Educating Rita. In the play Educating Rita by Willy Russell we are lead to believe that in the first few scenes Rita and Frank have nothing in common. We assume this on a few small things like the way Rita talks. She is a very out going character who talks like a commoner." you'd better get that bleadin' handle fixed. She hair dresses in a shop and is not happy with the position she is in. She does not have much interest in hair dressing and it does not feel that it is good enough for her. She could do much better. Frank on the other hand is a lecturer at the Open University. He has a bad alcohol problem and only works there to get money for the booze. From what we gather he is not a very good lecturer and is not really all that interested in the job, just the money. He talks not in a posh accent but a smart middle class. Rita perceives her job as a working class hairdresser to be a job that only the lowest of the lowest would do. It is an unsatisfactory job that does not for fill her dream of being a middle class woman. She has the potential to go for what it is that she wants and luckily she knows you to motivate her self to do so. Neither frank nor Rita is really interested in there jobs. They both just do it for the money. This is when we learn that they do have something and common they share the same out looks of there jobs. At the beginning of the play we hear frank talking-to his girlfriend Julia on the phone. She is complaining that he will not be home in time for diner and he is complaining that he wants to go down the pub. This is when we realise that frank is in an unstable relationship with his girlfriend. Due to Rita's nosey personality we find out that Frank was one married but has split up from his wife. When Rita asks why he comments it was "because of literature". When really it was because of his drinking problem, if he is not careful the same thing will happen to him again. Rita finds out that frank use to write poetry and this is why him and his wife split up (or so frank says) Rita then realises that she and frank have another thing in common they both have rocky relationships. Unfortunately Rita's husband Denny has other ideas about what Rita should do with her life.
She sets out to explore the world that welfare mothers are entered. The point was not so much to become poor as to get a sense of the spectrum of low-wage work that existed-from waitressing to housekeeping. She felt mistreated when it was announced that there has been a report on “drug activity”, as a result, the new employees will be required to be tested, as will the current employees on a random basis. She explained feeling mistreated, “I haven 't been treated this way-lined up in the corridor, threatened with locker searches, peppered with carelessly aimed accusations-since junior high school” (Ehrenreich,286). The other problem is that this job shows no sign of being financially viable. Ehrenreich states that there is no secret economies that nourish the poor, “If you can 't put up the two months’ rent you need to secure an apartment, you end up paying through the nose for a room by the week” (286). On the first day of housekeeping, she is yelled and given nineteen rooms to clean. For four hours without a break she striped and remake the beds. At the end of the experience she explained that she couldn 't hold two jobs and couldn 't make enough money to live on with one as where single mothers with children. She has clarified that she has advantages compare to the long-term
While she was working the minimum wage life she would talk about the rich as selfish people who struck luck and got all their money that way. She says, “ Since the rich have become more numerous, thanks largely to rising stock prices and executive salaries” (Ehrenreich 109). She explains that the rich are becoming more numerous as a result of stocks and executive salaries growing. The New York Times says, "Data Reveal a Rise in College Degrees Among Americans” (Rampell 1). The article says that more and more Americans are earning college degrees over the years. This is the reason why the successful are
She does not derive from a very wealthy family. She is responsible for her brother Jimmy which holds her back from having more age appropriate experiences.
Betty Friedan is the author of the famous book, which credited the beginning of a second –wave feminism in the United States. Friedan’s book begins with describing “the problem that has no name” to women who had everything, but were unhappy, depress and felt like they had nothing. Women are expected to be happy by buying things, a new refrigerator, house, best-selling coffee, having the right make-up, clothes and shoes, this is what the Feminine Mystique symbolized. Something that women wanted but can never have. Furthermore, society in present day is full of advertisements everywhere we go in TV, books and on the radio. The young generation as well as adults get trap in a fantasy world full of perfection. Women always want to have a thin waist, the most expensive make-up and purses, it’s all based on stereotypes. In her book, Friedan mentions that the average age of marriage was decreasing compared to increasing birthrate of women. Moreover, Friedan has been nit-pick at for focusing on the middle-class women and for prejudice against
Drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after? I will kiss his lips.
