In 'Educating Rita' Russell writes, "education gives you a choice" - How does Russell illustrate to the audience the change in Rita as a result of her choosing education throughout the play?
In 'Educating Rita' Russell writes, "education gives you a choice." How does Russell illustrate to the audience the change in Rita as a result of her choosing education throughout the play?
During the play 'Educating Rita', Rita changes dramatically due to her desire to have choice. Russell illustrates this to the audience in a variety of different ways to slowly reveal the change in Rita due to her newfound choice and education. Most ideas and themes throughout the play, such as class and discontentment are linked and a result of the central themes of choice and education, which also plays an important role in the life of Rita.
During the play 'Educating Rita' we see the struggle of young working class Liverpudlian, hairdresser Rita as she tries to get an education, break away from her class and give herself more choice in life. Her tutor Frank is a well-educated professor with a drink problem who teaches Rita many things about both literature and life. Their relationship slowly develops over the course of the play, as Rita tries to become a successful student.
Rita wants to change herself totally and she considers education the way to do this. She wants to change herself from the inside by receiving an education and this will help her to change her attitude towards life. For example, when talking about her profession she says:
" These women, you see, they come to the hairdressers because they want to be changed. But if you want to change y' have to do it from the inside, don't y'? Know like I'm doing." (Act1: 1)
Rita has chosen education to give her choice in her life but it is not the first time that she could have chosen education. At her school she could have chosen to study but she was under peer pressure as "studying was just for wimps." (Act 1:2) When she was younger she did not realise that the choices she made then would affect her life when she was older. She was mainly concerned with fitting in and being the same as her friends.
"See if I had started to take school seriously I would have become different from my mates an' that's not allowed." (Act 1:2)
This shows that education does give you choice as if Rita had chosen to study at school she would probably have a better job and be in a different situation to which she is in at the beginning of the play. She does however have determination and is not afraid to learn anything that she may need to succeed and help give her choice.
"Frank: What can I teach you?
Rita: Everything." (Act 1:1)
The audience can see Rita's lack of education through the way she speaks. She uses a great deal of colloquial expressions and the fact that she has a lack of knowledge about the middle class vocabulary can be seen in a conversation at the beginning of the play.
"Frank: You are?"
"Rita: What am I?"
"Frank: Pardon?"
"Rita: What? (Act 1:2)
She also uses inappropriate language in front of people she wants to make a good impression with. Russell uses this inappropriate language to show the audience that she does not have much knowledge of etiquette or manners. For example this can be seen when she first meets Frank and she is describing the erotic picture.
"There's no suppose about it. Look at those tits." (Act 1:1)
One thing that would limit the choice of Rita and would mean that she would not be able to follow her dream of an education is having a baby. She does want to have a baby but later in her life when she has become fully educated and fulfilled her dreams of choice and education. In the play Denny, Rita's husband puts Rita under a great deal of pressure to have a baby. He will go to any extent to make sure that Rita gets pregnant.
"Denny found out I was on the pill again; it my fault, I left the prescription out. He burnt all me books." (Act 1:5)
"I told him I'd only have a baby when I have choice. But he doesn't understand." (Act1: 5)
Denny thinks that education is changing Rita in a bad way and that the choices she is making is pulling Rita way from him. He wants to feel in control and he does this by trying to stop Rita getting an education and burning her books.
"I see him looking at ...
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"Denny found out I was on the pill again; it my fault, I left the prescription out. He burnt all me books." (Act 1:5)
"I told him I'd only have a baby when I have choice. But he doesn't understand." (Act1: 5)
Denny thinks that education is changing Rita in a bad way and that the choices she is making is pulling Rita way from him. He wants to feel in control and he does this by trying to stop Rita getting an education and burning her books.
"I see him looking at me sometimes, an' I know what he's thinking, I do y' know, he's wonderin' where the girl he married has gone to. He even brings me presents sometimes, hopin' that the presents'll make her come back. But she can't, because she's gone, an' I've taken her place."(Act 1:5)
Russell shows us from the phrase "I've taken her place" that Rita considers herself to have changed from the old her to an educated woman with choice in her life.
"I was out for a while. When I come back he'd burnt me books and papers, most of them." (Act 1:5)
The relationship that Rita has with Denny is not at all about choice. He controls he decisions and decides what Rita can and can't do. Even though Denny controls Rita's choices it makes her even more determined to have an education. She feels however that the only way she can get an education is by leaving Denny. So by the end of the book Rita has chosen choice and education over a married life.
