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Illustrated portrait of Mr. Beattie

A character in A Boy's Own Story

Mr. Beattie

An unconventional teacher whose encounter with the narrator leads to the novel’s moral climax.

What they want in White’s narrator’s account

To pursue companionship and desire beyond the school’s rules.

The book

Cover of A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White
A Boy's Own StoryEdmund White, 1982

A boy learns shame early and tries every available way to turn himself into someone else.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Mr. Beattie is an older teacher associated with jazz, marijuana, and an adult life outside the school’s respectable surface. His relationship with a student involves a serious imbalance of age and institutional power.

The narrator seeks Beattie’s attention and then uses school authority against him. White makes the betrayal morally important without turning the adult teacher into an uncomplicated romantic victim.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • UnconventionalHis loosened formality separates him from the school’s official culture.
  • Associated with jazzMusic places him near a less respectable adult world.
  • WaryHe understands that the relationship crosses institutional boundaries.
  • Adult authorityHis position makes the encounter unequal even when the narrator initiates it.
  • TrustedThe narrator first approaches him as a route toward adult intimacy.
  • ExposedThe same student later turns institutional judgment against him.
What happens to Mr. BeattieHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

After their sexual encounter, the narrator reports Beattie and the teacher is dismissed. The boy uses that exposure to deny solidarity with the man he had pursued.

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