How Bennett and Spark Present the Lasting Influence of Teachers and Their Ideals Anonymous 12th Grade

“Give me the child for seven years and I will give you the man.”

In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark and The History Boys by Alan Bennett, the authors are seen to be “playing with time”[1] by using flash-forwards and flash-backs to show the lasting influence of their characters. By showing them during and after being influenced these texts foreground the theme of the positive and negative effects of influence and how this can shape young minds. For instance, Spark’s use of juxtaposition between scenes of early influence with later effects show that “there [always] was a certain Miss Jean Brodie”. Muriel Spark and Alan Bennett show the effects of long term influence of those who see teaching as a performance and how those who they influence are their audience.

Ideally Hector would never have chosen to influence anyone especially not on his most favoured subject: “words, said in that reverential way that’s almost welsh”. Yet, he does influence every boy that he teaches. Not that he would ever mean to but he can “pass…on” his knowledge and passion without giving a second thought. This is probably because of his passion about his loved subjects. “The classroom is a stage”[2] for Hector (Miss Brodie too), and the...