"No. I wanna know. I've got to do this. He can burn me books an' me papers but if it's all in me head he can't touch it. It's like that with you, isn't it? You've got it all inside." (Act 1:5)
She is fed up of people making her choices for her. She is expected by her class to do many things like having a baby, going to the pub and like football. One of the biggest things that Rita has to choose between is class. She does not fit into middle class but she does not want to be in the lower class. She considers herself to be a 'Half cast.' The audience is aware of this choice that Rita has to make as it causes many arguments between her and Denny. Denny is the anchor pulling her to the lower class and it takes Rita a great deal of strength to break away from both Denny and the working class into an educated middle class life. During the middle of the play Rita leaves Denny due to the huge amount of pressure he puts on her to not follow her dream of choice. The audience can see how Rita is disheartened Rita is by this trouble by the way she enters Frank's lessons. She no longer bounces in full of things to say as she does at the beginning of the play but she;
"Enters slowly carrying a suitcase." (Act 1:8)
One of the most obvious changes that the audience can see in Rita is shown mainly by the way she enters the room in each scene. In the first scene she is frustrated with the door and struggles to get into the room. Russell uses this to reveal to the audience the fact that she is struggling to get into the middle class and that she is frustrated with her life.
"I'm coming in, aren't I? It's that stupid bleedin' handle on the door. You wanna get it fixed!" (Act 1:1)
This shows to the audience that even though education can give Rita choice it is not always easy to get an education in the first place in order to get choice.
The next time she enters she is oiling the door and this shows that she is making the first step to overcome the barrier between her and the middle class.
"He goes to the door and pulls it open. Rita is standing in the doorway, holding a small can of oil."
At the end of the play she knocks before entering the room and she is welcomed in. This shows that instead of barging into the middle class she is actually being gladly welcomed.
"There is a knock at the door.
Frank: come in
Rita enters and goes to the swivel chair behind Frank's desk." (Act 2:5)
Another thing other than the door, which is symbolic of the barrier between Rita and the world of education and choice, is the window in Frank's office. The window is the only thing between her and education and it provides a window into her future as she looks through it at the "proper students" who have already got what she wants.
"Rita: going to the window. I don't wanna y'.
Another big change, which can be seen in Rita, is her confidence. At the start of the play when she first meets Frank she lacks in confidence this can be seen by her body language and the stage directions directed to her. She tries to more the focus away from herself and to other items in the room.
"That's a nice picture isn't it?"(Act 1:1)
This shows her insecurities and how she lacks confidence in herself as a person. She also has a low attention span and she cannot focus on one thing for very long. "Rita begins to look around the room." (Act 1:1)
Rita is nervous lacks confidence in herself and is afraid to settle and start the lesson in fear that any attention may be drawn to her.
"Frank: Would you-erm-would you like to sit down?
Rita: No! Can I smoke?" (Act 1:1)
"She becomes uncomfortable and moves away a little." (Act 1:1)
After she returns from summer school she has a great deal of confidence both in herself and her work. Education from a summer school has made her a totally different person. She is excited, full of news and has a wide knowledge of literature. She no longer has her innocent point of view and she is independent, as she no longer needs the help of Frank. Not only can the audience see the change in her through all this but also there are many physical changes, which take place. She gives up smoking and wears new second hand clothes. The long coat, which she wears, is maybe symbolic of the way that she is trying to cover up her true self and disguise herself to fit into the educated class.
"Rita enters and shuts the door. She is wrapped in a large winter coat."(Act 2:7)
Another influence that led Rita to become educated was her mother.
"When I looked round me mother had stopped singin', an' she was cryin'.. I said, ' Why are y' cryin' mother?' She said because-because we could sing better songs than those.'.... And that's why I came back. And that's why I am staying." (Act1: 7)
Rita believes that she is not just becoming educated to please herself but also her mother. Her mother never had the chance to make something of her life as like Rita she was bound to her class. She wants to do what her mother never thought was possible, as her mother had to fulfil her 'house wife role.' Rita's mother never had choice or an education, she is just like Rita but she never made the choice to brake away and get theses things. She can see the great struggle that Rita is going through to try and get an education and choice and so she wants to support Rita so that she can have what she should have fought for. This gives Rita a great deal of support in times that she really needs it. It gives her the confidence to return to University and continue with her course when days before she severely doubted that she would even be able to complete it.
Education also helps Rita to change the view she has of herself. She realises that what she wants to do is important and not always to follow the majority. Through her newfound education Rita can look for an answer to life.
"I've begun to find me and its great y' know." (Act 1:7)
This route of self-discovery gives Rita a determination to control her life and make her own choices and she believes that she can gain this from education. By the end of the play Rita knows that the education she has received has given her the freedom of choice, which she always wondered about. "God what's it like to be free." (Act 1:1)
Education also helps Rita to change her groups of friends throughout the play. In the beginning she only has friends within a small group of her family but as the play progresses she becomes more confident and so as her life changes so do her friends. Trish is Rita's new role model and this replaces Frank, which makes him feel rejected and that his relationship with Rita is worthless. She makes new friends at summer school and they help her to become the new women that Frank sees on her return with a greatly boosted confidence. Her new flat mate and friend Trish also helps to guide her into the middle class. Rita considers Trish's middle class life to be perfect and full of choice, but this perfect view is soon crushed when Trish tries to commit suicide. She see that the middle class life that she always dreamed of is maybe not so perfect and the choices that education can give you sometimes get to much and can destroy your mind.
