Educating Rita by Willy Russell
"Educating Rita", is a two-handed play which only has two characters
and one set. "Educating Rita" was written in 1985 by Willy Russell, it
looks at how the relationship between two people, Rita and Frank,
develops as the play goes on. "Educating Rita" is the story of Rita, a
hairdresser who decides to go to University in order to discover who
she really is. When she arrives at University she meets Frank, a lazy
alcoholic who doesn't really care about being a University lecturer.
At first, Frank refuses to teach Rita but he soon finds he has a soft
spot for Rita and decides to teach her everything he knows about
English Literature. I will be analysing the advantages and
disadvantages of "Educating Rita" being two-handed play. I will be
referring to the play version and also to the film version of
"Educating Rita" to analyse the different gains and losses of the
two-handed play.
First of all, I will be looking at the many advantages of "Educating
Rita" being a two-handed play. There are many benefits of having only
two characters and only one setting in a play, for example a close
relationship develops between the two main characters, as the depth
and intensity of the relationship is much more highlighted than it
would be if there were more than two characters in the play. This
shows the importance of the two characters. For example, in Act One,
scene five when Frank says "We really should talk about you and Denny,
my dear", this shows Frank and Rita's relationship takes a bigger step
because they both discuss each other's personal problems, for the
first time Frank isn't just Rita's teacher but ...
... middle of paper ...
... problems and to an extent Frank and Julia's personal problems. The
film also had the scene of Frank delivering a lecture whilst drunk,
which I think the play didn't really exploit and wasn't actually funny
when it was told in the play. Also, seeing Rita and Frank outside the
university with their personal lives wasn't really developed in the
play, for example when Rita was going to have dinner with Frank and
Julia, in the play it didn't really explain in detail why Rita didn't
want to go in and have dinner, but in the film it was easily
understandable why Rita didn't want to go in. So, in conclusion I
found the film version of "Educating Rita" much more effective than
the play version because the film was much easier to understand than
the play because I was very confused of what actually was happening in
the play.
Before the Civil War, blacks suffered oppression: slaves to the white man and unable to prosper as individuals. However as Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, author of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, explains, “After the Civil War blacks existed free to begin their own communities… and become members of the buying public” (29). With the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, and with the 14th Amendment, which established equal protection under the law for African Americans, the black community slowly saw improvements, including economic prosperity. However, even then, they confronted discrimination and humiliation. For instance, many “advertisers created campaigns [using] blacks in their advertisements but in demeaning postures that appealed to the white majority” not African Americans (29). The early 1960s marked a critical time for advancement; the Civil Rights Movement with its boycotts and marches demanded real equality. African American leaders called Jim Crow Laws into question and insisted on the integration of schools, businesses, and public transportation. As Brian L. Goff, Robert E. McCormick and Robert D. Tollinson explain in their piece, “Racial Integration as an Innovation: Empirical Evidence from Sports Leagues,” “the civil rights laws and court rulings in the 1950’s and 60’s are among the major changes in public policy that gradually led to a breakdown of Jim Crow rule in the American south” (16). This pivotal moment within American history provoked profound changes in the ways Americans interacted with each other.
One Child’s Courage to Survive. “ A Child Called It ” Abstract This is one of the best, yet saddest books that I have ever read. There are so many bad things out there that are happening to good people. We just have no idea.
Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.
In "Our Secret" by Susan Griffin, the essay uses fragments throughout the essay to symbolize all the topics and people that are involved. The fragments in the essay tie together insides and outsides, human nature, everything affected by past, secrets, cause and effect, and development with the content. These subjects and the fragments are also similar with her life stories and her interviewees that all go together. The author also uses her own memories mixed in with what she heard from the interviewees. Her recollection of her memory is not fully told, but with missing parts and added feelings. Her interviewee's words are told to her and brought to the paper with added information. She tells throughout the book about these recollections.
1. In the book, the father tries to help the son in the beginning but then throughout the book he stops trying to help and listens to the mother. If I had been in this same situation, I would have helped get the child away from his mother because nobody should have to live like that. The father was tired of having to watch his son get abused so eventually he just left and didn’t do anything. David thought that his father would help him but he did not.
