History Boys - Sample answer (continued)
This turning of the tables is similar to the fact that Rudge gets into Oxford 鈥 in fact, he is the only one of the boys who is told at interview that he has got in. He gets in because his father was a worker at the college, and the college sees this as a potential PR coup, in terms of widening participation in higher education. Essentially Rudge gets in because he is working class. There is a sense of snobbishness throughout the play, with the insistence on Oxbridge above other universities, and this is especially clear in this scene. However, Rudge鈥檚 final speech in the scene, where he shows that he was able both to follow Irwin鈥檚 advice and to see through it (Quotation 鈥 page 98) show that he has brains too. It is the attitude of the Headmaster, who suggests they shouldn鈥檛 have let Rudge try at all, which makes me angry on Rudge鈥檚 behalf and therefore sympathetic. Alan Bennett also came from a working class background, and Rudge鈥檚 success and ability to turn the tables on his teacher feels like it might be a kind of revenge on his part too.
Despite Rudge鈥檚 success, even at the very end of the play, when Mrs Lintott is reciting the future jobs of the boys, his success is underrated. She describes his job in a derogatoryBelittling; something that puts someone down. way (Quotation 鈥 page 107) but he refuses to acknowledge this description. He has a business which is named after him and he is proud of it. He also points out that it鈥檚 just another form of being patronised, which he鈥檇 had enough of at school. Mrs Lintott acknowledges this and has sympathy with it, linking it by implication to the role of women in history and her own role within the school. This linking of the two characters, when Mrs Lintott is the teacher who most deserves the audience鈥檚 sympathy, given the way she is presented in the play as honest but unregarded by the male teachers, suggests that Bennett wants us to sympathise with Rudge, and it works.
Rudge stands up for himself, which may suggest that he does not need our sympathy. However, the ongoing snobbery towards him, because of his intellect and because of his class, despite his achievements, means that he is deserving of our sympathy, and makes him one of the most likeable characters in The History Boys.