Educating Rita

Educating Rita by Willy Russell explores the value of education, but also the wider education that takes place and how to use that education to your greatest benefit; not only during the school education but also the looking at the surrounding world. Rita, an uneducated lady, is unhappy with the limitations of her social class and feels that to escape the limitations she needs to get a properly recognised education. She therefore decides to do an Open University course in English literature. This she believes will greatly increase the horizons of her life and remove some of the limitations that she feels are imposed upon her. She wants to learn everything but soon discovers that even education has its limits. Frank, her tutor and lecturer, who has all the benefits of an education and yet he still has problems. He has become fed up with life in general and has turned to drink to try and dull his problems. In the end they both free each other.

At the beginning Rita is keen to learn quickly as she sees education as the means to and end, however as the play goes on she comes to understand that true education is more than that. Rita has a very direct manner at the start of the play, stating several facts about Franks room and people she has met, using language that shocks the audience, ‘There's no suppose about it, look at those tits’, and she seems to have a very unusual, and refreshing, perspective on life, and this causes Frank to take a different view to some things that he and Rita discuss ‘I’ve never really looked at it like that. But yes, yes you could say it means getting he rhyme wrong…’ Rita’s very eager to learn ‘I want to learn everything’ but Frank considers her to be too clever for him to teach her anything. She di...

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...ke notes! When you have to answer a question on Forster you can treat the examiner to an essay called Frank's Marriage!’ to which Rita replies, ‘Go 'way! I'm only interested.’

When we first see Rita she is struggling to open Frank’s door, ‘…Come in, an’ it’ll go on forever… poor sod on the other side won’t be able to get in. And you won’t… get out,’ which symbolizes the fact that although he isn’t contented with his life he is unwilling and unsure about how to change it for the better. When she comes back for her second lesson she oils the door which represents her opening Frank’s eyes to the world around him. The fact the she always comes into Franks office and goes straight to the window, to look out at the proper students shows the audience what Rita wants to become; a proper student.

The first time we see Frank he is frantically searching his bookcase.