Educating Rita

Rita and Frank are diametrically opposed when it comes to personal growth. Rita is fervently interested in bettering herself no matter how difficult or humiliating it might be. She succeeds in educating herself, moving up the social ladder, and freeing herself from the limitations of her old world. Frank, though, does not change at all. In fact, his drinking and his bitterness over Rita’s forward movement lead him to regress; he is temporarily removed from his job, loses his girlfriend, and prepares to leave for Australia. Russell leaves it open to interpretation if this disparity in personal growth is due to the characters’ ages, backgrounds, or inherent characteristics.

In terms of education, Rita views education as a means to jump social classes, to escape a lackluster life, and to act as an arena in which she can make her own choices and be her own person. Through her education she does indeed achieve all of these things, but education is not a panacea. Frank’s comments and behavior reinforces the fact that education can shape a person in certain ways, but can also be a superficial, rigid structure in which a person’s individuality is swallowed up. Educated people have their own mores, norms, and codes of behavior and thinking that are just as limiting as those of the working class. Education, as Frank believes and as Russell may be asking us to consider, cannot transform a person’s inner being.