing teacher
Key trait	Intelligence, fairness, and frustrated awareness of sexism
Function	Moral compass and gender commentator
Future	Remains undervalued and overlooked

Mrs Lintott is the most morally clear-sighted character in the play. She is:

• Competent and rigorous — she teaches the boys their factual historical knowledge
• Marginalised — the Headmaster does not value her because she is a woman
• Perceptive — she sees through the Headmaster's hypocrisy and Irwin's insecurity
• Denied the recognition she deserves — her contribution is taken for granted

"History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket." — Mrs Lintott

This is one of the play's most powerful speeches. It reframes the entire discipline of history as a story of male failure that women are expected to clean up.

Examiner's tip: Mrs Lintott's marginalisation is not just a personal injustice — it mirrors the way women's contributions to history itself are overlooked. She is both a character within the story and a commentary on the story's own biases.

The Headmaster

Aspect	Detail
Role	The school's head — represents institutional authority
Key trait	Ambition, hypocrisy, and instrumentalism
Function	Antagonist — the force that threatens Hector and reduces education to results

The Headmaster is the play's clearest villain (though Bennett gives him comic energy):

• He views the boys' Oxbridge success purely as a marketing opportunity for the school
• He hires Irwin to "polish" the boys — treating education as a PR exercise
• He already knew about Hector's misconduct but only acts when a complaint threatens his reputation
• He touches Mrs Lintott inappropriately while lecturing Hector about sexual misconduct — blatant hypocrisy

"I am thinking league tables. I am thinking profiles. I am thinking of the school." — The Headmaster

Hypocrisy	Evidence
Condemns Hector's touching	Himself touches Mrs Lintott's knee and shoulder
Claims to value education	Only cares about results and reputation
Demands moral standards	Has no genuine moral principles of his own
Fires Hector for misconduct	Knew about the misconduct and ignored it for years

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Character Relationships Map

                    THE HEADMASTER
                  (institutional power)
                   /              \
              hires             fires
               /                    \
          IRWIN  ←—— rivalry ——→  HECTOR
       (strategy)                (passion)
          |    \                  /    |
      attracts  teaches    teaches  touches
          |      \          /        |
          ↓       ↓        ↓         ↓
        DAKIN   THE BOYS (ensemble)
          ↑                          |
       loves                    tolerates
          |                          |
        POSNER ——→ unrequited ——→ DAKIN