"Education gives you a choice." How does Willy Russell show this through changes made in Educating Rita.

Rita changes habits during the play by changing her dress sense when she meets Trish. By completely changing the way she looks it shows that she looks up to Trish as a role model for her. Trish also affects the way she speaks, “As Trish says there is not a lot of point in discussing beautiful literature in an ugly voice”. This could be Rita’s idea of finding herself, by trying to become someone else. She is being educated because she talks in Received Pronunciation, which is considered to be more superior to an accent. Therefore she has gone up in the social world and so has been educated. However, at the start of the play she mentions about trying to find herself and indeed becoming someone else would mean that she is not finding herself but a new person instead. Russell shows Rita’s changes by making her change her normal routine, she gives up smoking and working at the hairdressers. This is symbol of her not only changing her life, but also her soul. Frank values Rita’s working class culture because she is very keen to learn which is a quality, which may not be present in all working class people. She really wants to become an A* grade student which shows a lot of determination. This could also represent her life, she drops out of school at an early age and then has the determination to go back to learn again. This huge motivation probably comes from the fact that she wants to find herself. This also shows great courage as she doesn’t know if becoming educated will help her find herself but she goes and does it anyway.

Both of the characters in the play value each other’s uniqueness and differences in their personalities. This is because they haven’t been in a situation before where they have met someone so different from themselves. The relationship hits crisis point when Rita becomes independent and doesn’t need Frank anymore. She changes her job and name and doesn’t tell Frank, “It struck me that there was a time when you told me everything.” This shows that Frank is feeling slightly annoyed that Rita doesn’t need him anymore. Some may believe that later on during the play Rita confirms what the audience are thinking when she talks to Frank about him not liking her now because she is educated and doesn’t need him. Frank seems slightly upset at the fact that Rita has confirmed what his sub-conscious was saying about him having feelings for her. Denny’s character is used a lot to show how much Rita has changed. When Rita and Denny got married they obviously loved each other, then everything was fine. When Rita started going to Frank to become more educated Denny obviously didn’t like this and so in the end he leaves her. This would not have happened if she had just carried on with her normal life, however he leaves her thus outlining her changing character. Which also outlines her developing education.

Throughout the play Rita starts becoming more and more confident, when she first goes to the university she knocks on the door of Frank’s office, “There is a knock at the door.” She then waits for Frank to ask her to come in, this shows uncertainty and that she expects Frank to be posh so she thinks that she should do things ‘properly’. This also makes the audience realise that she has no concept of what a university is like; she just has a stereotypical view of a very posh place. However, towards the end she starts to find out what the university is really like and so becomes more confident during the process. Rita even becomes arrogant quite quickly because the second time she enters she oils the door, “Hello. I was just oilin’ it for y’.” Then she offers for Frank to keep the oilcan which shows the audience that she is becoming bravado, almost as though she has gone too far and become too much ‘at home’. In the end Rita’s arrogance gets too much as she doesn’t even turn up for Franks tutorial on time showing that she doesn’t care. At the beginning of the play when Rita comes in she never sits down and just stands up the whole time but towards the end she eventually sits down. Which again shows that she is becoming too much “at home”. This shows that she still has a misconception of the way that the university is run, and showing that she is not educated.  

Rita has gained and lost constantly in the play, both through education and socially. Through education she has gained knowledge and an understanding on literature along with a feeling of intelligence. This may come from the fact that some of the other students look up to her and rely on her to answer their questions about literature. Socially she has gained confidence and her accent starts to go which would make her more respectable. Proof of this is that at the start of the play she would talk like, “Y’ wanna be careful with that stuff, it kills y’ brain cells”. At the end of the play she talks like, “Are you sober, are you”. She finds a lot of friends whilst at university and she feels that she has gone up in the social world. She loses her old personality but then she does gain a new one. However, during the process of her trying to find herself Denny breaks up with her and along with Denny she probably would have lost a few of her old friends as well.