Clash of Classes and Cultures in Educating Rita
To What Extent Would You Agree That Educating Rita Depicts a Clash
of Classes and Cultures?
'Educating Rita' is a play by Willy Russell, a dramatist recently
turned novelist. 'Educating Rita' contains only two characters, a
young woman called Rita and a middle-aged man called Frank, although
this may sound boring these characters are so interesting that anymore
characters would ruin the ambiance of the play. In the early part of
the play Rita, a hairdresser from north-west England, has started an
Open University course with Frank, a university lecturer in his early
fifties, in order to change herself. Throughout the play Rita becomes
more and more cultured giving up anything that gets in the way of her
education or tries to stop her being the cultured individual she wants
to be.
Rita is a working class woman in her late twenties trying to find
herself through a university education; Frank is a divorced university
professor in his early fifties. Bored of teaching Frank drinks his
life away and has taken on Rita as an Open University student to fund
this habit. These two interesting characters from very different
backgrounds are thrown together and the clashes of class and culture
are depicted in a number of ways. Rita's language is very colloquial
and this, at times, amuses Frank; for example, 'What in the name of
God is being off one's cake.' Her language is both new and puzzling to
Frank as he is used to hearing the generally proper English spoken by
his university students. These phrases seem out of place when issued
by Frank. 'One is obviously very off one's cake,' - 'you can't say
that [Frank].' Frank's sesquipedalian language does not mix with
Ri...
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...etween two classes and cultures.
In the earlier part of the play Rita feels surrounded by an alien
environment, the university and its students, she is nervous and, as a
result, comes across as very loquacious. She sees this in herself when
she says, 'I talk too much' in act one scene one. However, towards the
end of play her speeches are generally shorter. In this new
environment Rita also feels isolated but gradually changes and feels
as though she can interact with the 'real students'. When she finally
does this in act two, scene two it may surprise the audience because
in earlier scenes she describes them as 'real students' as though her
life and their lives cannot mix. But, when she finally does speak to
the student, the first line she tells us she said was, 'Excuse me but
I couldn't help overhearin' the rubbish you were spoutin' about
Lawrence.'
I think these quotes prove that Melinda starts talking more as the year progresses. At the beginning of the year, I noticed that Melinda wasn’t very active or social. For the most part, she avoided most social activities. She seemed to prefer to be alone inside her closet. But during the second semester, I noticed that this started to change.
...ially drawn to Rita, not for her “frizzy, uncombable black hair, or burdensome breasts, but the face that he insisted no guy on campus could forget, and the legs he insisted were not birdlike” (73). Due to Marcus’ personality traits he did not seem to notice that he was sabotaging any possibility of ever having anything serious with Rita.
The film reflects the class difference from beginning through the end, especially between Annie and Helen. Annie is a single woman in her late 30s without saving or boyfriend. She had a terrible failure in her bakery shop, which leads her to work as a sale clerk in a jewelry store. When Annie arrived Lillian’s engagement party,
In Toni Cade Bambara’s short story “The Lesson” there is no hiding what she intended to portray to the audience, the fact that there is a huge gap between the lower class citizens and the higher class citizens. This becomes apparent during one of Miss Moore’s infamous outings with the kids when she takes them to FAO Schwartz in Manhattan to teach them about money. Through this outing with Miss Moore the children realize that their way of life is far different than of those in Manhattan and that they belong to a different class of people altogether.
The teachers represent the general society, a society of similar people with middle-class ideals and goals, as well as expectations that their students will aspire to these same goals. This society, however is hostel toward those who are different and unusual. His red carnation, as well as all his other mannerisms, belies this difference. Because of Paul’s behavior they conclude that there is “something wrong about the fellow�(Cather 178). They judge him mercilessly and so contribute to his isolation from his known society.
The theme of culture appears a lot in the play. One of the ways that
...ves the play to do they feel motivated ‘I don’t feel average today, I feel top of the class…thanks to sir.’ In ‘Educating Rita’ she has never been to the theatre and an amateur to her is just brilliant this just shows how at first she is so uneducated and how Frank who is very well educated takes going to the theatre and having had an education for granted.
