The Theme of Kindness in The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan

I have to remember that the reason I was going to reflect on this in play form--mostly dialogue--is that I thought that would be an easier way to sketch, but it's turned out to be more difficult because of my inability to mimic the kind of speech I heard from ESL students for more than thirty years!  So I'm going to interrupt my 2014 version of Terence Rattigan's play to talk about the theme of kindness in The Browning Version.

Kindness reflects positively on the person being kind but not necessarily on the person towards whom the kindness is extended.  I think Taplow's act is really one of kindness, not motivated as Millie Crocker-Harris suggests, by his fear that he won't be allowed to complete the level Andrew Crocker-Harris is teaching (for his final semester)  and move on.  It is interesting, though, that Andrew C-H himself has such a great need to believe in the sincerity of Taplow's gesture that he doesn't question it himself but takes it at face value until Millie calls Taplow "the artful little beast" and describes the imitation she caught him making of him and states explicitly that he was afraid that A.C.H. would retaliate by changing his final notation to a non-passing one.

...I came into this room this afternoon to find him giving an imittion of you to Frank here.  Obviously he was scared stiff I was going to tell you, and you'd ditch his remove or something.  I don't blame him for trying a few bobs' worth of appeasement.
Until Millie has made that revelation, Andrew Crocker-Harris has taken the gift as a sign of redemption.  At least one student has seen him not as "the Himmler of the Lower Fifth" but as "a gentle master," the kind of teacher he'd wanted to be.  Taplow understands this and has personalized the gift he's given in a way that shows he was paying attention to both the teacher's lecture (in which he went over this passage) and to the teacher's needs.  (An earlier act also reveals Taplow as kind, when he has laughed at a joke Andrew C-H has made just because he wants his teacher to feel successful and not be embarrassed by the joke falling flat.)

Frank is also probably kind.   When Andrew shares the gift and the meaningful inscription with him, he says, "Very pleasant and very apt."  He notices Andrew's emotion as he replies, "Very pleasant.  But perhaps not, after all, so very apt."  Frank says, "Nonsense."  Andrew goes on to say that he isn't a very emotional person "but there was something so very touching and kindly about his action, and coming as it did just after..."  It appears that Andrew is reacting to the kindness  of Taplow's gift and inscription, but that's probably just a way to explain his tears at the relief that it indicates something about Andrew himself as a teacher, and Frank is kind enough to want Andrew to believe that he has succeeded in some measure, so when Andrew says "and perhaps he means it," Frank quickly says, "I'm sure he does, or he wouldn't have written it.  Frank, of course, saw Taplow's imitation and knows that he'd feared that Millie had seen it too and would tell on him, but he reveals none of this at the moment.  Millie, of course, does.  She is cruel possibly out of anger or contempt that her husband has not met her needs--either her sexual ones or the ones for social status that she's shown to value with all the name-dropping and mention of  family connections.    (She wants the noblesse without the oblige.)  Or perhaps it's to get a rise from her husband, who is so stoic and, as he says "can bear anything."