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19. Boazers
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Boy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Authority and Hypocrisy
Beauty and Imagination
Growing Up
English Nationalism
Summary
Analysis
To Roald’s surprise, the Repton Headmaster would later ascend to become the Archbishop of Canterbury. He admits that he’s always been disturbed by the tradition of school beatings in which the Headmaster readily took part. Roald objects to the idea that masters and older students have the right to mentally and physically injure younger students, noting that he still feels the pain from his own cane scars when he sits on a hard surface. A friend whom the Headmaster caned described the experience to Roald as long and drawn-out, punctuated by lectures about sin and evil. Roald points out the Headmaster’s hypocrisy in administering such harsh punishments and later preaching about mercy and forgiveness as the Archbishop. He points to this contradiction as the root of his doubts about Christianity and religion.
In this chapter, Roald states explicitly what he’s hinted at for the majority of Boy: at the heart of the elite English schools is Christianity, and at the heart of Christianity’s teachings about sin and discipline is a deep-seated hypocrisy. While Roald objects to the logical dissonance of preaching one thing and practicing another, his issues with corporal punishment also come from simple compassion. He points out that pain isn’t just a byproduct of caning; rather, it’s the whole point of caning. Moreover, the pain of a caning lasts far beyond boyhood, so that even as an old man, Roald’s body reminds him of his petty childhood infractions. Roald argues that the punishment far exceeds the crime in these cases. He also suggests that English schoolmasters’ insistence on such a barbaric method is a result of sadism and hypocrisy.
Themes
