Bennett's use of flash-forward of the lives of Posner and Irwin shows the ultimate failure of their wistful hopes for the future in order to show the negative impacts of Posner's naïve thinking, and the futility behind both characters' quest for unrequited love. Consequently, Bennett reminds audiences of the precarious balance of maturing as a marginalized adolescent and difficulty maintaining an appropriate teacher and student relationship. At first, Bennett employs Irwin, a flashy and false character, who is arguably the reason that he gets the boys into Oxford, however he is also allowed to enter due to these unconventional methods. Irwin's academic ambitions are demonstrated through his lessons with the boys where he urged them to use the most exotic response possible, in hopes of getting them into Oxford or Cambridge. This is evidenced through the declaratives "performance" and "entertainment" in his description of history. Indeed, his use of abstract nouns reflects that Irwin perceives history and examinations to be an agreeable and trifling notion to be manipulated at will by the boys. Further, his excitement about the boys taking up an unpopular position is demonstrated by the parallelism, "the wrong end of the stick is the right one" associated with the metaphor, of taking the "back door". In this case Irwin's scholarly agenda is projected onto the boys to encourage them to write from a minority and unpopular perspective. As such, Bennett considers his own life, as he once said in 2004, "I am Irwin" showing he agrees with Irwin's methods. However, as much as viewers may feel excitement and praise Irwin just as much as they like the cutthroat entrance exam system, they are quickly brought to the undergraduate aftermath of Irwin's actions. That Bennett confines Irwin to a wheelchair suggests that he disapproves of Irwin's lack of sensitivity toward history and thus wanted to ensure some form of justice was served. Through his use of flash-forward whereby Irwin is a spin doctor, Bennett reminds audiences of the really detrimental consequences of too much belief and hope in veering off into the offensive and controversial. This is evident with Irwin's decline from teacher to a spin doctor in a wheelchair in that he has become a physical manifestation of the unorthodox answer. Moreover, Bennett's use of bathos, evident with "God is dead. Sh*t lives" as reiterated. Irwin's desperation in clinging to an exotic response, but also highlighting his decline into the ridiculous. Consequently, Bennett allows audiences to see the reality of Irwin's teachings in where it led him prior to seeing the boys as successful Oxbridge candidates to demonstrate that Irwin's teachings are appropriate for exam technique, but ultimately bring misery in life. Whereas Bennett uses Irwin to illustrate the futility behind his academic goals, he also uses Posner, the earnest and passionate student who is isolated due to his belief in Hector's teaching over Irwin's, as a way of underlining extinction of teaching for enrichment within society, and ultimately the failure behind Hector's academic goals. As such, audiences will sympathize with Posner because he is constantly made to appear as a non-starter and he represents those individuals who have an appreciation of literature yet are still miserable. This is reflected by Hector's defense of Posner, and thusly his own methods, through "he is speaking from the heart". The use of present continuous tense reminds audiences that Posner continued to maintain this earnest stance and the common noun "heart" highlights his emotional bond and attachment. However, audiences are soon reminded of the start of actions of the detriment that Posner's hope and passion that this brought him seen through, "I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere". This is typical of Posner's void and solace through the indefinite pronoun, "nothing". This also symbolizes the failure of Hector's lessons, which by the 1980's had started to crumble. This is demonstrated by how Margaret Thatcher's education society in 1982 urged to rid "bad teachers." Because of this, Bennett employs the time-shift towards Posner in an attempt to comment on the suffering caused due to Hector's education; more importantly, on how low reality sank Posner's academic ambitions thanks to the failed teachings of Hector. Thus, the audiences' sympathy for Posner continuously rises throughout the play to the climax at the end of the play when the actual destruction of Posner is expressed. This can be analyzed through Bennett's use of syllesis with "he has an allotment and periodic breakdowns". Here, the common noun "allotment" is set on an equal weighting with the abstract noun phrase "periodic breakdown" to effectively illustrate the ways in which Posner's poor mental health and humdrum life reflect the dangers of his futile academic goals in their reliance upon Hector's teachings. As a result, Bennett successfully demonstrates futility in relying suley on literature and poetry, to highlight its decline in modern technological society, and to emphasize the reality of youthful hopes and aspirations. Bennett also successfully uses flash-forward to demonstrate the failed personal goals that Posner and Irwin held, due to their unrequited love for Dakin, an egotistic character who highlights the ease in which other characters can be manipulated. First, the description of Dakin's navel "small and hard like an unripe blackberry" describes the personification of Posner's unattainable love and personal ambition to get Dakin's love. The use of post modifying adjectives "small" and "hard" reflects Dakin's personality and energy whereas simile "like an unripe blackberry" hints towards Dakin's unreachable and desirable features given that blackberry's are considered a mouth watering fruit. This directly opposes Posner's 'softer' navel, where the comparative adjective supports Posner's gentle nature. Bennett thus presents Posner's crush on Dakin to show readers the lust young teenagers are capable of feeling. He continues to let viewers know this emotion isn't simply left to younger men, for Irwin himself is overheard to say that he is "in the same boat". On one hand, this metaphoric mirroring suggests Irwin shares the object of Posner's sexual frustration; it may equally suggest that Irwin shares the intensity of Posner's love for Dakin. In either case, Bennett aligns both characters to be joined yet constrained by their futile private desires, mirroring the constraint Margaret Thatcher imposed on the gay community with Section 28 of the Local Government Act. Despite this, Bennett's use of flash-forward to their future conversation where Irwin argues "nothing happened" displays his dismay, but the indeterminate ending alludes to an element of ambiguity behind his failed personal goal. Furthermore, Posner "lives alone" so his isolation is reaffirmed. Thus Bennett effectively uses flash-forward to reveal the failure of Irwin and Posner's hopes of love with Dakin, to solidify the destructive nature of unrequited love. Arguably, this would be more successful if Irwin was not so corrupt in his inappropriate and close relations with Dakin, as audiences may feel Bennett is indulging in paedophilia himself through the character. Yet ultimately, the failure of both characters serves to represent unrequited love.