===Educating Rita - Summary=== ==Act 1== =Scene 1= Frank is in his university office. He is waiting for his open university student Rita. Frank's girlfriend calls him on the telephone and he explains that he could not come for dinner. They talk in a kind of rude way, he ignores her anxieties and makes fun out of her. Frank has hidden some alcohol in his bookcase and drinks some of it. When Rita arrives, they both drink alcohol and smoke. Rita is acting quite straight, not at all shy and she directly says what she thinks while she uses a language which does not have a high level - neither her thoughts do - but dialect. Frank is surprised. They talk about literature and they both do not know the favorite authors of their counterparts and lend each other some books. Rita wants to understand literature and art, whereas Frank just needs the money. But to Rita, he admits that he "know[s] absolutely nothing" and wants her to take a different tutor, but she refuses. =Scene 2= One week later, Rita arrives again. She tells Frank that she had not got a proper education, because she (from her point of view) had been forced to adapt to the attitude of her friends. In addition to that, she could not admit that education was not useless. But one day she stopped thinking that way, and realized that she could make more out of her life. Frank has read "Rubifruit Jungle" during the week and now tells her what he thinks of it. Frank wants Rita to learn about criticism. Rita has read "Howards End" and thinks "It was crap" (33.15), because she interprets it in a way that Forster "was not concerned with the poor" (34.4). By that, she surprises Frank. In his opinion, she has to be more objective. When she does not accept that thought, he refers to her written exams and tells her that she will have to become more disciplined. Then they talk about Frank's broken marriage. His wife left him to "give [him] something new to write about" (36.19). After she had left him, he has stopped writing and has found himself a new girlfriend (Julia), who admires him, even though he sometimes does not come home for days. He hints that he really likes Rita and probably would have fallen in love with her if he had been younger. =Scene 3= Rita has read three novels in a single week and has written an essay on Forster. In this essay, she refers to Harold Robbins' "A Stone For Danny Fisher", which is about a boxer's life, and David H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers". Rita does not understand the difference that makes a book either 'literature' or 'pulp fiction'. She can see that the books which Frank refers to as literature are more posh[*1], but she still has to - and wants to - learn what literature is. Frank encourages her to go on reading but also to distinguish between those books which she can refer to in her exams and those she cannot. =Scene 4= Rita has read the drama "Peer Gynt" by Henrik Ibsen and wrote an essay about it. That essay contains her basic idea in one single line. Frank encourages her to write more than this single line, in order to explain her ideas more clearly. Before she does so, she tells him about her surroundings and complains about the fact that she and her friends do not have culture. She thinks that they all are living a big lie. In her opinion, the people just pretend to be content but in fact wish to have some meaning in their lives. In Rita's opinion, media helps to maintain this 'disease' by always telling the people "to go out an' get more money" (50.27), although the people actually don't really want more money. She does really like it to go to Frank's lessons, because his education in art and literature "feeds [her] inside" (51.12), while Denny (her friend) wants to stop her going there. Rita supposes that the reason for this is that she is getting stronger. Then she realizes that the phrase "only connect" from Forster's "Howards End" is exactly what she is doing right now by telling Frank about her and her friends' 'culture'. =Scene 5= Rita's friend has found out that she is on the pill again, even though she had told him that she was not, and he is angry because he wants to have a baby. But Rita only wants to have a baby when she has a choice. But now she does not think she has any, whereas Denny thinks they have one. He jealously burns all her books and papers because he thinks that Rita has an affair. Rita wants to learn about Chekhov while Frank wants to talk about her marriage. In the end Rita takes them both to the theatre - an amateur group plays "The Importance Of Being Earnest". =Scene 6= Rita has visited the theatre and has seen Shakespeare's "Macbeth", and she really liked it. She enjoyed the tragedy and Frank explains the difference between 'tragic' and 'tragedy': A tragedy means that something tragic is "inevitable [and] pre-ordained"[*2] (65.22), something that cannot be stopped even though warnings have been made and that is caused by the persons features. Then Frank invites Rita with her husband to a party arranged by him and his girlfriend (which Rita might enjoy). =Scene 7= Rita did not come to the party. She would have liked to, but took the wrong bus. When she came too late and saw the cheerful people in the house she felt inferior, not only because of bringing the wrong wine and wearing the wrong dress. She thinks that she only had been invited for being the clown for anybody, because she is so clumsy[*3] - what in fact is nonsense; Frank would have