Rita won’t go to the pub with Frank

After having a difficult situation in her house, Rita couldn’t hand in the essay Frank has asked her to write about.

Her husband feels jealous about her going to University so he burns Frank’s books and what she has written.

Frank thinks it is better to talk about Rita and her husband’s problems so he considers the possibility of missing the class for this time and goes together to have a drink at the pub but Rita refuses to go. She does not want to go to the pub but goes on learning.

I believe that one of the reasons she does not want to go for a drink is that she does not want to waste time in talking about Denny, her husband. He hurts her in the way that he is meddling with her things, which make her happy and which she is determined to continue. Although he has burnt Frank’s books and her essay, she knows that what she has already known is hers and nobody can touch or burn it, fortunately.

Another reason she won’t go to the pub could be because she may do it with her husband and it is precisely what she does not want to for her life, because the fact of going there would not feed her inside. She feels alive now she finds out what she really likes doing.
If I were Rita, I would think: “please, let me be, Denny”.

“It makes me stronger coming here”.

This is what Rita feels since she has started studying at University. She also realizes that although she might buy a new dress and have a lot of money, she has nothing after all. Because what she really needs for her life is to enrich her culture with something more important than a simple dress.
Having started to study feeds her inside. I think that what she wants to explain is that studying makes her free to make decisions, to feel autonomous when choosing what is better for her life. Studying feeds her inside because she feels motivated as she has her own opinion about things.
On the contrary, she decides to go ahead despite her husband does not support her. He does not like her studying and tries to persuade her, inviting her to go on having the same vulgar life she does not want to have it anymore, she wants to break away and has her own life, that is to say, she wants to do what she really makes her happy.
I totally agree with Rita when she says that her husband is frightened of her going to study.
He knows that, whether he likes it or not, Rita would not be the same woman he met some years ago.