“Mrs Lintott: What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.”
She teaches boys, and is surrounded by male figures, so cannot express herself or make the students or teachers identify with these views. In this line Mrs Lintott is displaying how she believes that women’s history is worth studying and that as a historian herself, gender should be a highlighted issue in all syllabuses. Bennett displays this character, as a teacher, as quite bland, drumming out the factual basis for learning, or as Hector refers to it - ‘You give them an education. I give them the wherewithal to resist it’. Mrs Lintott’s conversation with Hector shows how restricted and tied down she feels with education. Although she is expressing the view that History should not be gender bias, evidence is other parts of the play suggests she does not express this opinion when she is teacher, rather than when conversing with a friend.
Mrs Lintott expresses her independence toward Hector in this conversation, and introduces her dislike of male figures from outside the school environment into her normal life.
“Mrs Lintott: My ex, for instance. He told stories.
Hector: Was he an historian?
Mrs Lintott: Lintott? No. A chartered accountant. Legged it to Dumfries.”
This line represents how Mrs Lintott feels about her ex husband, making him out to be a waste of space in her life, having so little time for him, or men in general, that she does not want to bother herself with using his first name, calling him ‘Lintott’. As she mentions that he is no longer a part of her life, using his surname to address him may be her bitterness flourishing as he still remains in her life to some extent, and portrays how she has no desire to have him remain there at all. The use of short sentences in these lines may convey how Mrs Lintott feels no compassion towards this male figure that was in her life, not creating interest and vibrancy with sentence or language.
Mrs Lintott is displayed by Bennett to be quite restricted, seen by gender quite obviously, but also in expressing her own personality, she at first comes across as quite boring. This is emphasized by Hector, who finds every way to display his extravagant and eccentric personality, through what he says, how he delivers it, and the quotes and literature forced upon the boys. Mrs Lintott shows more of Hector’s unorthodox approach in the line:
“Mrs Lintott: Actually I wouldn’t have said he was sad, I would have said he was cunt-struck.”
This expresses Mrs Lintott’s feels a sense of confinement in the school, demonstrated by not being able to use particular taboo language, but really conveying a more general restriction of her personality. By using this curse, she is able to let emotion out, which shows that her personality is constrained in the play by Bennett, but often portrays subtle hints of interest to Mrs Lintott.
Overall the conversation between Mrs Lintott and Hector gives Alan Bennett the ability to express more underlying notions of the character, introducing attitudes and beliefs that form Mrs Lintott’s personality. As the audience we are able to grasp her role within the plot and discover the depth to her character.
