Rita feels her life has to date served no purpose and as a result of this she is desperate to discover herself through literature. In the social class Rita is currently enmeshed in, buying a new dress or getting a new haircut are the greatest values to aspire to. Once educated, Rita hopes to experience a better perspective of the world’s values, appreciating ballet and opera like the higher classes.
When Rita first embarks upon her course she is in awe of the educated students. She thinks they have everything she has ever wanted and looks up to them. She aspires to be like them and idolises Frank, but Russell portrays Frank as a failure, a failed marriage, he spends most of his time drunk, and he is an unsuccessful poet. Rita wants, however, just to be able to speak well and understand ballet and poetry, she does not see Frank as a failure.
Frank sees Rita when she first enters into his office as a breath of fresh air for she is witty, inquisitive and intelligent and not like the other boring pretentious students. Rita looks at a painting and says, “Look at those tits”, this is a sign that she is not inhibited from speaking her mind and the truth. Frank enjoys this comment for all his other students would bring literary meanings into a simple painting instead of expressing their true feelings as Rita does. Another example of this is when Frank asks Rita what assonance means. While Frank’s students might have given a dictionary definition of , “The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds,” She says, “getting the rhyme wrong”, which amuses Frank because of its directness and wit. Frank realises that if he educates Rita he will take away her uniqueness, energy and vitality. He does his utmost not to teach her saying she deserves a better tutor.
Rita keeps coming to Frank weekly for tutoring. At the beginning she is keen to know about all Frank’s personal details and the two talk in great depth about their lives. They are both interested in each other’s lifestyles, as neither feels comfortable with their own roles. Slowly though Rita becomes obsessed with education and concentrates all her efforts on it. When she found out her essay on Blake was poor she tore it up and threw it in the fire. She said, “If I do something that’s crap we tear it up say that’s crap and we start again”. Rita also changes her hairstyle and buys new clothes hoping that these will make her more socially accepted with the higher classes.
The change in Rita is brought home when Frank shows her his poetry. She and her friend Trish think it is “dead good” for they read too much into it, but he says it’s “pretentious crap” and asks Rita what she would have thought of it before she became “educated”', she agrees that she would have thought it was “crap”. It seems they have reversed their roles, as Frank now thinks his poetry is rubbish and tears it up.
By the end of the play both Rita and Frank have changed enormously. Rita has moved into the social class, which she so desired, while Frank loses his status in society after a drunken evening. It is true that Frank gave Rita an education, which changed her drastically, but as Frank said, “Rita you’re singing a different song, not necessarily a better one”. Rita offered Frank sincerity and vitality.
Russell leaves the reader to question the value of social status after the attempted suicide of Rita’s friend Trish. However Rita emphasises that the education has given her the choice to determine her own future where as those without education have little or no choice.
Stuart Milne