In Act One Scene Two, Rita starts talking about the lawn, ‘I love that lawn down there…do they sit on it...proper students’ This indicates that she does want an education so she can be like the ‘proper students’; she wants to fit in with them and become middle class. Later on in Act Two, Rita does eventually sit on the lawn with the ‘proper students’ and has a ‘…heated discussion with me right in the middle of it’. This is symbolic of how Rita has changed and that she now fits in.
In Act One Scene Seven, Rita describes herself as a ‘half-caste’ because she feels that she has left her working class roots behind but does not feel like she belongs with the middle class either. It suggests that she does not know where she belongs anymore. She does not feel that she can fit in with her friends and family anymore, and she does not feel educated enough to fit in with the middle class.
Frank invites Rita to go to his party in Act One Scene Six however, Rita doesn’t end up going, ‘I couldn’t go in.’ This is another example of her feeling as if she is a ‘half-caste’. She says ‘If you go out…don’t you dress up? Don’t you take wine?’ This shows that Rita wants to change and be ‘normal’ like Frank and his friends, so she can go to parties and not be the ‘court jester’. Rita ends up going to the pub with her family and asks her mum why she is crying. Her mum replies ‘Because we could sing better songs than those’. This is saying that they could live a better life than this and because of this, Rita becomes more determined to carry on with her education, so she does not end up like her mum.
The fact that Rita leaves Denny shows that she is already changing and making decisions for herself to make her life better. It also shows that she is becoming a stronger person and that nothing is going to get in her way. I think that it shows that she is becoming stronger as Denny was really controlling over Rita. He wanted her to get pregnant and didn’t really want her to get an education. Due to this, he burns her books in Act One Scene ...
In Act Two, we see a big difference in the Rita that we knew at first and the new Rita. The Rita in Act One was wary of the students and although she seemed really outgoing, she never really asked many questions. However, the new Rita is the complete opposite. This shows her changing. An example of how Rita has changed is when Frank offers her a cigarette and she declines saying ‘No, ta, I’ve packed it in’. This shows that she must have had a big think while she was away and decided that smoking wouldn’t be part of her new life, even though she said that people who give up smoking are ‘cowards’ earlier on in the play. Ironically she begins to smoke again at the end of the play, symbolizing that she does not need to get rid of everything from her past.
In Act Two Scene One, she talks about the tutor coming up to her and talking to her about American poets in Summer School. She says ‘…tip of me tongue to say ‘Only when its served with Parmesan cheese’…’ This is what the old Rita would have said but the new Rita said ‘Actually I’m not too familiar with the American poets’. This gives the impression that she is getting her education. Her change in language is used to reflect this.
‘…I’m dead familiar with Chekhov now.’ This is another example showing that she has her education and that she is in the process of changing. This is because she did not have a clue who Chekhov was or what he wrote but now it is like she knows a lot about him and his books.
Towards the end of the play, Frank and Rita start to swap roles. This is shown by Frank using more informal words like ‘dead’. Another example of this is that Frank ends up reading ‘Rubyfruit Jungle’ and describes it as ‘excellent’. However, Rita thinks differently and says ‘Of its type it’s quite interesting. But it’s hardly excellence.’ This shows that her understanding of literature has grown because she used to think that ‘Rubyfruit Jungle’ was amazing but because she has read books from well-known authors, it does not actually seem that good anymore.
In Act Two, it starts to seem as if Rita is actually moving on with life but Frank is still stuck in his old ways. This is illustrated when he is still hiding drink behind books and getting drunk, ‘…a book falls…revealing a bottle of whisky’. It also starts to seem as if Frank needs Rita in his life rather Rita needing him in her life.
At the end of Act Two Scene Four, Frank says ‘…you’ve found a different song, that’s all…’ This shows that Rita does not have a better life; just a different one. Also in this scene, Rita tells Frank that she has changed her name. Frank replies ‘Virginia? Or Charlotte? Or Jane? Or Emily?’ All of these names are Victorian writers and Rita actually named herself after a writer before but because she has changed she ‘dropped that pretentious crap as soon as I saw it for what it was.’
At the end of the play, she realises that Frank is not the God-like figure she believed him to be when she first met him. She has also realised that being educated gives her more opportunities and choices but it does not make life perfect as she thought it would be at the beginning.
In Act Two Scene Seven, it says ‘I might even have a baby.’ At the beginning of the play, she did not want to have a baby until she had found herself. So for her to say it now shows that she knows who she is now and she can choose what to do with her life because she has choices that she did not have before.
Rita changes because she wants to do more with her life and does not want to be like all the people ‘round her way’ that get pregnant when they are young and do not have many choices. The whole point of Rita going to the Open University and getting an education was so that she could have the choices that she did not have before and she could ‘sing better songs’.
