This Essay aims to look at the way in which Willy Russell‘s Play Educating Rita covers many serious themes whilst being a successful comedy. The main themes in the play; Separation between social classes, breakdown in relationships and personal growth will be analysed to show how Russell’s use of different techniques brings in comedy to lighten the seriousness of these issues.
One of the main serious issues highlighted in Educating Rita is the separation between social classes. Russell introduces Rita into the play with dialogue that makes her appear loud and overly confident. Rita uses common, slang language such as “I’m comin’ in, aren’t I? It’s that stupid bleedin’ handle on the door. You wanna get it fixed!” This use of language and her mannerisms suggests to the reader that Rita is from an uneducated, lower social class background. Frank however, speaks with a more complex dialogue and doesn’t use slang words. This makes the reader assume he is from an upper class, well educated background. Russell’s use of contrast in language gives an insight into the separation between social classes, as well as adds a comedic aspect. The pair often cannot understand each other’s choice of phrase or references to different things, the confusion between Yeats the poet and Yates the wine cellar is an example of how the class separation is shown in a humorous manner. Rita’s use of “degrees for dishwashers” to describe her university course shows both her sarcastic, funny side but also that she feels lower class or inferior compared to the other students. Rita is also clearly upset by the class separation when she does not turn up to Frank’s dinner party in fear she will be laughed at. Russell uses the hyperbole “I didn’t want to come to your house just to play the court jester” exaggerating the fact Rita felt she would be laughed at if she went. This reference also is quite witty and amusing for the reader.
Another of the serious topics highlighted in the play is breakdown in relationships. Russell clearly shows Rita is in an collapsing relationship from the use of the analogy about her husband, “Its like drug addicts, they hate it when one of them tries to break away”. This shows how unhealthy the relationship with
In Michael Gow’s play ‘Away’, a story of families in the 1960’s and how they come to embrace each other’s differences through gaining self-knowledge. Through identifying the context of act 3 scene 2, as well as the relationships between characters and the reasons behind them, as well as the stylistic devices used by Gow to share a message with his audiences that, even today, an audience can relate too. By analysing quotes from the scene to support conclusions, the purpose of this scene will be identified and a greater understanding the theme of self-knowledge in this scene will be formed.
This paper is a critique of a production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo, a play written by Alfred Uhry, which was performed and produced by the Ball State University Theatre. Gilbert L. Bloom directed the production and was very successful with producing a truly entertaining, comedic play with an important message about the personal dilemmas that we as individuals with different beliefs and values must encounter in our daily lives.
Priestley mainly uses the characters in the play to present his views, especially Mr and Mrs Birling, to present his ideas about class and society. In the Birling family, Mrs Birling is the most upper class, and is always referring to the lower class female factory workers such as Eva Smith as ‘girls of that class’. She seems to think that working class people are not humans at all.
In remembering her seventh-grade class in 1965, Charlotte recalls how much she and her friends loved Miss Hancock. They were "backward" because they "had not yet embraced sophistication, boredom, cruelty, drugs, alcohol, or sex." Because of their innocence and their sheltered environments, Miss Hancock "was able to survive, even flourish" as their teacher. Charlotte recalls when Miss Hancock read poetry aloud, the class "sat bewitched, transformed," and they were "drugged by some words as some children are by electronic games." This description juxtaposes the end of the short story. Miss Hancock's teaching career no longer inspired the children because they were no longer the broad-minded, influenceable children they once were. Nostalgia eats away at Miss Hancock, especially in the case of Charlotte. Once so inspired by the composure of a metaphor, “grown up” Charlotte, when asked if she still wrote metaphors responded, “oh, I dunno.” Miss Hancock once knew the mesmerizing and transformative power of words; however, as she and her students aged the words lost their power, in turn she too lost power.
In the play Blood Brothers Willy Russell explores the differences between a working class family and a middle class family during the downturn of industry in Liverpool in the 1960 and 70’s, resulting in The Recession in the early 1980’s. There is a twist on the fact that they are just two opposite class families – Mickey and Edward. They are two genetically identical twins; however Mickey was brought up in a working class family and Eddie in a middle class family. By using these two complete extremes, Russell has explored the history of the British class system in a very extreme way. Seeing the different class upbringings teaches us about Nature vs. Nurture in society.
Her job and dialect optimize the way she grew up, and how the expectations of her upbringing limit her future, as being a working class woman she is expected to get married, have children and then become a housewife, ‘I should've had a baby by now. Everyone expects it.’ There were no further expectations for women and certainly no need for them to have an education, ‘Denny gets dead narked if I work at home’. Rita doesn’t like the housewife stereotype and decides to rebel against it by taking the pill and starting a formal education, ‘But I mean, I don't want a baby yet. No. I wanna discover meself first.’ Rita’s family refuse to see the benefits that this could give her and this leads her father to feel sorry for Denny and to feel annoyed at Rita’s lack of commitment to her family, ‘Denny, I'm sorry for you, lad. If she was a wife of mine I'd drown her.’ When Rita thinks about quitting the course to please her family, it’s her mother’s unintentional comment at the pub, ‘There must be better songs than this,’ which drives her forward in the course, ‘And I thought, ‘All I'm doing is getting an education. Just trying to learn. And I love it. It's not easy, I get it wrong half the time, I'm laughed at half the time but I love it because it makes me feel as
In this play, the author Alan Bennett wants to convince the audience that education can be approached in many different ways. In fact, through the characters of Hector, Irwin, Dorothy Lintott and the headmaster, he shows us that there is no “right” or “wrong” way of teaching.
indeed a person who has a lot to say and Frank listens and responds to
The social class rift between Tom and Roxy displays realism. Twain illustrates, “Tom’s mother entered now, closing the door behind her, and approached her son with all the wheedling and supplicating servilities that fear and interest can impart to the words and attitudes of the born slave. She stopped a yard from her boy and made two or three admiring exclamations over his manly stature and general handsomeness, and Tom put an arm over his head and hoisted a leg over the sofa-back in order to look indifferent” (Twain 36-37). This scene depicts Roxy trying to reconnect with her son. Arrogant. Repulsed. Egotistical. These are all qualities
Throughout the play, Heartbreak House, it is clearly evident that class distinction is inevitable within society. Characters, Mazzini Dunn, Ellie Dunn and the burglar, Billy Dunn, are great examples of how many people treat others from different social ranks. Mazzini Dunn and his daughter Ellie Dunn are of the lower working class. Mazzini has spent his life working for an upper class man, Mangdan, that he believes he owes his life to, for giving him employment. However, instead
is not quite good enough. Rita wants to be of a higher status than her
Educating Rita is the tale of one working class women 's struggle to find an escape to a boring, repetitive life and to find new things to conquer. To acheive this she begins university on a literature course despite the discouragement from family and baby-obsessed husband Denny. The play features only two characters, Rita and Frank. Frank- a middle class, well-educated, eloquent professor and Rita, an abrupt, crude excuse for a lady with no regard for or more precise, no knowing of social nouce. Throughout the play Rita 's character must reach two social extremities before she can learn to be true to herself. Arriving in Frank 's office loud and sarcastic
Rita is a woman who is longing for change. Change is an inevitable concept during adult development that is influenced by different factors, such as age, culture, and certain life events. Rita comes from a working class society and has been
have taken place in Rita’s life since we last saw her, in the play we
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.