Willy Russells Educating Rita :: Educating Rita Autobiography Social Class Essays

Willy Russell's Educating Rita Educating Rita was a play, which was written by Willy Russell. The book is a semi autobiographical story about a woman who has achieved nothing in her life and wants to get an education before it is too late. She is being forced to have a baby by her husband Denny and regrets not getting any qualifications. With a lack of learning she had only hairdressing to turn to. She started to feel like she was just another person in a crowd, nobody special at home so she starts a literature course at the Open University. Where she is given Frank as a tutor. Frank teaches her literature. She is an outcast to begin but it doesn’t take long before she becomes a stereotypical student sitting on the lawn. Frank is a middle-aged man, divorced but not single. His girlfriend Julia who we find cheating on him. As an English Lecturer and former poet, he understands the deeper meaning behind literature, but he can’t remember it half the time because of his little drinking problem. The character of Rita was based on the writer’s own life and experiences. They both grew up outside Liverpool with a poor education and a lack of qualifications. They both set off to change their lives. Rita became a student while Willy Russell lived his dream of being a writer. In act 1 Rita is introduced. She is shown to be loud and outwardly confident. An example is her use of inappropriate, crude language. When she sees a piece of artwork hanging on Frank’s office wall she says â€Å"look at those tits†. This quote expresses her attitude and gives you the impression she is loud and always speaks her mind. Her approach to Frank’s sophisticated reality is crude and shocking. â€Å"That’s ‘S’ for Susan. Its not me real name. I’ve changed it to Rita though† This is the funny side of Rita. She is made out to be entertaining and funny to make the audience laugh. When misunderstanding Frank’s comments her words are twisted into an inappropriate language. This shows her lack of education and her completely different approach to literature, her experiences are only reading pulp fiction books.. This lack in education causes her social status around school to be very low. She wants to be like the other students and knows it will take a lot of work to get there. The audience sees that she is aware of her academic limitations and knows the change will have to come from within â€Å"†¦ they come to the hairdressers cos they wanna be changed, but if you want to change y’