The Effect of Summer School on Rita in Educating Rita by Willy Russell

The Effect of Summer School on Rita in Educating Rita by Willy Russell

'Of course; you don't do Blake without doing innocence and experience,

do y?'

When Frank explains to Rita that after summer school they will study

William Blake, Rita says that she has already studied Blake and

implies in such a way that she almost disgraces Frank. Before summer

school Rita has only been taught Frank and has only learnt his ideas,

when she gains her own confidence she then challenges Frank on his

views to do with poetry by telling him about William Blake. This

confidence reflects the effect which summer school ultimately had upon

Rita.

Willy Russell was born in Whiston, near Liverpool, England, in 1947.

Russell's mum and dad both went out to work while he attended school.

During his schooling he started to acquire his love for books and

later on in life he had written award-winning plays and musicals, one

of the most well known is Educating Rita written in 1983. Other well

known Russell works include Shirley Valentine and Blood Brothers.

Before Rita came to study with Frank, she was a wife and a hairdresser

with no ambition in life. She felt that she needed to be educated and

she knew she was different to people because they had been educated

but when Rita was younger she wasn't bothered about her education and

didn't want to learn. So when Rita is accepted for Open University she

comes to realise that someone is giving her an opportunity to learn

and she grasps it while she can.

'I was dead surprised when they took me. I don't suppose they would

have done if it'd been a proper university. The Open University's

different though, isn...

... middle of paper ...

... she explains that she got to the university earlier so

she could speak with the students. Frank then replies,

'You were talking to she students - down there?'

Frank is very shocked by this and now he can see for sure there is a

new Rita, the old Rita has gone and the new Rita has now learnt that

she can interact with other students and be taught by other students

now that Rita has knowledge of the world.

Summer school had given Rita a choice in her life she could have

either stayed a boring woman married for the wrong reasons but Rita

chose her own way in life and chose education. Now that she has been

educated she has gained confidence within herself and other people and

is now able to relate to others and she doesn't feel stupid she

believes that now she is just the same as everybody who has been

educated.