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Ritas character development in educating rita
Critical essays educating rita
Educating rita changes rita's character
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Frank's Growing Sense of Unease as Rita Becomes More Educated
In the play 'Educating Rita', Willy Russell shows the growing
relationship between the two main characters, Frank and Rita. Both are
very different from each other, yet a bond is immediately established
between them in the early stages of the play. We first see Frank to be
an unorthodox, nonchalant university lecturer who has a drink problem,
a failing relationship and who is unhappy with his work and life.
However, Rita is seen to be very different to him. As the audience,
our first impressions of Rita are that she is of working-class origin,
she is very extrovert and confident. An example of this is seen in act
one, scene one, in which she bursts in through the door showing no
manners and says "I'm comin' in, aren't I? It's that stupid bleedin'
handle on the door." This tells us immediately that she is working
class, as she uses colloquial language with a local dialect, and shows
no manners. She is very different to Frank who is very formal and does
not swear. When Franks asks her a question, Frank says "pardon",
whereas Rita then follows with the word "what?" This immediately
creates a contrast Rita has applied to the Open University to become
more educated, something she sees to be a trait of middle class
people. She has decided to do a literature course because she wants to
"see" and not to read "the sort of poetry you can understand". She
wants Frank to teach her "everything" so she can change from the
person she is now; to the sort of person she wants to be. The play is
the story of their relationship and the way it develops both as
teacher-student and on a more pers...
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...f the play, by concluding Rita's change, Frank's feelings
towards her and his final acceptance of the person she now is. Frank
used to be attracted to her, and thought her to be a very interesting
character, whereas now, she has none of the traits which attracted him
to her, and so he now purely sees her as a friend, however he is still
uneasy about what the future holds. Throughout the play, we see how
Frank's feelings change from being attracted to her, to being cold and
arrogant towards her in scene two of the second act. The ending
Russell has chosen however, has no definite conclusion, and lets us
imagine what might happen between the two characters in the future.
However, as Frank now does not like Rita as much due to her change, it
seems their relationship has runs its course, and there is no future
for the two.
tries to make her disinterested in him so that again, he may concentrate on the
Each character, in some capacity, is learning something new about themselves. Whether it be new views, new feelings, newfound confidence, or a new realization of past events, each character involved in the play realizes something view-altering by the end of the play. Bonny is realizing that she is growing up and discovering how to deal with boys, and to lie to her parents; Elsie realizes that she doesn’t need her father for everything, and eventually overcomes her fear of driving on her own; Grace is discovering that she must let her children think for themselves at times, and that she must let Charlie choose what he wants to do; and Charlie, of course, is discovering that there are more ways to think than the status quo that society presents. Each character obviously goes through very different struggles throughout the play, but in the end, they all result in realizing something about themselves they didn’t at the beginning of the
The characters inhabit their private realities in order to detach themselves from a world that confuses and alienates them. Laura, Amanda, Tom, and Jim prefer to immerse themselves in their narrow view of time rather than embrace the flow of time. Laura remains isolated as she has failed to find love. Amanda judges Laura as she imposes her own narrow expectations on her. Tom believes that he can escape reality and become inseparable from the imaginary worlds of movies. Jim's idealistic view of Laura suggests that he is out of touch with reality. The play demonstrates that the characters desire to escape reality due to their inability to live in the present and embrace the flow of
The play consisted of five characters: Marty, James, Schultz, Theresa, and Lauren. Marty and James are a couple; they knew each other through a wedding, Theresa is a former actress who ran away from the competitive New York, Schultz is an awkward carpenter who just got divorced, and Lauren is a sixteen year old girl who dreamed of becoming an actress. Marty who is the teacher started the class, but the students participated in the class’s activities
she sees herself as a strong, independent woman, until all that she had built up becomes torn
the play, so we can see the way they change when they meet for the
This is shown by the way he talks to her and how he acts around her.
Characters in the play show a great difficult finding who they are due to the fact that they have never been given an opportunity to be anything more than just slaves; because of this we the audience sees how different characters relate to this problem: " Each Character has their own way of dealing with their self-identity issue..some look for lost love o...
to her as much as he wants but she is not letting him back into her life. When Thomas
she wants to live her life. So in the end, she is happy and where she wants to be.
him, but she has no intentions of falling in love with him as she is
changing attitudes toward life and the other characters in the play, particularly the women; and his reflection on the
though he cares for her a lot as even though she is quite grown up she
for the whole play, then they appear in Act 1 Scene 1, the last time
To understand the reasons Eliza is able to change and be changed into an almost Cinderella-like character. With Eliza going from and growing and changing through the hardship she faces. In the play, Eliza begins with no confidence and works towards finding a way to reach through learning during her life experiences. Learning through the other characters Eliza meets throughout the play. Eliza grows stronger and shows how she is able to change her ways one can understand how she is able to change and makes these changes by seeing her through poverty, how she is interacting with the other characters in the play, and through the things she learns from the options that are provided to her.