Grey recognizes Godfrey as a fellow Harvard grad. Some earlier signs such as his impressive diction, ease in dressing appropriately, and ability to quickly adapt to the high class lifestyle also show that he has previous experience in a moneyed household. However, these are quickly looked past as Godfrey charms the audience with his witty, and respectable character. At this tea party, the revelation of Godfrey’s true character is largely overshadowed by the performance of another character: Ms. Irene Bullock. Her hilarious performance of a suffering girl who is forever damaged by Godfrey’s rejection is used as a tool both to steer the audience away from drawing conclusions about Godfrey’s true character and to demonstrate how negligent one’s worries are at that level of
Reppmann spoke about worldview and how there are appreciations and concerns on how it is used in education. They were cultural opportunism and the role of pre-theoretical commitments (Worldview: An Untimely Mediation, p. 48-52). Both of these characteristics were discussed by Reppmann as being good and bad. However, I see them as being good and they should be utilized. Cultural opportunism was when worldview became introduced it brought together Christianity with culture, but the concern is that it may be no longer be current. Then with the role of pre-theoretical commitments, the fear of losing the historical aspect of worldview is of concern. I completely agree that there should be a connection with Christianity and culture and that worldview should reflect the historical past, but also current times. A worldview may change as there are changes in the world and we need to adapt to them. For instance, I am aware of how dramatic the increase of diversity of classes has become. People with disabilities and from different cultures are being placed in common classrooms. As my Philosophy of education has expressed I need to meet the
He is a lazy man, bored and frustrated by his life he too does not
3)David Watkins (2000) Learning and Teaching: A cross-cultural perspective, School Leadership & Management: Formerly School Organization, 20:2,161-173
Confucian beliefs have played an important role in the East Asian societies for centuries, thus Japan is not an exception. One of the main features of Confucianism is the set of five hierarchical orders, one of them being the master and his disciple interaction. It can be adapted to a specific relationship between a ramen noodle master and his apprentice. This kind of interactions has been shown in the Japanese film Tampopo and its modern American remake The Ramen Girl. In both films the student and teacher interaction can be seen as one of the main, if not the most important, narrative strands, around which all the action is centred. This essay will be dealing with this hierarchical order in the context of The Ramen Girl, where the relationship is rather Americanized and goes against the Japanese traditions. The main character is not only disrespectful of her teacher, but is overall very ignorant towards the Japanese culture. This movie will be compared to the already mentioned “noodle western” Tampopo, where the hierarchy is much more evident, despite being slightly modernized. Therefore, while using the medium of food and hierarchical order of Confucianism, both films successfully tell the viewers a lot about the way people interact in the portrayed nations.
How can I create a classroom that is conducive to learning and engaging for students from various cultural and linguistically different backgrounds? This is a question that many teachers face at the beginning of each school year. Many educators incorporate popular culture into all of their lesson plans in hopes of captivating and motivating their students to become engrossed in the lesson and to accelerate student learning. While this is a fine method to use in order to engage students, but it is a bit taboo and overused. Many teachers work under the misconception that if they mention rap, basketball, soccer, Mexico, the Caribbean or an ethnic group's top 10 historical figures into a lesson then the black and brown students of the classroom will automatically become more responsive learners. However, culturally responsive teaching is not using popular culture or racial pride as a weapon for student engagement. It is using similar cultural learning styles as tools to teach students material in ways that they understand and identify with most. Unfortunately, there is no
Rita's education goes far beyond just reading and responding to books however. When she first comes to the university she is impressed and even a little intimidated by the intelligent people she sees around her. By the end of the play she is able to tell them when they are speaking nonsense and join in their conversations as an equal. Success in her literature course has thus given her greater confidence in the wider world.
In the play Educating Rita, Willy Russell uses many dramatic devices to develop the themes and characters. By doing this he is able to build up an image of the characters and themes in the audience’s head. One of the main ways he does this is through characterisation. The two main characters (and the only ones we actually see) are Frank and Rita. These two characters couldn’t be any more different. Frank is a University lecturer in English Literature with a drink problem. He had a failed marriage and is in a struggling relationship with ‘Julia’. However he does appear to have a comfortable middle class lifestyle and has written some poetry in his time. Rita is a working class, 26 year old hairdresser who has taken the big step of enrolling on to an Open University literature course. She is married to a man called Denny, he objects to the course as it means Rita been away from home and leaving her social life within the community behind her. When these two meet a whole can of worms is opened and many amusing, sad and entertaining events take place.