Educating Rita Literature

‘Educating Rita’ is a play written by Willy Russell. This play which is set in England during the eighties is about a twenty-six year old lower class hairdresser who calls herself Rita. Rita longs for freedom from the boredom of her daily routine and thinks that she can gain it by studying for a degree in English Literature from the Open University. Her tutor is Frank, a polite, sceptical professor of literature who has a drinking problem.

The education she receives makes her more informed, independent, confident and educated. Yes, I completely agree with the statement that says, “Rita’s education involves a lot more than just learning about books,” because she also learns many things about life. For example; she learns to believe in herself and in her opinions; she finds out that education isn’t everything you need in life and notices the importance of change. Rita also learns a lot from theatres and in summer school.

Out of the many thing that Rita learns from books, I am going to talk about the ones we most hear of. At the beginning of the play, Rita studied the play Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen. In response to the question ‘Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in a production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt’,(Act one Scene Four) Rita first answered, ‘Do it on the radio’, which for her, encapsulated the whole essay. Later on this answer developed, adding arguments and opinions.

We can tell Rita learned many things about ‘Peer Gynt’ because at the end of the play that same question appeared in her exam. We know this because she tells Frank about it: (Act two Scene seven) When the invigilator said, ‘Begin’, I turned over me paper with the rest of them, while they were all scribbling away against the clock, I just sat there, lookin’ at the first question. Y’ know what it was, Frank? ‘Suggest ways in which one might cope with some of the staging difficulties in a production of Peer Gynt.

But this time, Rita makes it obvious that her answer for the first question in the exam was much more developed than the one she first wrote and she didn’t try to encapsulate all her ideas into one line (Do it on the radio) even though Frank would have been proud if she had!. Rita also develops many literary skills throughout the play. At the beginning of the play when she started her studies at the open University, she hardly knew anything about English literature, but by the end of the play and specially after going to summer school Rita developed many literary skills.

She also studied other well known English writers such as E. M. Forster. At the beginning of Act one Rita picks up ‘Howard’s End’ from one of Frank’s shelves and decides to take it home and read it. Quote: RITA (looking at the bookcase) Yeh, all right. (she takes a copy of ‘Howard’s End’ from the shelf) What’s this like? Even though the first time she tried to read ‘Howard’s End’, Rita didn’t understand the book, she didn’t like it very much and thought it was boring, in the end she was ok with it and understood it. This is what she said about it to Frank in Scene 5 from the first act: I can’t do it.

Honest, I just can’t understand what he’s on about. He’s got me liked, I don’t know what he’s on about, ‘Only connect, only connect’. It’s just bleedin’ borin’. It’s no good, I just can’t understand. Rita also studied Chekhov in summer school (at the end of act one). She talks about him during act two. In her opinion, when she came back from summer school she was “dead familiar with Chekhov”. She told Frank how she stood up in the middle of the hall during a lecture to ask a question about Chekhov; she also said they studied him for a few weeks.

In summer school Rita also studied William Blake’s poetry even though she wasn’t supposed to. She recited from memory an extract from one of Blake’s poems. She also covered all the Songs of Innocence and Experience. Another thing Rita’s education involved was learning how to talk and look at literature objectively, in other words, in a less subjective (personal/sentimental) way. This is the quote from Frank teaching Rita how you should look at literature: You must try to remember that criticism is purely objective. It should be approached almost as a literacy critique.

Criticism is never subjective and should not be confused with partisan interpretation. In criticism sentiment has no place. In the other hand, Rita also learns many things about life itself. Her education is not only learning from books, she learned to believe in herself and in her opinions. We know this because she believed in herself, thinking she could discover herself and be more educated. Even though she found it hard, she didn’t quit the course after Denny left her or after trying to go to Frank’s party; instead she carried on going to the open university, following her opinions.

She also learns how different her culture/class is to Frank’s. At the opening of the play Rita would have felt intimidated and out of place if she had gone to Frank’s party because there is a great clash of cultures between the two characters of the play. However, in the last scene of the play, Rita believes she is educated and she wouldn’t be out of place with high-class people. Quote: I’m educated, I’ve got what you have and you don’t like it because you’d rather see me as the peasant I once was; your like the rest of them – you like to keep your natives thick, because that way they still look charming and delightful.

I don’t need you. I’ve got a room full of books. I know what clothes to wear, what wine to buy, what plays to see, what papers and books to read. Rita says this in scene six of the second act. So basically she’s learned all about etiquette. Rita also noticed the importance of change. All the way through the play, Rita changes many things in her life; Denny left her so she went to live in a flat with a woman called Trish, she stopped working in the hairdressers. She started working in a bistro because she thought that the hairdresser’s was boring and monotonous.

She even changed her name back to Susan at the end of the play when she realised it had been stupid to change her name to Rita. However, one of the most important things she learns is that choice is what matters and that with choice you can have freedom. By the end of the play she can choose if she wants to go and see her mother, go to Australia with Frank, go to France with Tiger… she also had the choice of having a baby which before she didn’t consider because she wanted to discover herself first. Rita also learns other things about life.

She realises friendships are essential and, even though education is very important it is not all you need in life. In conclusion, I agree fully with the statement that says “Rita’s education involves a lot more than just learning about books,” because even though she studies many English writers and poets, and she develops literary skills, Rita also learns many other things about life in this play such as: the importance of choice, to believe in herself and in her opinions, the importance of education and friendships, etiquette and how important choice is.