How does Rita develop as a character throughout the course of the play?

Despite the fact that this play was written 25 years ago we can say that the message about education giving choices is still relevant today. During the course of the play Rita shows how she can achieve what she wanted. We can clearly notice the drastic change there is in different aspects of her between Act 1 Scene 1 and Act 2 Scene 7. Some of these aspects are her attitude, her language, her educational development, her physical appearance and her personal life.

Right at the beginning of the play Rita depends a lot on her family and husband. They become an obstacle to her when she can’t follow her ambition because of their working class values. They say she should stop thinking about being an educated woman and concentrate more on making a family.

“Denny found out I was on the pill again… he burnt all me books.”

This is an example of how her husband doesn’t like her learning and how she is dismissing the idea of having children because of that. It even gets to a point where he burns all her books.

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In the play, there is a symbolic meaning in the way she struggles to open the door of Frank’s office the first time she goes in. This is a way of showing how her learning is going to be difficult: “(from the doorway): I’m coming in aren’t I? It’s that stupid bleedin’ handle on the door. You wanna get it fixed!” Later in the play we can see how she tries to oil the door: “is standing in the doorway, holding a small can of oil” This shows how she is determined to learn and it’s also another symbolic way of saying that she is going to use every device she can to achieve her goal. Rita’s main desire at the beginning of the play is to be like the “proper students” and go to a “proper university”. She is constantly underestimating herself and her chances thinking she is never going to make it, like in Act 1 Scene 1 when she says: “I was dead surprised when they took me. I don’t suppose they would have done it if it had been a proper university”

Rita’s language reflects her social background. She uses a lot of slang and swearing and seems coarse and unlikely to make a progress because of her vocabulary. She uses words like “bleedin’”, “sod” and “pissed” and uses expressions like “get on my tits” instead of simply saying “irritate me”. She always goes directly o the point without hesitating. An example of this is when she first enters Frank’s office and starts talking about the painting on the wall: “Look at those tits… I mean when they painted it do you think it was to turn people on?” This shows how talkative she is even when she barely knows the person. She also brings forth her sharp wit in many occasions.

Her educational development is very slow at first and she has no self confidence. She thinks that she can learn “everything” from Frank. We start to notice that she is actually learning when she isn’t “afraid” of the “proper students” anymore. She starts thinking that she knows more than them when she says “For students they don’t half come out with some rubbish y’know”. When she achieves her goals she finally has choices.

Her physical appearance and her personal life are also reflected on the play. After looking at the film version directed by Lewis Gilbert we saw that he also did a good job representing both of these aspects visually. The changes in her personal life reflect her academic achievement. For example, when she leaves Denny she can now study without the pressure she used to have and she even goes to summer school where she gets to learn much more. Her clothing and hair also changes when she leaves Denny. We could say that this is a liberating act, which enhances her independence and self-will. After summer school she builds up confidence and even starts to challenge Frank’s opinions and says: “I don’t have to agree with everything you say”. This clearly contrasts with the beginning where she thought Frank knew “everything”. During the course of the play Rita is constantly using others as a model to follow, which is why she changed her name from Susan to Rita ( after Rita Mae Brown) on the first place. At one point she also changes her accent to sound more “sophisticated”. These are clear signs of her lack of self confidence. By the end of the play she discovers herself truly and even considers doing what was trapping her before. These were things like having a baby or going to her mother’s.

Overall, we can say that Rita makes a drastic change in all the aspects mentioned above during the course of the play. In the end we can see a totally different Rita who has achieved her goal and that although she has come full circle she is quite different to the original Rita. Even if you didn’t know that Russell based the play in his own life the message about education giving choices is transmitted very effectively.

Ali assaf

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