“Educating Rita” – Literature Coursework Essay – 20th Century Drama

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"Educating Rita" - Literature Coursework Essay - 20th Century Drama

Educating Rita is a play written by Willy Russell. It tells the story of Frank and Rita. The play is a two-hander; there are only two characters involved in the whole duration of the play. Although there are many other people that are important in the play, Educating Rita primarily focuses on Frank, a dissolute university professor and Rita, a dissatisfied hairdresser who wants an education. Although the title of the play, Educating Rita, seems self-explanatory, it has many different ideas and meanings behind it. During the course of the play, we learn more about the two characters and we see how their relationship develops.

In Rita, we see a person who is driven by a sense of incompleteness. She struggles for an education that will take her far and beyond the class and culture in which she had been born. She commits herself totally to the Open University course, and is well aware of what she is leaving behind and what must change. In the Open University course, she meets Frank, her tutor. Unwillingly he agrees to tutor her, but outwardly Frank is not a promising answer to her needs. He appears self-destructive and cynical. From here on after, we see the relationship between Frank and Rita start to grow.

The playwright shows the changes in Rita's character during the course of the play through the following:

Rita comes from one of the lower classes in the Liverpool society. She talks in a heavily accented Liverpudlian voice. She uses very basic language and continuously uses colloquial speech. An example of this could be: "D' y' get a lot like me?" (Act one, scene one). During one point in the play, Rita changes her voice totally. She abandons her accent and adopts more formal speech. Frank notices this and tells her that it is unnecessary to abandon her uniqueness to be a "proper student". One can see an example of this in act two, scene two:

Rita: "I know, Frank. I'm terribly sorry. It was unavoidable."

Frank: "Was it really? What's wrong with your voice?"

Rita: "Nothing is wrong with it, Frank. I have merely decided to talk properly. As Trish says, there is not a lot of point in discussing beautiful literature in an ugly voice."
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Here we can see that Rita has been influenced by her flatmate, Trish, and she is actually taking her friend's advice. This shows that she is not thinking for herself. There are future examples of this where Trish is mentioned in the play, and she influences Rita in making decisions. Towards the closure of the play however, we see that Rita has started to use speech that is more articulate and is less colloquial. For example, in act two, scene seven she says: "...is this what you call a scholarly neckline?" From the quote, we can see that ...

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