However, don’t be fooled! Mr Squeers hates the boys as much as his wife but Mrs Squeers doesn’t really look for an excuse to beat them – she just enjoys doing it.
All of the boys at Dotheboys Hall are terrified of Mr and Mrs Squeers and live in fear of the dreaded cane which they both use to mercilessly beat them. At the Hall, the boys don’t get much freedom and think what they are told to think. They dare not argue or answer back to Mr Squeers as they are kept too weak and undernourished. It is clear that the boys are scared of him because of the amount of times and the violent manner in which Mr Squeers uses the cane.
“A death-like silence immediately prevailed”.
This quote shows the extent of how much the boys fear Mr Squeers and is also an example of the instant obedience he has worked hard to get in his school. When he says “quiet!” they are, and no questions are asked.
“Now” said Squeers, giving the table a great rap with his cane, which made half the little boys nearly jump out of their boots.”
This also shows how much the boys fear Mr Squeers and also his cane. When he hits the table it makes the boys jump. They are scared that it might be them that the cane falls on next and this is where their main fear of Mr Squeers come from. It is because Mr Squeers is o nasty that the boys are scared of him.
The school Dotheboys Hall is a shambles compared to modern-day schools. Mr Squeers does not really care about the conditions and facilities in his school because education of the boys is not very high on his priorities. He is more concerned about getting as much money out of the boys as possible.
“A bare and dirty room with a couple of windows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the remainder being stopped up with old copy books and paper.”
This is a disgrace. The boys would find it difficult to learn and do work in such dark and difficult conditions. Mr Squeers hss not even replaced the windows with proper glass – he just puts old stuff he no longer needs in the frame just to save money. The school was so shabby that you couldn’t even tell if Mr Squeers had attempted to make it look better. It is as if the building had just been made and left. No effort had been put into decorating the school to make it a better learning environment.
“The walls were so stained and discoloured that it was impossible to tell whether they had ever been touched with paint or whitewash.”
This quote proves the point that the rooms at Dotheboys Hall are atrocious. In modern schools, this standard of decoration would not be acceptable and a school might even be closed down. Thankfully for Mr Squeers, he owns the school and only he decides what needs to be done. No-one else, except his wife, had any say in how the conditions of the school are dealt with and what they spend their money on.
The boys at Dotheboys Hall might has well have been working on the floor as the equipment provided was terrible.
“There were a couple of long old rickety desks, cut and notched, inked and damaged in every possible way.”
This quote shows how terrible the conditions were that the boys were working in.
At Dotheboys Hall, the cane is used and not lightly either. Most of the boys there have felt the wrath of Mr Squeers and his cane. Mr Squeers sees the cane as his weapon and this is what strikes the most fear into the boys.
When Mr Squeers uses the cane, it is not once or twice like in schools later established but he violently lays into the poor boys who often have not done much to warrant such a frenzied attack on them. One of the many quotes that proves this is when Mr Squeers enters a room and throws out a violent threat that all the boys fully know he would be more than happy to follow up with.
“Let any boy speak without leave and I’ll take the skin off his back.”
These are the kind of threats that Mr Squeers regularly makes to the boys to try to get what he wants …… and more often than not, he does.
Mr Squeers could not care less when or where he uses his beloved cane, and quite enjoys using it. He only leaves off with the cane when he - and not the boy - has had enough.
“Mr Squeers fell upon the boy and caned him soundly ….. not leaving off, indeed, until his arm was tired.”
This disturbing quote shows just how heartless Mr Squeers is. He only stops when he is tired which suggests that if he didn’t get tired, he probably wouldn’t stop. Mr Squeers sees his cane as his holding power over the boys and whenever he goes somewhere he takes it with him.
“Arming himself with his cane”.
Mr Squeers is not nearly so scary when he does not have his cane so he takes it with him as an extra fear-factor.
In conclusion, this section shows that Mr Squeers uses the cane harshly and brutally towards the boys.
As well as being cruel, physically, to the boys, Mr Squeers is also cruel psychologically. He does this by hardly listening to the boys and not acknowledging what they are trying to say or accepting their opinions.
“Wholly disregarding a piteous plea for mercy.”
This quote shows just how little Mr Squeers listens to the boys because whilst Bolder was trying to explain himself, Mr Squeers uncaringly cut him off and proceeded to beat him. Mr Squeers does not give the boys a chance to express themselves because he is always butting in and telling them what to do, for example, when Bolder is trying to explain why he has warts on his hands.
Mr Squeers is extremely effective in what he does. For example, one of his main objectives is to make money.
“They held and considered that their business and profession was to get as much from every boy as could possibly be screwed out of him.”
Mr Squeers does this constantly by taking money from the boys, cutting corners in his school, like not having proper teaching facilities, not feeding the boys properly, not making the school look attractive and having five boys in one bed. All these have helped Mr Squeers achieve one of his aims, making money, and this shows that he is effective in what he wants to do.
Whilst Mr Squeers is effective in making money, he is not effective in being a suitable head teacher or even a subject teacher. In today’s schools it would seem as if Mr Squeers had his priorities wrong as the children’s education should come first.
Mr Squeers is very effective in getting the instant obedience he desires and obtains this by constantly threatening and intimidating the helpless boys. This keeps them on edge and because they are under-nourished and are not fed well they are all too weak to fight back against their cruel and scheming headmaster. Mr Squeers gets obedience from the boys by brutally beating them with this cane which keeps the boys living in such fear that they dare not answer back.
In conclusion Mr Squeers is effective in getting what he wants but is not at all capable of being a head teacher.
I believe that Charles Dickens has deliberately portrayed Mr Squeers as a greedy, despicable man because he wanted to show the people, who read his book what it was like to be in a school like this at this time in life. He wanted to show how ill treated physically deformed and children that their parents didn’t want were and he also wanted to show how bad the education system was at that time.
By 1870 the first ever education act was drafted by William Forster and I think this is what Charles Dickens wanted the out come of his book to bring- a better and fairer life for children who need it.
By Joe Bacchus