As English Literature Coursework: How Do Alan Bennett in “the History Boys” and Tennessee Williams in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” Explore the Theme of Unrequited Love?

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Unrequited love refers to having unreturned affections for someone. Both Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys” and Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” explore the pain, desperation and frustration of unrequited love in the plays’ contexts through pathos, stage directions, cross-cutting, intertextuality, bathos, irony and symbolism. “Boys”, though first performed in 2004, is set in a 1980s grammar school. The 1980s was a difficult time for the gay rights movement, as Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 made it illegal to promote the tolerance of homosexuality in schools. The unrequited homosexual love in “Boys” could symbolise – ironically, due to the school setting – repression of the gay rights movement during that time. However, Bennett stated in his play’s introduction, “its period didn’t seem important”. “Cat” is set on a cotton plantation in the southern USA, contemporary to when it was written in 1955, a time of a resurgence of traditional family values after the disruption of WWII, also marking the beginning of the gay rights movement, prompting a reactionary response from the American government, sending homosexuals to mental asylums and firing them from federal government jobs. The pain of unrequited love is explored through Posner’s feelings for Dakin in “Boys”. Scripps affectionately uses colloquialisms, “Oh Poz, with your Spaniel heart,” evoking pathos for Posner. His unrequited love is perceived as juvenile by other characters, particularly Dakin, dismissing his feelings as “his age”, portraying Posner as misunderstood and further rousing pathos. Nevertheless, his rhetorical question, “Who says I want it to pass?” suggests his unrequited love should be taken seriously. It follows that his reserved characterisation (contrasting Dakin, who is characterised by confidence and directness) is key to his conflict with unrequited love as he fails to

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