Pygmalion and Educating Rita - Rita as a Modern Day Eliza
Although Rita stands in contrast to Eliza, they share so many similarities that one could support the statement that "Rita is a modern day Eliza".
Both Rita and Eliza rebel against the inflexible class system and have problems developing their potential. They suggest that everyone is capable of fulfilling his potential if he is only given the opportunity. And their teachers and other members of their class misunderstand them. Furthermore they reject the traditional role of women as well.
Concerning their characters, Rita and Eliza are intelligent, quick to learn and with a strong individuality.
In order to become educated, the have to make sacrifices: Eliza has to give up her accent and Rita loses her spontaneity and originality. They also become alienated from their working class backgrounds, for they advance socially through acquiring education. Unlike Rita, Eliza didn't want to change her character. Rita, on the other hand, had dreamed of becoming a completely different person. Consequently, when Rita is happy after passing her exam, whereas Eliza is feels lost between two worlds, neither belonging to the working class nor the middle class.
As to the relationship with their teachers, both students become more self-confident and their teachers become dependent on them, be it in a materialistic or personal way. Yet it is Eliza who complains about Higgins ignorance and carelessness whereas Frank reproaches Rita for her superficiality. At the end Eliza has regained her pride and improved her standard of living although Eliza remaining a social misfit.
In the book the character Lavaughn is the type of person who cares about her education because she wants to get somewhere in life. Lavaughn tries her best to keep her grades up because she wants to get into college. Lavaughn is so focused on going to college because according to pg 10 chapter 4 her mother says “ nobody in this building Ever went to college, nobody in this family “Somebody got to be the first, right”. With her mother making these statements, Lavaughn want to pursue her goal to go to college.In addition, Lavaughn is a very determined person. For example, Lavaughn was looking for jobs that were being offered when she was at school.She found a job babysitting for another teenager named Jolly. Finally, Lavaughn would also be considered to be a caring person. Lavaughn is caring because, when she had to babysit, she was sacrificing her education to babysit Jolly’s two children. For instance, on page 27 it says that Jolly was gone for two days and Lavaughn had to stay home from school for a whole day. Also on page 21, chapter 8, it says that “Myrtle and Annie saw me skipping lunch to finish my math”. This shows how Lavaughn happens to be a caring, persist, and helpful person.
Eliza’s blatant disregard for the concern of those around her contributed heavily to her demise. Had she listened to her friends and family when they told her to marry Mr...
The story follows three girls- Jeanette, the oldest in the pack, Claudette, the narrator and middle child, and the youngest, Mirabella- as they go through the various stages of becoming civilized people. Each girl is an example of the different reactions to being placed in an unfamiliar environment and retrained. Jeanette adapts quickly, becoming the first in the pack to assimilate to the new way of life. She accepts her education and rejects her previous life with few relapses. Claudette understands the education being presented to her but resists adapting fully, her hatred turning into apathy as she quietly accepts her fate. Mirabella either does not comprehend her education, or fully ignores it, as she continually breaks the rules and boundaries set around her, eventually resulting in her removal from the school.
On May the 7th 1915 the Lusitania sank, taking with it the lives of one thousand, two hundred and one people including ninety-one children and thirty-one infants. Despite the fact that it was the largest and fastest ship at that time, the German torpedo still found its mark off the South Coast of Ireland while the ship was travelling between the United States and England. The failure to prevent the tragedy despite the warnings given, the actions (or lack thereof) of the Admiralty and the neglect in ensuring that the lifeboat system and the ship itself would offer maximum protection; puts the primary blame unto the British Admiralty and the Cunard Company.
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
due to weak funding in the educational system. Milloy makes the readers wonder why certain schools do not live up to the standards of others in nearby towns. Although a play ground was built for this school, Maurice may never be able to play on it because he must learn how to walk, talk, and eat all over again. People take forgranted the daily rituals of life and if put in the shoes of a parent of this boy, one would realize how tragic this accident was and even the effects the education system has.
For much of her life, Mona Gray has lived a strange life after her father contracted an unknown disease. Mona soon becomes a quitter, and although she excels at many things, she always forces herself to quit. All of this changed when Benjamin Smith, the new science teacher, arrives. With his eccentric ways he is able to see through Mona when most people were not, including her family. Mona's perfect little world is threatened when she crosses paths with love and her soul mate, Benjamin Smith.
One of the roles Eliza must play is the role of a proper young woman. She is expected to behave a certain way, treat men a certain way, and be married by a certain age to a Reverend. She feels that she must do this in order to please her family and friends, “To them, of course, I sacrificed my fancy in this affair; determined that my reason should concur with theirs; and on that to risk my future happiness”(5). She is sacrificing her happiness so; therefore, she is conforming to the proper role of being a young woman in society.
William L. Calley Jr., Ron Ridenour, and the hundreds of villagers in My Lai. The Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry was the set of approximately 100 armed American troops ordered to investigate My Lai. The group was led by Captain Ernest Medina ("My Lai murders" 70). Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was in charge of these troops at the time of the massacre, who later was convicted of premeditated murder of at least 20 people in My Lai (Wilberding 31). Ron Ridenhour was a discharged combat infantryman who had heard the stories about My Lai, and he wrote letters detailing these stories to President Nixon, congressmen, the State Department, and the Pentagon. This helped present the public with the atrocities over a year after they happened. It also led to the courts-martial cases (Wilberding 30). From 347 to 504 Vietnamese unarmed civilians inhabited My Lai and were murdered by the American soldiers at My Lai. Very few, if any, were able to escape (Morelock
The wages for the mill girls was extremely low for how much work they were putting into their jobs. Women didn't have much independence at all during these times and that was one of the main reasons their wages were so low. Also, women were not exp...
she is, but she had a strong mind on her, so she could overcome the
He is a lazy man, bored and frustrated by his life he too does not
The play follows just over a year in Rita's life and shows her gradual progress in an English Literature course. At first Rita knows she wants to do the course but not how to do well in it. It seems that she would rather do anything but talk about literature in the early lessons but she gradually gains confidence and skill in her speech and writing. A good example of her progress is her response to Macbeth. Initially she does not understand how to write about it and produces a 'crap' essay. Frank explains that the essay is not bad in terms of a personal response to the play but it does not fulfil the criteria of the course she is doing. Rita accepts this and resolves to write the essay again.
The main theme expressed in the play is change and the characters' inability to cope with this. Like many working-class people from this time the characters in the play are fairly uneducated and because of this, they do not have an understanding of the growing old process, they cling onto what they know best, which is youth and this brings about their downfall. Olive is the classic dreamer. She is thirty-nine but still continues to live as though she's a teenager. She has extremely strong ideals, which she refuses to let go of. She wants excitement; she wants "five months of heaven every year." She doesn't want the monotony and responsibility of married life. Roo and Barney, who once were fit young men, come down from the lay-off this year, dragging their ever-increasing age with them. Roo is not as fit and healthy as he used to be - he has a bad back - his pride also holds him back from realizing that he is getting older and that life is changing for him. Time is catching up with Barney as well and he is no longer the epitome of male prowess that he believed he once was. Underneath the smiling, joking façade he really is a fairly pathetic man who doesn't truly understand what is happ...
I don’t matter, I suppose’” (Berst 99). Eliza’s actions can be felt as a Cinderella impulse coming from her (Berst 99). Eliza worked hard to get through the lessons with Higgins and had won that bet, so she deserves the credit for the hard work she put in. It seems that Eliza at this point is lonely and probably wanted someone in her life to tell her she was doing the right thing, she has accomplished things she wanted to do for herself.