How Does Willy Russell Show the Changes in Rita's Character Throughout Educating Rita?

An influential teacher often challenges students to move outside of set comfort zones. They continue to challenge their students to try different hobbies and excel in school. Maya Angelou experienced this when she met Mrs. Bertha Flowers who gave Angelou her “first life line” (87). Angelou had a traumatic experience which had led her to believe she should never talk again. No was able to get her to talk except for one influential woman. Mrs. Flowers challenged Angelou to move past her fears and speak again. D’Amboise finds his challenge when he has to spend every afternoon in ballet dance. Madame Seda challenged him to learn ballet instead of disrupting her class. D’Amboise confirms this when he concludes that, “she challenged me to a test, complimented me on my effort and then immediately

A seventh grader whose school is largely divided between Catholics and Jews. But, because Holling is a Presbyterian, he has to stay alone with Mrs. Baker on Wednesdays. Causing him to think that Mrs. Baker hates his guts. During these Wednesday's, Mrs. Baker makes Holling do extra work. Each time, he thinks that she was making him do things because she hated him. First she makes him do physical work, but after a while she has him learning Shakespeare. Games were being played between his dad’s company, Hoodhood and Associates, and other nearby corporations. Holling dislikes the fact that his dad will never care about what he asks if it might have the slightest chance of disrupting a deal. In a short amount of time, Holling starts

to say, but as we later find out, Frank, has a drink problem, which is

Melinda is a first year recruit in secondary school, who is experiencing a great deal of changes managing pre-adulthood and troublesome circumstances. She experiences difficulty fitting in with different associates, she is appalled by her own particular appearance; for instance "I search for shapes in my face, certainly not a dried face", Melinda conveys what needs to be in a frightful route as a result of the way Andy assaulted her and caused a colossal effect on her life . Luckily, she has an instructor who gives exhortation as lessons to enable them to have the capacity to stand up to each other. Mr. Freeman," the coolest craftsmanship educator", is a skilled craftsman, carefully affected. That makes discretionary school less asking for

I know that, Dorothy. But I am thinking league tables.” Furthermore the fact the French scene is allowed to go ahead in lessons demonstrates the boys and Hector are willing to cheekily challenge and mock authority figures with their intelligence, all knowing French to a better degree than the Headmaster. The use of “ma tante!” creates bathos for the pretend character with “tante” showing desperation for ideas to keep the lie going. The following questioning “sa tante?” by the Headmaster and Timms’ reply of “la famille entiere” as if the headmaster missed something embarrassingly obvious adds to the comedy because the boys team up with each other to justify and ridicule the headmaster. Irwin’s unexpected input of “Il est commotionné, peut-etre?” is another example of Bennett’s clever character juxtapositions but also of using unexpected events to contrast what was being done before it, with the stage directions of “the classroom falls silent” suggesting that the boys’ found it rude and out of place for Irwin to but in. The language “fall silent” contrasts with the hectic and the loud situation that occurred before it, using Irwin’s awkwardness to change the tone of the scene. Hector not knowing what the word means and using the interrogative “comment?” adds to this awkwardness.

The narrative begins when Gregory is about seven years old, quite young to be experiencing such a painful lesson in racism. However, this teacher, which Gregory never mentions her name, dishes out her hatefulness with every opportunity. Gregory has a classmate, which he is quite fond of and tries to impress her at every opportunity he is given. The problem Gregory is up against is that he is poor. Gregory has one set of clothes which he washes every night. He shines shoes to make money, which he leaves on Helens porch instead of buying food. In return, Helen, the girl of Gregory’s dreams, rewards him as she walks by his house on the way to school with a wink and a smile. Gregory jumps through hoops to gain this girls attention and she is never unkind to him even though she is economically in a better situation than he is. However, when he goes to school he is made the center of attention by the teacher who labels him an idiot; she does this intentionally by placing him at the back of the room in a seat with a circle drawn around it in white chalk. Gregory is

Educating Rita centers on a twenty-seven-year-old woman names Susan, who goes by the name Rita. She is experiencing an internal struggle involving her social class and feels that she should fall into a higher class. Rita begins attending Open University at tutorial sessions with Dr. Frank Bryant. These tutorials eventually lead Rita to her love with literature and realization that it is possible to have a choice in life.

    After high school, Rita continued her education by attending a local community college to major in business. During her sophomore year Rita worked part time in a department store and one year later was offered a management position in the store. She figured it made sense to drop out of college and be a manager because business was her career choice. Rita was in a serious relationship with a man she had met in college and eventually got engaged. However they never married because her fiance manifested a pattern of schizophrenia and had to be hospitalized. His impairment lasted for over a year, which forced Rita to end the engagement and move on without him, as if he had died.

Russell shows us the change in Rita in a variety of ways, her actions and speech are the most obvious. Her natural obscenities and clumsiness of the start through a struggle to use 'proper' language. Along her path she tries to emulate a range of people who admires but Russell shows us that this is a completely the opposite of Rita wanting to Discover

Transitions is the act of passing from one state to another. This results in new knowledge and ideas involving a shift in ones understanding of them self and others. Transitions are clearly demonstrated in the play Educating Rita (1991), by Willy Russell, where Rita's growth and change comes about with her new knowledge and ideas in her social and working-class life. The Intouchable's (2011) by Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano also demonstrates how new knowledge and ideas can make a change in one's life leading to a transition. Willy Russel has used transitioning in the play Educating Rita through Rita's progress and journey through Open University, which has impacted her life and changed her perception of who she is as a person.

When Rita enter through the doors and into the educational world in the opening scene, Rita finds it difficult to open her professor’s door (stage direction), this symbolizes a barrier between Rita’s past life as a married hairdresser and the world of literature Rita dreams to enter. The beginning stages of Rita’s transitioning does not initially go well for her as the middle-working class she belongs to ties her down and the fact that Rita does not have the knowledge to be able to overcome the differences of her world and the intellectual world. During the initial stages of Rita’s transitioning, obstacles stopped her from moving forward to her goal. Near the end of Russell’s play, Rita claims to have transitioned successfully from the middle class to the educated class. Rita states to Professor Frank, ‘I’m not an idiot now,

In the beginning of the story, Rita acts very impatient and likes to do things when they are supposed to be done. When Aunt Darlene decides to help an old man who lost his dog, she acts annoyed. “Darlene, he’s one of those mumblers. Come on.” (Page. 53) She would rather not help an old man in favor of getting to her orchestra rehearsal on time, and expects others to hurry so that she can do her own thing on time. She would even rush while driving to get where she is supposed to be. When Aunt Darlene gives Rita her car to drive so that she can get to her rehearsal on time, Rita drives quickly on the road. “I drove just under the speed limit.” (Page. 54) Rita is so anxious about getting to the rehearsal on time, that she would even risk her

' so what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and

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.

Lone Scherfig's An Education (2009) is a coming of age story, based on the memoir of the same name by English journalist, Lynn Barber. An Education tells the story of high school student, Jenny Mellor, studying to be admitted into Oxford and how her path changes upon becoming romantically involved with a much older man, David Goldman, giving up on her studies in order to marry him. After learning he is already married, heartbroken, Jenny returns to her studies and through her hard work, is eventually admitted into Oxford. The Aristotelian dramatic theories can be applied to provide an analysis of the aspects of plot as they are presented in An Education.