“I don’t know that I want to teach you…
…What you already have is valuable”
Yet Rita will not listen, she is now obsessed to becoming what she calls a “proper student”. To Franks words she responds with:
“Valuable? What’s valuable?…
But don’t you realise I want to change!”
Rita changes in that instance and shows no sign of changing back.
While the learning stage, Frank undergoes some changes too. He has become more outgoing and sees there are better things to do than drink. He also turns to be more open and accepting with things. For example when Rita gave in one of her essays he may have before been very annoyed or not bothered, but instead he does his job for a change and helps her in an understanding it.
Another example is when Rita took him too an amateurs play which he would not have done ever before. Let alone going out to a place without drink, the play is done by amateurs is Frank’s immediate thought. Reluctantly he is dragged at the start but than goes willing.
“Oh y’ an awful snob, aren’t y’?” – Rita
“All right-come on” – Frank
Later on it is him who is inviting Rita to go out, at a dinner party.
Rita then goes to a summer school where she continues with her studies and her change. When she comes back it seem s that both the characters have changed.
Rita has obviously changed but so has Frank.
At the start of Act 2 Scene 1 Rita comes in as new person with hardly a trace of Rita in Act 1. For one thing she comes in wearing new clothes, which are second hand, so she is keeping to her promise of not getting a new dress. Also when she gives a brief description of her holidays it is easy to tell that she had changed. Before she was scared of the other students who she referred to as “proper students”, but now she is friends with them and sees herself as a “proper student”.
She has also learnt how to be serious when necessary. Previously she would just mess around but later on she became self-conscious and didn’t wish to meet people in fear of them seeing her still as clowning around. However she can now talk to people and know what to say. An example of this when she was asked about the poet Ferlinghetti by a tutor:
“It was right on the tip of my tongue to say, “Only when it’s served with parmesan cheese” but, Frank, I didn’t, I held it back…”
Her confidence, which before was hardly measurable, improved considerably. The previous quote in a way shows that her confidence has grown, by not running away later on and instead going into a conversation. But a fine example that her confidence has really improved is when during her first lecture at the end Rita stuck her hand up and asked a question.
“Honest to God, I stood up, an’ everyone’s lookin’ at me…
…so I did it, I asked him the question”
It is not too particularly clear after she just came back from summer school, but you could say that Rita has left behind the middle-class completely and is not even a mixture of the two worlds anymore, she is now pretty much totally upper-class.
“I got around to reading it you know, Rubyfruit Jungle. It’s excellent”
“ (Laughing) Oh go way, Frank. Of its type it’s quite interesting. But it’s hardly excellent”
She has even turned her back on what was her favourite book, one that she even carried around with sometimes. She has changed her name back to Susan and is annoyed with Frank still calling her Rita. She now calls her changing her name was an act of “pretentious crap”
Along with her name her lifestyle has changed too. She lives in a flat with a person called Trish. Rita tries to copy her and in a way, Trish turns into a type of older sister for her. Rita tries for a little while to change her voice like Trish’s to Frank’s disapproval.
“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”
“Well will you kindly tell Trish that I’m not giving a tutorial to a Dalek?”
She makes new friends at the Open University as well. Before Rita was scared to talk to the people she deemed proper students. But now as she views herself as a proper student, she regularly has conversations with them. She regularly has debates with them as well. She seems to create a unique bond with one of them:
“Tiger they call him, he’s the mad one”
She now works at a new place. Instead of the hairdressers she works at a local bistro. Frank was upset when he wasn’t informed and Rita just hastily replied that she has no time for irrelevant detail. Irrelevant detail was the product of working at the hairdressers and she has no time for that any more.
She has literately changed her entire life now. She has got a new job, new friends a new place to live with a new flatmate. Most of this is done without Frank’s knowledge. Perhaps Frank’s manner of mood is due to both jealousy and him being upset about turning Rita into another tiresome student.
No longer it seems that Frank views Rita as a breath of fresh air, but as a foul stench of the shallow middle class society.
Frank does not blame her transformation entirely on her however. He finds other people to blame on her change; people at her summer school, her new roommate Trish and namely himself. While mocking Rita about her changing names than seeing that like an act which is beneath her, he makes fun and gives a statement by saying that he should change his name to Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley is a writer who wrote the book Frankenstein, this is a about a scientist who creates a monster. He refers this too himself by implying that he created Rita into a monster. However angry Frank is with Rita he never blames her for change, this implies his unique fondness for her. He acts like a protective parent.
