Essay Questions

Taplow argues that Mr. Harris isn’t a “sadist.” If Taplow’s descriptions are to be trusted what psychological condition does Harris suffer?

Taplow’s line of reasoning is that despite rigidly adhering to standardized codes and regulations which cause unpleasant consequences for students, Harris doesn’t derives pleasure from that discomfort and therefore cannot be considered sadistic. Shortly thereafter he goes on to share a story with Frank about how Harris made a joke in Latin during class that nobody understood, but since he knew it was supposed to be funny, Taplow laughed as though he had understood. Instead of being pleased to have a student intervene in such a way to diffuse the awkwardness of the situation, Mr. Harris proceeds to punish Taplow by shaming him. Taplow has suggested that Harris cannot be a sadist because he doesn’t have any feelings but then he immediately suggests that the teacher “seems to hate people to like him.” What Taplow is describing here actually seems to be the opposite of sadism. If his observations can be trusted, Taplow is describing a man that appears to be suffering from some level of masochism in which he derives a strange form of contentment from punishing himself. The big problem here is that if this is the case, then Taplow is also misperceiving the idea that Harris has no feelings since masochism requires the ability to feel certain emotions quite distinctly.

What evidence is there to suggest that the person with the greatest psychological problem in the play may be Taplow rather than Mr. Harris?

Mr. Harris might well be a masochist to one degree or another. That determination is mostly reliant on the questionable evidence supplied by Taplow. Taplow’s own behavior, however, suggests he might well be playing with a stacked deck against himself as well. Several times he exhibits behavior which raises an assumption of the possibility of a streak of paranoia. When Frank casually suggests that Taplow might cut from his appointment with Harris to get in nine holes of golf, the stage directions before his reply indicate his reaction should be one in which he is “genuinely shocked.” His response goes to argue that that it couldn’t possibly be done because nobody has ever “cut” from a class or meeting with Harris in the man’s entire career. Shortly thereafter when Mrs. Harris unexpectedly enters the room just as Taplow has been cruelly imitating her husband, the stage directions once again provide insight into his state of mind:

Taplow: (Frantically whispering to Frank.) Do you think she heard?

The heightened state of Taplow’s suspicion and fear of Mr. Harris seriously undercuts his veracity and the ability to take his observations and analysis of the man without as anything approaching objective truth.