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The Essence of Willy Russell’s Educating Rita is that Rita
changes while Frank stays exactly the same. Discuss the
extent to which you agree with this statement, citing
evidence from the text in order to support your case.
Intro
Educating Rita by Willy Russell is about the protagonist, Rita
White, attempting to break free from her mundane workingclass existence as a hairdresser and enter Frank’s academic,
middle-class world.
As Rita changes, becoming more middle-class and educated,
Frank stays the same and in the end he begins to wish he had
never helped her to change.
Rita, having freed herself to be who she wants to be ends
up helping Frank so there is a complete role reversal by the
end of the play.
Essentially Rita moves while Frank stays still.
90 words
Ten points to analyse (five Rita, five Frank)
RITA
1.
Rita is uneducated and feels socially inferior
to Frank at the beginning of the play.
 She got nothing from school
“See if I’d started taking school seriously I would
have been different from my mates, and that’s not
allowed.”
 She thinks Rubyfruit Jungle is great literature
“Haven’t y’ read it. It’s a fantastic book.” Frank
replies “Devouring pulp fiction is not being well
read.”
 She is down on other working class people. Their
attitude to swearing for example:
“See the educated classes know that it’s only words,
don’t they. It’s only the masses who don’t
understand.”
 She feels privileged to be speaking to someone
like Frank
“But I don’t often get the chance to talk to someone
like you.”
2. Rita, although she doesn’t know how to write
academic essay, (her essay on Peer Gynt is one long line
and Frank makes her rewrite it), shows great
determination to learn in the first few scenes of the
play.
 Her enthusiasm is boundless. When asked what she wants
to learn she replies “Everything.”
 At the end of scene 3 we can see an important shift in
her attitude
“My mind’s full of junk isn’t it? It needs a good clearing out.”
 Rita does not want to be patronised. She wants to be like
all other educated women. She throws an essay in the bin
because it is not good enough
“Here it’s crap. Right. So we dump that in the bin.”
 Whenever there is doubt Rita is determined to continue
her development. When Frank tells us her subjective take
on Macbeth is valuable she replies:
“Valuable? What’s valuable. The only thing I value is here,
comin’ here once a week.”
3. Once Rita starts to become educated she can no
longer go back to her old life, but she is not ready for
the new one
 After she has been out with her family she says:
“I can’t talk to the people I live with anymore. And I can’t talk
to the likes of them on Saturday, or them out there, because I
can’t learn the language. I’m a half caste.”
 Rita starts to grow away from Denny, her husband.
Eventually she leaves him. He does not want her to
change.
“Stop comin’ here an come off the pill or get out altogether.”
4. After the summer school Rita finally begins to
change. She begins to speak differently, she can hold
her own intellectually and she is beginning to mix with
the other students.
 When Rita comes back from the summer school she has
definitely changed. Her language for instance. She starts
to use words like analogy, parody and tragedy.
“I have merely decided to talk properly.”
 She has been mixing with the other students and can
argue with them confidently
“I heard one of the sayin’ as a novel he preferred Lady
Chatterley to Sons and Lovers. I thought , I can keep walkin’
and ignore it, or I can put him straight. So I put him straight.”
5. By the end of the play Rita has completely changed.
She is free to do whatever she wants but she can do it
with the confidence of an educated woman who no
longer feels socially inferior.
 She realises other students are not that clever
“For students they don’t half come out with some rubbish you
know.”
 Frank symbolically puts her essay on the pile with the
others because it would not look out of place.
“It wouldn’t look out of place with these.”
 She now lives with another student and is thinking of
going on holiday with some of them. She has left her old
life behind
“”I’ve only been talkin’ to them for five minutes and he’s
inviting me to go to the South of France.”
6. At the beginning of the play we realise Frank has a
drink problem and he is completely disenchanted with
academic life. He also has no self-belief.
“Most of the time, you see, appalling teaching is quite in order
for most of my appalling students.”
7. Frank, although he knows she has a long way to go,
finds Rita a breath of fresh air in comparison with his
other students precisely because she is such a
contrast with his other students.
“If you’re going to pass any sort of exam you have to begin to
discipline that mind of yours.”
“Because I think your marvellous. Do you know you’re the first
breath of fresh air that’s been in here for years.”
8. Frank’s inability to write and the fact his poetry is
so obviously literate and dry is indicative of the
general rut his life is in.
“The great thing about the booze is that it makes one believe
that under all the talk, one is actually saying something.”
“Instead of creating poetry, I spent years trying to create
literature.”
(When Rita praises his poetry)
“It is pretentious, characterless and without style.”
9. When Rita starts to change Frank begins to express
regrets. He doesn’t want her to be like the other
students. Frank becomes jealous and childish as Rita
changes.
“There is a way of answering examination questions that is
expected.”
“I’m going to have to change you.”
“I don’t know that I want to teach you. What you have is
already valuable.”
“Perhaps you don’t want to waste your time coming here
anymore.”
(When Rita has transformed herself and is like all the other
students)
“Found a culture have you Rita? Found a better song to sing
have you? No – you’ve found a different song, that’s all – and on
your lips it’s shrill and hollow and tuneless.”
“I’ll tell you what you can’t bear, Mr Self-Pitying Piss Artist;
what you can’t bear is that I’m educated now. What’s up, Frank,
don’t y’ like me now that the little girl’s grown up.”
10. By the end of the play Rita is the one helping Frank. He is
still drinking, unable to write and even more disenchanted with
his life and with himself. She has transformed herself into
someone new who she really wants to be and she thanks Frank
for it.
“Y’ need air in here, Frank.”
”Because of what you’d given me I had a choice.”
(Offering a haircut and perhaps more at the end of the play)
“I’m gonna take ten years off you.”