Do you agree with Rita that she is now "educated"? Has she done more than change her dress?.
"Educating Rita" by Willie Russell, is a play about education and the impact it has on the average person. In this essay I will discuss whether Rita really does in fact get an educated, whether education changes Rita's life, or whether she has just found a "better song to sing". I will also determine whether there were any real advantages for Rita upsetting her marriage with an education and not having a baby. I will also discuss whether the education Rita is provided with is just a veneer and Rita hasn't changed at all.
Rita may be more educated from when she started but she is not as she sees it "educated". To me she has just changed the way she perceives things and looks at life. She is no more educated than the person sitting next to her.
Education has affected Rita's life in a different way you would expect it to but not the way she expected it to. Rita expected education to give her a place in a higher class, when all it has really done is alienate her from her own society because she sees things from a different point of view Rita says it herself she is a "half cast". Someone stuck in the middle of two worlds and getting pulled in two directions but has no ability to decide which direction they personally want to go in.
Education to Rita is a way of escaping the world she lives in, the world she has become accustomed to it's a way of moving up in the world. To Rita it's not just making yourself happy by changing the way you look on the outside with a "new dress or a new haircut" but changing the way you view the world and also to her changing the way the world views her. An education gains Rita the right to an opinion that counts according to her. Rita is not the average student and Frank tells her that "a breath of fresh air" and Frank welcomes this fresh air into his office because he has been so closed off "the window unable to be opened" for a lengthy amount of time perhaps Rita could also give Frank education in regards to other aspects of life.