Compare and contrast Willy Russell's portrayal of Rita and Frank by examining the language these characters use

in Act I of Educating Rita.

2/4 Educating Rita by Willy Russell is a drama with only two actors, Frank and Rita. The play was first shown in June 1980 at The Warehouse in London. Rita is a hairdresser with no higher education and wants to change her life. Therefore she takes courses at the Open University. Frank is her tutor, a middle aged professor at the university of Liverpool. He has an alcohol problem, a failed marriage and lives now together with a younger woman. Frank and Rita are completely different characters, because they have different social backgrounds. Willy Russell makes this clear by the language the characters use. In the following the language the characters use and the personality created by the language will be discussed.

Rita has no graduation and married early, the typical old school housewife. She comes from Liverpool, the north west of England. From there she has her special dialect called Scouse. This accent is very distinctive and a fast, highly accented manner of speech. Scouse differs a lot from most other accents used in the neighbouring regions.1 Willy Russell chose this particular dialect for Rita to give her an unique identification. Furthermore this dialect indicates that Rita does not belong to the upper class, because she would speak proper English if she belongs to the upper class. In addition to their dialect Rita often uses short forms of words and incomplete sentences. This and the Scouse dialect underlines from what social background Rita is from. In contrast to Rita, Frank speaks Oxford English, the accent of Standard English in England. The name Oxford English comes from the fact that this accent is mainly spoken at the University of Oxford. This university has, by the publication of dictionaries, a good reputation in terms of the English language. 2 Although Frank teaches at the University of Liverpool, the author decided not to let him speak Scouse, but Oxford English. Compared to Scouse this is a very exact and clean language. Consequently Willy Russell wants to give the impression, that Frank is very educated and belongs to the upper class of the society. This impression is reinforced by the, compared to Rita, complexer sentences and the words he uses. One of Rita's character properties is her directness. Willy Russell makes this clear by several points. The most obvious point is again the language Rita uses. It is already clear in the first act when Rita comes into Frank's office the first time. Direct from the doorway she says to the foreign Frank It's that stupid bleedin' handle on the
1 Wikipedia Artikel, URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouse, Datum: 07.07.2010
2 Wikipedia Artikel, URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation, Datum 07.07.2010

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door.3 The next example comes just a few lines later when Rita looks at the religious picture in Frank's office. She describes it as very erotic and makes those tits 4 alert. These two statements make clear that Rita is a very direct and straightforward personality that directly says what she means. A shy person would not speak in that way to a foreign. Furthermore, these statements indicate that Rita is a very confident person, which is also confirmed by some of her actions later in the drama. Of course, the decision to visit the Open University besides work is a sign of a strong and assertive personality. Unlike Rita, Frank is a completely different personality. He is more subtly, dissipated and not that direct. An indication to this is reflected in the conversation about the painting in Frank's office again. Frank hesitates to talk about the erotic painting and does not agree directly with Rita's assessment about the meaning of the presentation. Moreover an indication for his dissipation can be found in Act I, Scene 6 where Frank explains the difference between tragedy and tragic. He gives Rita an example for each of the words, so that she can figure out the difference by herself. One last example is given in Act I, Scene 4 where Rita and Frank are in a discussion. Rita asks Why didn't y' just tell me, right from the start? and Frank answers I could have told you; but you'll have a much better understanding of something if you discover it in your own terms. These examples show clearly that Frank has in comparison to Rita a more restrained and subtle personality. He likes to circumscribe things, partly because it corresponds to his personality and partly because his students understand things better that way. Although Rita speaks Scouse and belongs due to other factors almost certainly to the lower class of the society she is not stupid. In Act I, Scene I for instance Rita says about swearing ...it doesn't cause any sort of fuss with educated people, does it? Cos they know it's only words and they don't worry. 5 That indicates that Rita is intelligent and looks beyond the plates edge. Furthermore she decided to educate herself by visiting the Open University to improve her knowledge about literature. During this learning process Frank explains her the difference between tragedy and tragic. This is a perfect example for Rita's progress of understanding subtle differences by the meaning of words and so in language.
3 Reclam, Educating Rita Act I, Scene 1, Page 8, Line 1 4 Reclam, Educating Rita Act I, Scene 1, Page 9, Line 2-5 5 Reclam, Educating Rita Act I, Scene 1, Page 14, Line 17-19

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Another indication that Rita is not represented as stupid, but only as not well educated, is the fact, that the description of Rita fits on Willy Russell himself too. The author was born near Liverpool like Rita, left school with one O-Level in English and became a ladies' hairdresser and ran his own salon. Later in his life he returned to college and gets interested in writing drama. 6 This background is obviously very close to that of Rita. This suggests itself that Rita should not be portrayed as stupid, since Willy Russell would otherwise call himself as stupid. Willy Russell just wants to point out, that Rita is from a working class family and can not hope for much support of their parents in terms of education. Although Willy Russell defines the personality of the characters mainly by their language, a few other points have to be considered. In addition to the language the author gives some background information on the characters that allow a conclusion on their personality. For example the reader finds out that Rita does not have a good education and that she is a hairdresser. The reader learns about Frank that he is professor at the university, has an alcohol problem and is divorced. Furthermore, as already indicated, the actions of people let the reader recognize some parts of their personality. Both of these information are not absolutely necessary to receive an impression of the characters personality, but they help to verify the indentation the reader obtain by observing the language. Willy Russell uses this remedy to make sure that the reader gets a correct picture of the characters personality, even if the language is not considered in detail. For all these reasons discussed previously, Frank and Rita are completely different personalities. Willy Russell defined each personality very clearly and exact especially by giving them an individual style of speaking. This points out how important the language a character uses is and that an author can create a defined personality only by the language. Additional information about the characters can be useful for the reader to discover the characters personality but it is not absolutely necessary to create an individual character. As a result of all that facts Educating Rita by Willy Russell is an excellent example how language can be used to form a personality without to much additional information. In this drama the author has successfully managed to create a clear portrait of the characters only by the language.
6 Nachwort Educating Rita

(1269 words)