Educating Rita

Educating Rita

The title of the play ‘Educating Rita’ refers to a woman called Rita

who decides to enrol on a literature course at an open university.

Rita is a working class, 26-year-old hairdresser. She has a husband

called Denny who disapproves of Rita’s decision of enrolling on a

course at the Open University, as he is worried she is going to turn

into a different, more educated woman.

The play is set in the 1980’s. Which means that because Rita is

working class she has to break away from the restrictions, which are

imposed, on her by her husband Denny and the community she lives in.

In act 1 scene 1 the stage directions are about 1 and a half pages

long and they give us a clue to the type of person Frank is. “ A room

on the first floor of a Victorian-built university” This is the

opening line to the play and is the very first stage direction. This

tells us that frank works in a university. “Another desk CENTER

covered with various papers and books” This stage direction tells us

that Frank is a lecturer of some sort. Just from reading the stage

directions at the beginning of the play you get a general idea about

Frank. They tell us that Frank is a lecturer of some sort at a

university, in the north of England. He is in his early fifties and

likes to have a drink.

When Frank is talking to his partner Julia on the phone we start to

develop our impressions of him. We start to think he is selfish and

only cares about his drink. For example “I probably shall go to the

pub afterwards” “look if you’re trying to induce some feeling of guilt

in me over the prospect of a burnt dinner”. These two quotes show that

he doesn’t c...

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... show us that he didn’t support

Rita because it shows us that Rita didn’t need him in order to

succeed. She was capable of achieving it by her self all along it just

took Rita a while to realise it.

Willy Russell shows us that working class people think that everyone

else is better than them and that they are not worthy of an education.

They also think everyone else is looking down at them. He makes Rita

explain this on page 68 when she says, “ just because you pass a pub

doorway an’ hear the singin’ you think we’re all OK”.

I think Willy Russell takes education so seriously because he wants

people to understand how important it is. I also think he is trying to

let us know that education can do so much for us, its not just for

getting us a good job but it lifts our self esteem and makes us

believe in ourselves.