Rita- ‘They walk in the hairdresser’s an’ an hour later they wanna walk out a different
person.’
Her other obstacle she has is her job as a hairdresser; she see this job for what it is. She see’s that the people coming in are want a new hair cut and thinking that it is going to make them a different person: i.e. changing the outside and thinking that it will change them on the inside. And Rita realises that to really change you have to go the other way round – inside to outside, she see’s that education is a way of change from the inside. She consequently quits this job to work in a Bistro. She says that when she is working in their people come in and expect you to change their entire personality with just a haircut. This a very clever bit of writing by the author Willy Russell as later on in the play Rita is accused by Frank as just being a hollow shell of a person. Another time when we see Rita questioning if she belongs in the educated circle is on the way to Frank’s party. We hear her telling Frank the reason she didn’t reason she didn’t to the party and saying how out of place she would have felt there if she had have gone. Then getting angry with Frank and accusing him of inviting her so him and his friends could laugh at her. I think that this showing us how Rita doesn’t know herself where she should be, as she doesn’t fell at home anywhere ‘with Deny and friends’. Obviously not with ‘Frank and his friends, this all links in with the quote ‘Who am I?’ said by Rita at the beginning of the play.
When Rita goes to summer school she is not only extending her knowledge further than what Frank has been teaching her but she extending her address book of other people who share the same views as her. This is a very symbolic scene for me showing that Rita really is expanding her education, doing the extra curricula and meeting and making friends with new people along the way. This for me real start of Rita’ journey to becoming an educated woman, I say this because after this scene Rita appears a lot more confident and secure in that her ideas and thoughts are valid and sensible. And of course Rita approaching students and starting up a heated debate with her in the middle and winning. These are the students who before Franks tuition Rita was petrified of.
Another major person in the story who we hear about is Trish. Trish is a complete fake, an empty shell an bunch of meaningless phrases and is there I think to show us what Rita would have been like if she had not seen what she was turning in to. Rita says that she knows ‘what clothes to wear, what wine to buy, what plays to see’ and basically saying that she has found culture. Franks links this cleverly to the beginning of the book with a remark about ‘different song to sing.’ However I don’t think that Trish has had a completely negative effect on Rita as Before she met Trish she was with Deny at the pub, but when with Trish, Rita stays at home of a night time and reads poetry.
We also see Frank testing Rita to see if she really has an education by giving her his own poetry to see if she saw it for what it really is in his (an educated mans opinion) ‘worthless, talent less, shit’. When Rita does fail to recognise it for what it is, he shows his feelings in a clever manor referring to himself as Mary Shelley (writer of Frankenstein) referring to Rita as the monster he has created. He does this obviously because he is frustrated by the fact that Rita is turning into Trish and just reciting everything she says, which is wrong anyway.
The final scene for me is one of great important in the relevance of- how things end between Rita and Frank? What’s going to become of both of them? And Rita seeing that Trish was a fraud and that know she is an educated woman she can look at the future in an intelligent and confident way. And that Rita feels she needs to give something back to Frank and the part where Frank gives Rita the dress.
It is Rita that comes to see Frank and tell him that he is a good teacher and that she is sorry about the argument, we also find Frank is being sent to Australia (isolated) as he made quite a night of it some weeks ago. Then we come to Rita who is now in control of her own life and can chose to do whatever she wants to do and it is her own chose no one else, this is all proved by the comment ‘ill chose me’. This is as a pose to who she was at the start of the play (‘ Who am I?’ quoted earlier), and now she is able to choose some one who can look at the future in an intelligent and positive way, a newly educated woman. Another way of reading the same quote is Rita no longer has Deny on her back telling her what to do.
Her new male attraction is Tiger (a possible future) he is a student at the University the same as Rita, and now she is a newly educated woman she is able think sensible about him and make criticisms about him, ‘What a wanker’. This is the opinion someone who used to be in ore of him and now she is able to look down on him, and criticisms. Her power to think critically is what Frank has given her , this is a skill that Rita will have for the rest of her life. Another important moment for me is when Frank gives Rita the dress he brought for ‘an educated woman friend’ of his, he put the emphasis on woman I think showing how much Rita has matured mentally over the period he has been tutoring her.
The final point I have to make is that at the very end of the book where Rita gives something back to Frank, a haircut. This for me is showing Rita’s gratitude towards Frank for everything he had done for her.
