Willie Russells Educating Rita :: Willie Russell Educating Rita Essays

Willie Russells Educating RitaIn this play, Willie Russell has created 2 extremes of culture andput them together to focus on the differences between them and howthese two cultures change as the play develops. Firstly there is Frankwith a good job as a teacher and a large house and is well educated,who is contrasted with Rita who has a council house, works as ahairdresser and is not well educated. They first meet when Rita goesto Frank because she wants to be educated. As the play continues,Frank and Rita almost totally exchange roles as they are bothunhappy with their culture and want to be more like the other. Thisplay was written in the 1980s where the working, middle and stop numberclasses were still used widely to determine what your culture was andhow important you are to the social society at the time.The theme of culture appears a lot in the play. One of the ways thatWillie Russell shows the two distinctly different cultures is how much motive the higher classes have over the lower classes. In the playknowledge is shown as a symbol of originator. Frank has the superiorknowledge over Rita so therefore he withal has more power over Rita. Butwhen Rita returns from summertime school and is more knowledgeable thanFrank because Frank wanted to be more like Rita, so Rita has morepower over Frank as she now has the superior knowledge. I think thatthe swivel chair determines who is most in control over the otherperson in terms of power and knowledge. At the start of the play Frankis sat in the swivel chair, but once Rita is further educated she sitsin the swivel chair. The fact that it is a swivel chair thatdetermines power is significant because it turns around. Much likeFrank and Rita as the power turned from being in Frank in to Rita.Willie Russell also used education to show the two different culturesthat Frank and Rita live in. Rita says that she wants to be educatedbecause she wants to know everything as she is not happy being classedas working class. But Denny, Ritas husband, does not want her tochange and he does this by burning all of her books. Education alsosymbolises power as Frank has the power to change is life because heis educated, but Rita wants to become educated so she can change herway of life and culture. Education affects the audiencesinterpretations of the play as the two extremes of culture that are