Discuss how Rita changes and develops throughout the play

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Discuss how Rita changes and develops throughout the play

Also how does the audience respond to these changes?

The play “Educating Rita” was written by Willy Russell and is unusual in the way that it is set entirely in a University Study. The two main and only characters Frank and Rita are very different in their personalities and backgrounds, which gives a good contrast, making the play interesting. Because there are only two characters and one setting throughout the play, it causes the audience to focus closely on the relationship between Frank and Rita and how that changes over time.

The play is set in the seventies, when there was a class divide and when the lower class didn’t always have the opportunities to complete further education. Rita a young woman who feels trapped in her working class life decides to attend Open University classes in the hope of regaining her education, and to ‘discover’ herself. The play was written at the time when woman were only just beginning to pursue careers, and when it was also beginning to be accepted. This is what Rita wants to do, she wants to break away from her social class and find a better life for herself.

        When you are first introduced to the character of Rita, you are immediately drawn to her and her sense of humour. She appears as a very bubbly and open character showed simply by the way she breezes through the door. She makes a dramatic entrance nearly always when entering Franks Study, which shows us how she must feel insecure around people and is not entirely sure how to act. The audience find this appealing because they are not expecting Rita to act in this manner.

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You also notice how she appears to be on a different level to Frank by the way they speak, and when they misunderstand each other.

 “Frank: And you are?

 Rita: What am I?

Frank: Now you are?

Rita: I’m a what?”.

 Many aspects of Rita are liked by the audience such as her humour and how she doesn’t hold back at all in what she says. She also has a lack of knowledge about Literature, for example, when Frank says

Frank: Do you know Yeats?

 Rita: The wine Lodge?

Frank: No, Yeats the poet”.

 Another ...

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