As her confidence grows she also follows another dream of making friends with some of the "proper students" on the lawn. "Yeh, I got here early this today and started to talk to some students down on the lawn." (Act 2:) These new friends help her to explore education and to discuss it with other people around her. But like the other dreams she comes to realise that she also has the same view of middle class Frank that these "proper students" are nothing but "wankers" (Act 2:7) Russell uses this to subtly show the audience that as she shares the same view of the middle class that she is no longer pretending to be something but she is actually now a fully educated middle class women. Even though Rita may be a middle class woman she is not happy. She has no husband and no proper friends. Russell shows the audience that education may give you choice but in order to receive it you must make decision between the things you want and the things you have. He shows this through some of the characters that a closest to Rita. Frank has choice and education but he is not happy and this drives him to turn to drink, he made the wrong decision but the thing that gave him the chance to decide was education itself. Trish seems educated and she is definitely not happy. She was so unhappy and depressed with her life that it drove her to committing suicide. So Russell shows to the audience that when you have choices it does not mean you will make the right choice and sometimes they can effect your life more than when you didn't have choice.
Rita does not want to wait for education to change her on the inside. She wants to change her appearance on the outside so that people will believe that she is educated. She changes her name to what she believes to be an 'educated author' Russell does this to show that Rita is trying to cover up her past life and back ground where she had no choice.
"That's 'S' for Susan. It's just my real name. I've changed it o Rita, though. I'm not a Susan any more. I've called meself Rita- y' know, after Rita Mae Brown." (Act 1:1)
She changes the way she speaks, as she want to sound more educated like her new friend Trish.
"Frank: What's wrong with your voice? Rita: Nothing is wrong with it Frank. I have merely decided to talk properly. As Trish says there is no point in discussing beautiful literature in an ugly voice." (Act 2:2)
Her language does not just change because she wants it to it also changes due to her becoming more educated. In the beginning of the play she uses harsh and course language. She swears a lot "Oh I'm really fucked." (Act 1:1) She thinks this us the way that she can fit into middle class life as she thinks that is the way people in the middle class speak.
"But it's the aristocracy that swears ore than anyone." (Act 1:1)
As the play develops Rita uses less vulgar language and sounds more naturally educated. Rita's choice language also changes dramatically after she returns from summer school. She no longer replies with a sarcastic comment but gives an educated view and answer.
"Are you fond of Ferlinghetti,' It was right on the tip of my tongue to say, ' only when served with parmesan cheese.' But, Frank I didn't." (Act 2:1)
After she returns from summer school she also changes her clothes so that she can look more educated.
"She twirls on the spot to show off her new clothes." (Act 2:1) Rita has now gained enough confidence from education to be able to make the choice to change her hair and clothes. Russell also shows that she has gained confidence as she twirls to show her new clothes this draws attention to herself and at the beginning of the play she was very much concerned with trying to stop this from happening.
Many of the changes that have taken place in Rita is mainly due to Frank providing Rita with an education. When Frank starts to teach Rita he realises that for her to be successful he will have to crush her uniqueness. "I'm going to have to change you" But when Rita has changed and become more educated he does not like what he has done as he fells like Mary Shelley the author of Frankenstein because he fells that he has created a monster in Rita. This is however not true as the relationship between Rita and Frank gave Rita the confidence and determination that she needed to fight through her barrier of class and become the educated and ambitious women which we see in the final scene of the play. The relationship between Frank and Rita however does have its ups and downs and when Rita has learned 'everything' from Frank he is reluctant to accept it.
"I've got what you got Frank, and you don't like it."
By the end of the play however Rita has gained what she set out to achieve. She has finally got choice. She is also happy that she now has more than one direction to follow in life.
"I dunno, I might go to France. I might go to me mothers. I might even have a baby. I'll make the decision. I'll choose."(Act 2:7)
The fact that she is considering having a baby reinforces even more that she now has choice, as earlier in the play she said:
"I'd told him I'd only have a baby when I have choice." (Act 1:5)
Throughout the play the audience is aware of the changes, which are taking place in Rita due to her want for education. At the beginning of the play Rita wanted to change herself. To provide herself with options and she used education as a way of doing this and to for fill her dreams which we see at the end of the play. The change, which takes place in her, this is shown by Russell in a variety of different ways to the audience. Russell uses a variety of ways to show the change in Rita through her entrances, speech and body language. Russell uses these techniques well to slowly show the reader the change in Rita sometimes even if they do not realise it.
