In this play, we have experienced how a “girl” (at the beginning) could find the way of feeling better when she started to make choices for her own life, and become a “woman” who is ready to take control over it.
Everything in Rita’s life has changed: her personality, her personal circumstances, her culture and also the people who surround her.
After all, I think that Rita has gained as a result of her education. She has learnt that she is able to choose what she wants for her life and what is better for her. She doesn't need to accept things as they come anymore and furthermore, she is not afraid of making mistakes. She knows now that she is the only person who is able to change her life through the decisions she will take in the future.
I cannot imagine when somebody suffers as a result of studying. Every little experience of studying something gives you growing. I totally agree when Willy Russell says: “education gives you a choice”, because not only it implies an educational experience but also a change in people’s personality.

They know all about that…do I know anything?

This scene shows Rita excited about the play she went to see to a professional theatre. It was so exciting that she decided to tell Frank about it, maybe because she felt he was the only one who could understand her feelings about the play.

Although she found the play very interesting, she could not go into thinking deeply about it. That’s why Frank made her notice other things which were difficult for her to think about or did not realize about that play, she said she was not used to thinking like this.

After that, Rita went over to the window, where, I imagine, she could see the “proper students” and said, “all them out there, they know all about that sort of thing, don’t they?”

I think that despite the fact she is studying, improving and determining to go on, maybe she feels that she has not improved enough to know all, as people surrounding her at the University.

I think that Rita suffers from low self-esteem and need to build it up again. I believe she feels she would not be able to keep an open mind when thinking objectively. Perhaps Frank, studying and her own willpower to want to improve her thoughts may boost Rita’s self-esteem so she will not talk about “them” but “us”.

Once again, I understand Rita’ feelings.

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.

Educating Rita by Willy Russell

Rita is a twenty-six-year old hairdresser who has taken the decision of enrolling on a literature course at the Open University, where she met her tutor, Frank.
I think that Rita wants to study because she feels she would be able to become a better person than who she actually is.
She wants a change in her life which makes her feel she is alive and free to choose what she wishes for her life. She feels ready to meet the challenge of studying what she desires. Besides she wants to learn “everything”, she needs to fulfil herself to succeed as a person.
I believe that this change, maybe, would also contribute to her not being influenced by people’s feelings or thoughts so it is not going to be others’ beliefs but hers.