"My Children are black. They don't look like your children. They know that they are black, and we want it recognized. It's a positive difference, an interesting difference, and a comfortable natural difference. At least it could be so, if you teachers learned to value difference more. What you value, you talk about.'" p.12
The world is filled with many different types of societies and cultures. This is due to the fact that many people share dissimilar beliefs and ideas, as well as diverse ways of life. People lived under different circumstances and stipulations, therefore forming cultures and societies with ideas they formulated, themselves. These two factors, society and culture, are what motivate people to execute the things that they do. Many times, however, society and culture can cause downgrading effects to an assemblage if ever it is corrupt or prejudiced. Society and culture not only influences the emotions individuals have toward things like age differences, religion, power, and equality but also the actions they perform as a result.
Diamant has Dinah effectively tell her story from three different narrative perspectives. The bulk of the novel is related by Dinah in first person, providing a private look at growing up and personal tragedy: "It seemed that I was the last person alive in the world" (Diamant 203). Dinah tells the story that she says was mangled in the bible.
Inside Toyland, written by Christine L. Williams, is a look into toy stores and the race, class, and gender issues. Williams worked about six weeks at two toy stores, Diamond Toys and Toy Warehouse, long enough to be able to detect patterns in store operations and the interactions between the workers and the costumers. She wanted to attempt to describe and analyze the rules that govern giant toy stores. Her main goal was to understand how shopping was socially organized and how it might be transformed to enhance the lives of workers. During the twentieth century, toy stores became bigger and helped suburbanization and deregulation. Specialty toy stores existed but sold mainly to adults, not to children. Men used to be the workers at toy stores until it changed and became feminized, racially mixed, part time, and temporary. As box stores came and conquered the land, toy stores started catering to children and offering larger selections at low prices. The box stores became powerful in the flip-flop of the power going from manufacturers to the retailers. Now, the retail giants determine what they will sell and at what price they will sell it.
Perhaps no other event in modern history has left us so perplexed and dumbfounded than the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, an entire population was simply robbed of their existence. In “Our Secret,” Susan Griffin tries to explain what could possibly lead an individual to execute such inhumane acts to a large group of people. She delves into Heinrich Himmler’s life and investigates all the events leading up to him joining the Nazi party. In“Panopticism,” Michel Foucault argues that modern society has been shaped by disciplinary mechanisms deriving from the plague as well as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a structure with a tower in the middle meant for surveillance. Susan Griffin tries to explain what happened in Germany through Himmler’s childhood while Foucault better explains these events by describing how society as a whole operates.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
There are many policy issues that affect families in today’s society. Hunger is a hidden epidemic and one major issue that American’s still face. It is hard to believe that in this vast, ever growing country, families are still starving. As stated in the book Growing Up Empty, hunger is running wild through urban, rural, and even suburban communities. This paper will explore the differing perspectives of the concerned camp, sanguine camp, and impatient camp. In addition, each camps view, policy agenda, and values that underlie their argument on hunger will be discussed.
"Two Kinds" is truly an amazing work; it captivates readers with by telling a story of a young girl trying to find herself. Amy Tan does a phenomenal job, not only by portraying a very real mother-daughter relationship, but at showing how much a young girl can change. Jing-Mei evolves throughout the story in a way that many people can relate to; crushed hopes, obeying your parents even if it means doing something you don't want to do, and finally standing up for what you believe in.
The Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins is a non- fiction book that follows the lives of nine high school/ college overachieving students. On the outside they look healthy, happy, and perfect, but upon closer look the reader realizes just how manic their lives and the lives of many other high scholars are. It is no secret that high school and college has become more competitive, but the public doesn’t realize just out of control this world is. “Overachieverism” has become a way of life, a social norm. It is a world-wide phenomenon that has swamped many of the world’s top countries. Students are breaking under the immense amount of pressure that society puts on them. They live in constant fear that they will not live up to society’s, or their own, standards. People have put so much emphasis on students to succeed and to outperform their peers, and all before them, that it is changing them, and is having irreversible effects on them.
In the book by Carl Rogers, A Way of Being, Rogers describes his life in the way he sees it as an older gentleman in his seventies. In the book Rogers discusses the changes he sees that he has made throughout the duration of his life. The book written by Rogers, as he describes it is not a set down written book in the likes of an autobiography, but is rather a series of papers which he has written and has linked together. Rogers breaks his book into four parts.