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  • Essay / Rita's transformation in the play “Educating Rita”

    Educating Rita is a play about change and transformation. Susan White, a young working-class girl, wants to escape the trappings of the class system and become "educated", thinking it will allow her to "sing a better song". By the end of the play, her transformation is absolute, and although drastic changes are visible during Act 2, many aspects of Rita and her life have changed throughout the first section. Obviously, she changes her name to Rita, named after her favorite author. This is particularly endearing because it shows his ambition to escape his previous life but also his naivety in giving himself the name of such a minor author. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Rita's first entrance, although delayed by the rigid door, is lively and energetic; instantly she speaks and reprimands. His speech is constant, masking his nervousness and unfolds like a tirade: it is Rita who leads the conversation. However, during her final entry into the Act, Rita enters "slowly" and "wanders". It's Frank who leads the conversation now, speaking first and prompting Rita to ask questions, and when Rita responds, she's short and to the point, almost stilted. Even though her nervousness is gone, Rita has already started to lose the energy and "uniqueness" that made her such an interesting and attractive character. One of the key areas of Rita's life that changed during Act 1 is her relationship with her husband, Denny. At the start of the play, Rita is still living with him, although their relationship is in shambles. When Rita makes her speeches about how she is stifled by her working class trappings, she regularly references Denny, showing that she sees him as the embodiment of everything she dislikes about her past . She compares him to a "drug addict" and often talks to Frank about Denny's reservations about his new upbringing, saying that Denny is becoming "narcissistic", "scared" and "trying to stop me [Rita] from coming" . The next time Denny is mentioned, it's because he burned all of Rita's books because he sees that she hasn't stopped taking the pill. Rita knows her marriage is failing, telling Frank that she knows he often wonders "where the girl he married went" and shows her resentment towards Denny in the line "he wants me to stop shaking the coffin”. Rita sees Denny and his old life as already dead while education can allow him to escape and provide him with “life itself”. The act of burning a book connects him in our minds to the Nazis, but Rita's next speech doesn't make him a bad person, but a person who doesn't understand. She wants to be able to have a real choice regarding her life: Denny thinks that they already have a choice by being able to choose between "eight different types of lager" or "one crappy school and the next one". At the end of the act, Denny gave Rita an ultimatum and she left the house. Rita chose her education and her "choice" over her husband and eventually began to let go of her old life. Rita's other relationship explored in the play is that with Frank. This is the basis of the entire piece and changes throughout. The mutual wonder and admiration at the start of the play eventually turns to disillusioned resentment, but by the end of the first act the two are still friendly. Rita regards Frank with great esteem and is fascinated by him when they first meet. She refuses to allow him to transfer her to another guardian, calling him "crazy and piss-poor" and telling him that she "likes him." For her, Frank embodies the new.”.