The+Visit+-+Question+12

Back to IB A1 English > Drama > The Visit

= ** 12. Why do the Schoolmaster's humanist values ultimately fail? ** = The schoolmaster is the only person in the Guellen that tries to denounce Claire and her criminal offer of a million after things have progressed to a point where even Ill’s own family is ready to sell him out. However, despite first trying to tell the press about the offer the town is about to accept, he eventually succumbs to the greed of such wealth. This is illustrated when he asks Ill for a bottle of Steinhager before leaving the shop, telling Ill to put it on his tab. The schoolmaster says on page 77, “//I can feel myself slowly becoming a murderer. My faith in humanity is powerless to stop it. And because I know all this, I have also become a sot.”// The word “sot” or habitual drunkard is important because it highlights the fact that the schoolmaster hates that he knows he cannot help but take part in the murder. So he deals with this knowledge by drinking himself into insensibility. The fact that the schoolmaster ultimately gives the speech sentencing Ill to death shows that his faith in humanity caves in the face of so much wealth and the town’s intent. However, it is ironic that his speech decries the town’s injustice at conniving at Ill’s crime so many years before when they plan to connive at Ill’s murder themselves.