Development of Characters in Educating Rita

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.

Arguably, the most important scene of the play is when we meet Rita for the first time. This is in the opening act of the play.

There’s another knock at the door

Frank: Come in! Come in!

Rita: (From the doorway) I’m comin’ in, aren’t I? It’s that stupid bleedin’ handle on the door. You wanna get it fixed! (She comes into the room)

Frank: (Staring, slightly confused) Erm – yes, I suppose I always mean to…

This immediately shows the difference between the two characters, how Rita is self confident and how Frank is a bit shocked at this kind of behaviour and it’s the kind of thing he wouldn’t expect from a university student. But these differences change throughout the play Rit...

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...the book goes on you can really see the change in Rita and how she doesn’t want to be part of the working class culture anymore. You can see this because she changes her dress sense, the way she talks, her husband and her friends. Rita feels that just because she has become ‘Educated’ she now feels in a position to move class because she feels at home amongst the middle class, she thinks she knows ‘The rules’ or ‘How to act’ around the middle class. Denny (Rita’s husband) doesn’t like the new Rita and they end up getting a divorce. Denny feels this is partly due to Frank. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t have been educated and she would never have changed class. Frank comes from the middle class but he has grown to be bored of this and desperately wants a change, you can tell because he drinks an excessive amount of alcohol, maybe trying to drink his sorrows away.