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Educating Rita Essay

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Changes in Rita and Frank in Education Rita

Discuss the ways in which Russell portrays the changes and developments in the characters of Rita and Frank in Act 1 Scene 1 and Act 2 scene 1

Drama (post 1914)

Discuss the ways in which Russell portrays the changes and developments in the characters of Rita and Frank in Act 1 Scene 1 and
Act 2 scene 1 of ‘Educating Rita’.

‘Educating Rita’ is a play written by the British author Willy
Russell. It is set in Liverpool around the 1980’s. It explores the themes of education, poverty and working class life. The play is based on Rita’s enthusiasm and determination to be educated. Rita undergoes her course at the Open University. Here she meets her tutor Frank and it is here their …show more content…

Then suddenly he remembers the author and pulls out a book to reveal a bottle of whisky. He pours himself a drink. The drink is interrupted by a call form his partner Julia. When he is speaking to her he uses negative and sarcastic language. An example of this is when he says ‘‘I don’t need determination to get me into a pub’’. This suggests to us he would rather go to the pub than go home or speak to
Julia. The audience are led to believe that Frank is miserable, rude and argumentative

We are first introduced to Rita when she knocks on Frank’s door. This gives Frank an excuse to end his phone call with Julia. Rita bursts through the door clumsily blaming this on the door handle. Rita sumps her bag. She seems to be a very inquisitive person because she starts inspecting the bookcase and notices the nude picture on Frank’s wall.
She moves around the room a lot; this indicates that she is also nervous. The audience is led to believe that there are two contrasting characters in the same room. We have Frank the very scholastic, well-mannered, prim and proper person and we have Rita who is working class, boisterous and loud.

Rita talks in a different way to Frank. Frank uses more structured sentences with proper known English words, whereas Rita uses colloquialism. An example of this is on page 15 where Rita says to
Frank ‘‘D’ y’ get a lot of students like me?’’ Rita uses this language because she

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