HOW DOES RUSSELL PORTRAY RITA AS AN EVOLVING CHARACTER?

In Willy Russell’s famous play ‘Educating Rita’, he challenges views upon social
classes and education. Set in the 1980s, we explore an open university
student’s life, Rita, through her weekly meetings in her tutor’s office. The play
focuses on influences that shape Rita and the audience watches the twenty six
year old hairdresser develop from an ‘uneducated’ and vulgar individual to a
person who has gained confidence and knowledge and overcome obstacles on
her journey to ‘discover herself’. This leads to a deeper understanding of her
social status and the choices she can make for herself.

Over the course of the play, Rita’s knowledge on classic literature really
develops along with her analysis skills; in the process, Frank who is her tutor,
shows her how she has lost her subjectivity and originality. At first, her opinions
on a literary classic written by E.M. Foster was that “ it was crap!” This
statement was a pure judgement. However later on after reading Frank’s
intellectual poems, she acknowledges how she “wouldn’t have understood it
earlier.” Although she can appreciate the literary allusions, she has lost the
ability to recognise that essentially Frank’s poetry is worthless, pretentious
rubbish. From the contrast of opinions, she knows she has accomplished her
former dream of adapting a student like mind and actually enjoys classics such
as Shakespeare. From her point of view, her change of judgement is good but
Frank thinks she has lost her uniqueness and just follows the textbook
definition of what is ‘wonderful’: Education has served Rita well in some
regards but she lacks honest thoughts that are not tainted with other people’s
views.

Her different tastes had also been obscured and this is illustrated through her
former favourite novel: Ruby Fruit Jungle. This book is referred to as ‘pulp
fiction’ which is directed to the common people therefore Frank would never
have been interested in it however Rita exclaims “It’s a fantastic book. Haven’t
y’ read it?” Her genuine surprise and use of the adjective ‘fantastic’ expresses
her love for it and how she is unaware about different reading materials and
their appropriate audiences. However, after her summer schooling, she states
that this book is “hardly excellence”; this reaction leaves Frank dumbfounded
after complimenting this novel. Finally, the student feels confident about her
choices in ‘mature literature’ and she thinks excellence is only achieved in
proper literature which must consist references to other great literature,
allusions and proper literary devices and appraisal. She believes belonging to
the upper class depends on her liking of specific books that are objectively
considered to be great literature which Russell portrays as a hollow and
superficial view.

Rita’s drastic change in taste reflects her overall determination to completely

change. In the final scene of act one, Frank warns her that she will have to
“abandon her uniqueness”. Rita following the given stage directions of
‘confronting him’, cries “I want to change!” This dramatic scene represents her
different form in the later act. Russell also later makes Rita revert back to her
real name of ‘Susan’ which is very important to her and she says “you stupid…
nobody calls me Rita.” In the first scene she was very proud of her new
nickname but her new posher identity is needed to be named as Susan which

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emphasises the fact how she thinks she’s meant to be an educated woman.
She’s almost embarrassed of her past self and the shedding her name shows
the audience how she now thinks she is cultured and educated and wants
nothing to do with lower class Rita.

Nevertheless, all this change has also benefited Rita with the confidence to
interact with the ‘proper’ students. In scene 2, Rita won an argument against a
student with her claiming “I put him straight.” The verb ‘put’ really reflects her
force and self confidence in contrast to her felling inferior in the first act. When
she tells Frank, he was in disbelief leading to her saying “I can talk now y’
know.” She remains embarrassed about her past self and her using ‘now’
suggests that she believes she knows she is a new and changed individual. The
audience now detects her newly found ambition and how she thinks education
has made her ‘better’.

In the middle of act 2, after Rita quit hairdressing and moved in with ‘classy’
Trish, she picks up a very pretentious attitude where in act two scene two she
says “I don’t want to talk about irrelevant rubbish anymore”; she thinks talking
about ‘literary criticism’ is more important and that she is too good for
‘rubbish’. She even changes her Liverpudlian accent stating, “I have merely
decided to talk properly. As Trish says there is not a lot of point in discussing
beautiful literature in an ugly voice.” Now she has contradicted herself and is
trying to change everything about herself and her identity to the extent of how
she speaks, less use of her colloquial language to the wine she chooses to fit
in. She talks as if ‘Rita’ was worse than Susan and education has now made her
slightly obnoxious. Due to this, Frank is left frustrated of how she judges herself
and how empty he has taught her to be. Nonetheless her accent does creep
back in later on in the scene therefore showing the audience not all of her has
permanently changed.

After several arguments with Frank, Rita makes a full circle and returns with an
array of choices for herself. She realises how many opportunities education has
provided for her and she says to Frank in the final scene of the play, “I might
go to France. I might go to me mother’s. I might even have a baby. I dunno.”
She now knows she can lead her own life in any way fitting for her. Russell
shows how Rita has moved on from completely changing herself and is
appreciating the different routes she can take. After facing Trish’s suicide
attempt in scene seven, she realises art and literature holds no real value and
does not answer everything in life. The end leaves the audience questioning
how much further Rita will evolve and if she will be satisfied by her choices but
that just emphasises how far she has come in just one year.

In summary, Rita goes through a very complicated journey to find herself and
the audience reflects on both her good and bad changes. Even though she lost
her special values, she still seems satisfied with her completion of her
education. The audience has seen her grow into a confident and educated
woman and in the end Susan and Rita merge into a bright individual.

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