Her marriage propelled her into the middle class because it gave her social capital. Isabel Wilkerson defines social capital as this, “Social capital usually means emotional support and encouragement from a reliable stakeholder in one’s life, an asset commonly associated with marriage that is itself a form of wealth”(320). In essence, social capital is required to conquer poverty and step into a new class. The best way to attain this vital ingredient marriage. Of all the women who marry, 56% move up to the middle class (a very good amount), but only 1.4% of all poverty stricken women marry (231). Wilkerson notes this about the small number of actual marriages, “’Why do we feel that promoting marriage will solve the problem when there are so few marriageable men?’ asked William Julius Wilson, professor so sociology and social policy at Harvard. ‘we need to find ways to duplicated the kinds of support that come from an encouraging partner’(231). Basically the the best way to get out of poverty is one of the least likely to happen because all the men are duds. Nothing can replace marriage but there are other ways of increasing social
on her emotions which prevented her from seen the bright side of a minimum wage jobs and the fun
Connie was born into a very poor family. She described herself as living in poverty for the first eighteen years of her life. She often went without food, shelter or financial support. Connie’s mother worked extremely hard to support the household; she worked shampooing hair for only $50 a week. Connie’s father did not work at all, he was in charge and demanding yet put no effort into any aspect of the family. Connie was the first in her family to graduate from high school. It was more common for women to become pregnant, and marry young than finish high school. College was not even an option for Connie because of a lack of means. Subsequently, she followed in her mother’s footsteps; and the cycle of poverty and worked low paying, unfulfilling jobs for many years. "All Americans do not have an equal opportunity to succeed, and class mobility in the United States is lower than that of the rest of the industrialized world " (Mantsios 200). It is very difficult to get out of the cycle of oppression, when the system is created to keep the poor in the same socioeconomic status. Connie stayed very poor until she was about eighteen years old.
put there minds to it and give it their all. Both of the characters in
Education provides unique experiences to everyone. These experiences are not depended on the individual’s personal backgrounds or social statuses. According to Jane Thompson, a scholar in education, the process of education can either be a restriction on creativity or a “practice of freedom.” In Willy Russell’s Educating Rita, the protagonist’s experience through the Open University is a practice of freedom as she is provided with the opportunities to express her thoughts and discover her own limits. There is an internal struggle within Rita as the new environment threatens to erase her past life. Rita is able to maintain her practice of freedom through the help of Frank, whom provides her with a welcoming and encouraging learning environment.
One girl who chases the American Dream is Lena Lingard, a small farm girl from a poverty-stricken family. "Lena gave her heart away when she felt like it, but she kept her head for her business and had got on in the world." (192). Lena had one thing on her mind: money. To her the American Dream was wealth. She wants freedom from worry about where her next meal would come from. Lena begins her journey to wealth by becoming one of the many hired girls in the town of Black Hawk. There she was apprentice to a dressmaker and before long began to show great potential. Soon she began making money with her hard work, dedication and talent, but she uses this money not to indulge in her own desires, but to benefit her family. She spent her excess funds buying clothes for them, and paying their bills. But this wasn't enough to gain society's approval. She is a hired girl. Because she went to many dances over the summer months, many young men began noticing her, as they never had before. Because of this Lena earns a reputation like those of the hired girls; that ...
He is a lazy man, bored and frustrated by his life he too does not
pretensions of aristocracy. She is now as poor as Stanley and Stella, but she cannot help but
Mathilde lives in an illusive world where her desires do not meet up to the reality of her life. She yearns for the status of being upper class, and she believes that her beauty and charm are worthy of much more. Mathilde spends her life doing everything in her power to create the dream life she has always imagined, to be beautiful, rich, and admired. Her husband provided her with a well-off lifestyle that she neglected and treated poorly due to her selfishness and greediness, and took advantage of his hard work at the first chance possible. When presented with the invitation to the party, she immediately rejects the request due to her fear of others judging her “middle class appearance”. But her loving husband offers her the hard earned money he had been saving up so she can treat herself to a brand new dress for the party. Her actions are centered around the happiness of herself, and have no good intentions towards her husband or
She learned how to provide for herself in a society where women had very little sovereignty and authority by gaining control over her husbands. Of her five husbands, the first three were “good” and the other two were “bad.” The first three were good because they were old, wealthy, and obedient. She put these men through torture, by charging them of ridiculous allegations until they felt guilty and gave her whatever she wanted. The Wife also used a tool of persuasion to acquire what she wanted, by withholding sexual satisfaction until they promised to her what she wanted.