DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Jack's House
HTML https://jackshouse.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Story Discussion
*****************************************************
#Post#: 30572--------------------------------------------------
Sent to Coventry
By: Skip Trace Date: March 5, 2025, 8:10 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I was several days late in responding to the Tredegar BOTD that
involved being sent to Coventry. I noted in my reply that I
learned of the "sent to Coventry" concept thanks to a story from
Realist II. For those who might be interested, I am sharing the
link again here:
HTML https://malespank.net/viewStory.php?id=8535
#Post#: 30575--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sent to Coventry
By: db105 Date: March 6, 2025, 2:51 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
It's such a British expression :D That Realist II story must be
one of the first times I heard it, although perhaps it was some
other British-style school story. It's a very powerful social
sanction in a boarding school, since if your schoolmates stop
talking to you there you are left with no social relations.
Because it's so dramatic, it also appears in non-spanking
boarding school stories. Like for example, in The Fifth Form at
St. Dominic's (published 1881), the best known of the school
novels by Talbot Baines Reed, one of the main characters, Oliver
Greenfield, is sent to Coventry because his peers believe he
cheated in a scholarship exam, thus taking a scholarship that he
did nor deserve (and to add more drama, the one supposedly
cheated, as he came in second, was his best friend). Only,
Greenfield proves to be a tough nut to crack:
[quote]
Were you ever at Coventry, reader? I don’t mean the quaint old
Warwickshire city, but that other place where from morning till
night you are shunned and avoided by everybody? Where friends
with whom you were once on the most intimate terms now pass you
without a word, or look another way as you go by? Where,
whichever way you go, you find yourself alone? Where every one
you speak to is deaf, every one you appear before is blind,
every one you go near has business somewhere else? Where you
will be left undisturbed in your study for a week, to fag for
yourself, study by yourself, disport yourself with yourself?
Where in the playground you will be as solitary as if you were
in the desert, in school you will be a class by yourself, and
even in church on Sundays you will feel hopelessly out in the
cold among your fellow-worshippers?
If you have ever been to such a place, you can imagine Oliver
Greenfield’s experiences during this Christmas term at Saint
Dominic’s.
When the gentlemen of the Fifth Form had once made up their
minds to anything, they generally carried it through with great
heartiness, and certainly they never succeeded better in any
undertaking than in this of “leaving Oliver to himself.”
The only drawback to their success was that the proceeding
appeared to have little or no effect on the very person on whose
behalf it was undertaken. Not that Oliver could be quite
insensible of the honours paid him. He could not—they were too
marked for that. And without doubt they were as unpleasant as
they were unmistakable. But, for any sign of unhappiness he
displayed, the whole affair might have been a matter of supreme
indifference to him. Indeed, it looked quite as much as if
Greenfield had sent the Fifth to Coventry as the Fifth
Greenfield. If they determined none of them to speak to him, he
was equally determined none of them should have the chance; and
if it was part of their scheme to leave him as much as possible
to himself, they had little trouble in doing it, for he, except
when inevitable, never came near them.
Of course this was dreadfully irritating to the Fifth! The moral
revenge they had promised themselves on the disgracer of their
class never seemed to come off. The wind was taken out of their
sails at every turn. The object of their aversion was certainly
not reduced to humility or penitence by their conduct; on the
contrary, one or two of them felt decidedly inclined to be
ashamed of themselves and feel foolish when they met their
victim.
Oliver always had been a queer fellow, and he now came out in a
queerer light than ever.
Having once seen how the wind lay, and what he had to expect
from the Fifth, he altered the course of his life to suit the
new circumstances with the greatest coolness. Instead of going
up the river in a pair-oar or a four, he now went up in a
sculling boat or a canoe, and seemed to enjoy himself quite as
much. Instead of doing his work with Wraysford evening after
evening, he now did it undisturbed by himself, and, to judge by
his progress in class, more successfully than ever. Instead of
practising with the fifteens at football, he went in for a
regular course of practice in the gymnasium, and devoted himself
with remarkable success to the horizontal bar and the high jump.
Instead of casting in his lot in class with a jovial though
somewhat distracting set, he now kept his mind free for his
studies, and earned the frequent commendation of the Doctor and
Mr Jellicott.
[/quote]
*****************************************************