Clash of Classes and Cultures in Educating Rita
To What Extent Would You Agree That Educating Rita Depicts a Clash
of Classes and Cultures?
'Educating Rita' is a play by Willy Russell, a dramatist recently
turned novelist. 'Educating Rita' contains only two characters, a
young woman called Rita and a middle-aged man called Frank, although
this may sound boring these characters are so interesting that anymore
characters would ruin the ambiance of the play. In the early part of
the play Rita, a hairdresser from north-west England, has started an
Open University course with Frank, a university lecturer in his early
fifties, in order to change herself. Throughout the play Rita becomes
more and more cultured giving up anything that gets in the way of her
education or tries to stop her being the cultured individual she wants
to be.
Rita is a working class woman in her late twenties trying to find
herself through a university education; Frank is a divorced university
professor in his early fifties. Bored of teaching Frank drinks his
life away and has taken on Rita as an Open University student to fund
this habit. These two interesting characters from very different
backgrounds are thrown together and the clashes of class and culture
are depicted in a number of ways. Rita's language is very colloquial
and this, at times, amuses Frank; for example, 'What in the name of
God is being off one's cake.' Her language is both new and puzzling to
Frank as he is used to hearing the generally proper English spoken by
his university students. These phrases seem out of place when issued
by Frank. 'One is obviously very off one's cake,' - 'you can't say
that [Frank].' Frank's sesquipedalian language does not mix with
Ri...
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...etween two classes and cultures.
In the earlier part of the play Rita feels surrounded by an alien
environment, the university and its students, she is nervous and, as a
result, comes across as very loquacious. She sees this in herself when
she says, 'I talk too much' in act one scene one. However, towards the
end of play her speeches are generally shorter. In this new
environment Rita also feels isolated but gradually changes and feels
as though she can interact with the 'real students'. When she finally
does this in act two, scene two it may surprise the audience because
in earlier scenes she describes them as 'real students' as though her
life and their lives cannot mix. But, when she finally does speak to
the student, the first line she tells us she said was, 'Excuse me but
I couldn't help overhearin' the rubbish you were spoutin' about
Lawrence.'
I think these quotes prove that Melinda starts talking more as the year progresses. At the beginning of the year, I noticed that Melinda wasn’t very active or social. For the most part, she avoided most social activities. She seemed to prefer to be alone inside her closet. But during the second semester, I noticed that this started to change.
The theme of culture appears a lot in the play. One of the ways that
The teachers represent the general society, a society of similar people with middle-class ideals and goals, as well as expectations that their students will aspire to these same goals. This society, however is hostel toward those who are different and unusual. His red carnation, as well as all his other mannerisms, belies this difference. Because of Paul’s behavior they conclude that there is “something wrong about the fellow�(Cather 178). They judge him mercilessly and so contribute to his isolation from his known society.
In this play, Frank serves as a mentor to Rita. Especially in the first act of the play, Frank’s costumes were distinctly more professional and refined than Rita’s costumes, which showed how Frank was the more mature character who taught Rita what she sought to learn. However, Rita’s costume transformation from college to adult clothing was indicative of her character’s growth and development in the play, whereas Frank’s costumes did not change nearly as much throughout the entire play showing how he has yet to embrace change in the same way Rita has.
sense that we have two hours to tell a story and delve so deep into
...ves the play to do they feel motivated ‘I don’t feel average today, I feel top of the class…thanks to sir.’ In ‘Educating Rita’ she has never been to the theatre and an amateur to her is just brilliant this just shows how at first she is so uneducated and how Frank who is very well educated takes going to the theatre and having had an education for granted.
3)David Watkins (2000) Learning and Teaching: A cross-cultural perspective, School Leadership & Management: Formerly School Organization, 20:2,161-173
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