Educating Rita by Willy Russell :: English Literature

Educating RitaEducating Rita is a story written by Willy Russell. He was born inWhiston, which is just outside Liverpool. When he was five his mum anddad move to Knowsley, on an estate full of Liverpudlians who taughthim how to talk properly. It is about two main characters Rita andFrank. Rita is a literature student at the Open University. This is auniversity that is used as a way of enabling adult students, likeRita. Frank is a tutor at the Open University but unlike the normalupper course of instruction tutors frank is a normal scruffy old man, this shocksRita.Rita wanted to study and learn here, and so the fear and pressure fromher friends made her join in with the others well-nigh her. She didntwant to become different from her family and friends, nor those aroundher, and so blocked the thought that she wanted more from her lifeId just play another record or buy another dress an stop worryinShe put this off because of the peer pressure from the other workingclass people, she d idnt want to be different and roll them so wentalong with their assumptions of women as low, and this put her off fora while.Rita sees the middle class as totally different from herself, andalthough doesnt want to be working class, doesnt feeling she will beaccepted as middle class either. She has the idea that all middleclass individuals are free, and stereotypes, making sweepinggeneralisations. She assumes they all rust wholemeal bread, flora, andwatch the BBC, as this is seen as more intellectually stimulating thanITV, the channel that some(prenominal) of the working class watch. This shows thatshe stereotypes certain groups of people from what she has heard,instead of her let views, she doesnt wait to get to know them beforejudging.As Rita believes herself to be sophisticated and well read, she hasnamed herself after an author. Her real name is Susan, but Rita MaeBrown is a adult author, and as Rita likes her books, shelaughably adopts her name and believes she is making he rself seem moresophisticated, once again showing her complete misunderstanding thatsexually explicit novels are assort as good literature. Such anaction again indicates her naive outlook and lack of literaryawareness at the beginning of the play.There are many themes during the play, change is probably the mostimportant as it shows how an individual can develop and learn in bothpositive and negative ways, the play indicates the relay stationchanging from one extreme to the other, eventually discovering a happy