Frank wants to be in charge all the way through this play but he is disappointed as all his superiority soon starts to go away.
Rita lacks confidence at start but Frank helps her out, he rassures her. Rita faces many personal problems too through out the whole act, as her husband becomes possessive. He hits her, burns her books, fights with her when she wants to go to Frank’s party and finally he kicks her out because she is on the pill which is the end of Rita’s marriage. Frank also has many personal problems. He splits up with Julia for a while and she finally throws him out the house when he moves to Australia.
Rita comes back from summer school as a new person she has confident in herself and she feels revitalised. She leaves her old job and starts to work in a bistro with her roommate and she becomes hip and trendy.
By the end of the play Rita is not the sort of person to get pushed into decisions. She wants freedom and to be able to make decisions on her own.
Rita looses quite allot as well as gaining from her education. She looses her husband and the strong friendship between her and Frank.
When Rita enters the play for the first time she knocks twice on the door although Frank yells at her to come in. Eventually she bursts into the room swearing.
" I'm comin' in, aren't I? It's that stupid bleedin' door. You wanna get it fixed!”
After a while Rita’s attention goes towards the painting on the wall. She asks Frank if he thinks its erotic but he just mutters that he hasn’t looked at it for 10 years and starts doing something. But Rita doesn’t give up.
"Look at those tits"
Frank gets embarrassed coughs as he hides himself in the admission papers. I think that Frank is very shocked by what is happening, as he has never been spoken to in this way especially from someone he hardly knows.
Rita has the will to learn very hard and she wants to reach her aim shes serious about education.
Frank: "What can I teach you?"
Rita: "Everything."
Later on in the play she starts to think shes learnt everything.
Rita: "I've got what you got Frank, and you don't like it.
Frank likes her straight forwardness in Scene 1 but to his disappointment she starts to loose her identity towards the end of the play.
"I think you're the first breath of air that's been in this room for years."
At the summer school Rita has learned about authors and she meets other students. Frank is very impressed of her abilities. She changes her lifestyle with new clothes and a new hair colour and was also influenced of her flatmate Trish.
Trish encourages Rita a lot and she in under her influence.
"As Trish says there is not a lot of point in discussing beautiful literature in an ugly voice."
She is changing herself by becoming more like others, Rita is losing her individuality because of Trish’s opinions.
"Me an' Trish sat up last night and read them. She agrees with me...what makes it more-more...What did Trish say--?"
She forgets her lines and we can tell that she is using other people’s opinions and facts and not her own.
Rita changed her job because she thought that she could talk in the bistro about more important things than the hairdresser job, she also begins to drift away from Frank by being less personal.
"No-honestly, Frank-I know I've wasted your time. I'll see y' next week, eh?"
Rita before used to look forward to coming to see Frank and have her tutorials all week.
“Frank I only get through the week because I know I gota come ere”
Rita is very under confident as when Frank invites her to dinner she doesn’t show up because she believes that she wouldn't be able to fit in with the others.
"An' all the time I'm trying to think of things I can say, what I can talk about."
Later on when Rita comes back from summer school she says that she was dead scared when she arrived at summer school. She didn't know anyone and she was going to come home on the first day but she didn't, she started to build confidence in herself. The old Rita would have left straight away.
"...Are you fond of Ferlingheti? It was right on the tip of me tongue to say, 'Only when it's served with Parmesan cheese.' But, Frank, I didn't."
Rita is becoming a different person, instead of making sarcastic remarks she has started to make a interesting conversation when people talk to her.
Rita is beginning to fit in with the other students because she stops on her way to the tutorial to talk to students on the lawn. But this shows she is over-confident because she said to the student that their opinion was wrong.
"...I heard one of them saying that as a novel he preferred 'Lady Chatterly' to 'Sons and Lovers.' I thought, I can keep on walking an' ignore it, or I can put him straight."
In my opinion the last change in Rita is that she starts to prefer younger people such as Tiger and Trish. I think that when Rita says
“they are too young”
She might be referring to Frank as old, which is why she doesn’t like to spend more time with him.
"...I find a lot of people I mix with fascinating; they're young, and they're passionate about things that matter. They're not trapped-they're too young for that. And I like to be with them."
In many ways there is a lot of change some for the better, such as Ritas gain in confidence and some for the worse, such as the loss of her individuality.
I think that Russell has bought this play together in a good way.
I think that Russell is trying to express that classes should not affect people’s behaviours or attitude towards others as we see Rita started to ignore Frank.
Everyone is equal and people from low or high classes can achieve all they want.
In my opinion Rita has a selfish and self concerned personality towards the end of the play. She forgets that only a short period of time ago she was very dependent on the people she is now ignoring.