liked her to be there as herself. Instead, Rita had gone to the pub where her friends and family were. They altogether sang a song from the Jukebox. Rita's mother cried for a while because she thought that they "could sing better songs than those" (72.18). Because of that, Rita has come back to Frank again. =Scene 8= Denny has thrown Rita out of their house because she goes on visiting Frank and also continues taking the pill. She wants to move to her mother's. She has written an essay about "Macbeth" and it is not only unique (75.26), "moving" (75.3) and "wonderful" (75.8) but also "worthless" (75.7) for exams. Rita has to adopt a new style if she wants to pass the exams. ==Act 2== =Scene 1= They both have been on holiday: Rita in London, visiting a summer school, and Frank in France. Rita has spent a great time in London. She got to know many people - even tutors - and she could really talk with them because her level of education was good enough for it. She has bought Frank a new pencil - only for poetry. She heard lessons about literature and art and when Frank wants to discuss a poem by William Blake she already knows about him. At home, she now has got a flatmate, Trish, and she really likes her - and Rita thinks Trish had 'class'. In France, Frank and his girlfriend split up because of eggs (he liked them naturally and she left him). He "wrote a bit [of poetry] an' [he] drank a bit" (79.29). As Frank predicts that Rita would leave him one day she tries to get him away from that thought (R: "Who says I'm gonna disappear?" - F: "Oh you will" [...] - R: "This course could go on for years." (84.8ff)) =Scene 2= Rita's flatmate has told her to speak in a more eloquent way, and now she tries to do so. But Frank cannot stand that and asks her to stop it. Rita has had a discussion with some 'proper' students about literature, and they immediately invited them to go abroad. When Frank hears that, he suddenly wants to keep her with him - even though Rita could not go away anyway. When she talks of Tyson "Tiger" - one of the students - Frank huffily[*4] changes the subject and wants to talk of her essay - which is quite well done. =Scene 3= Frank was so drunk in one of his lectures that he fell down twice. He had told his students that "'Assonance means getting the rhyme wrong'" (94.16) - the same Rita had said in one of her first lessons. Anyway, Frank insists on talking about her latest essay in which she had interpreted in a way Frank does not like. In his opinion the poem is much more "simple, uncomplicated" (95.14) but Rita - who has discussed that topic with some of her new friends - has a different point of view, she thinks that it is "richer" (95.11). Even though this essay would achieve a good mark in an exam, Frank does not like it. In his opinion Rita's style cannot be found there anymore - but Rita thinks that he cannot find his own style there anymore. In the following, Rita becomes angry about Frank because he treats her the same way he has treated her when she started her lessons, but Frank seems a little bit depressed. He has read "Rubifruit Jungle" (Rita's ex-favourite book) and calls it "excellent" (98.4) =Scene 4= Rita is late. She has been talking to some of her new friends (students) about Shakespeare. When Frank has tried to phone her in the hairdresser's shop where she has been working, she was not there. She is now working at a bistro which is visited by many students and did not tell Frank about it. He does not like that and is a bit angry about it, but Rita thinks that this information would be exactly the kind of information that she does not want to talk about anymore. She has to leave earlier this day because she wants to visit the theatre. The week before, she has not been able to come, and so Frank proposes her to stop coming. But she angrily rejects that. When Frank points out that she does not have to come because she could do her exams as well without further visits, she changes the subject (his drinking habit). At the end he hands her several sheets of paper - his own poetry - about which she shall write an essay for the following week. =Scene 5= Rita visits Frank out of schedule and he is drinking as she enters. She has read his poems, and she and Trish think that the poems are great. But she has to defend her opinion against Frank who thinks of his own poems as "worthless, talentless, shit" (104.15). Frank hints on Frankenstein - as if he had created a monster by educating Rita. She is now educated and independent, and she thinks that Frank cannot stand her anymore because she does not regard him as the wise, superior teacher anymore, because she now has got nearly the same knowledge. But in Frank's eyes she has only adopted a new way of life, one that simply does not fit to her (105.27ff). When Rita leaves, she tells him that she has changed her name a long time ago and he was the only one who still calls her Rita. =Scene 6= Frank phones Rita's place and tells Trish that Rita is entered for her exams. He learns that Rita's new name is Susan. =Scene 7= Frank has to leave towards Australia because he did not behave well. He packs his books. Rita tells him that she has passed her exams. She was quite well prepared by Frank (one of the questions in the exams was the same one he had asked her in an exercise essay). She has had the choice between answering as she would have done at the beginning of her university education - what Frank would probably have liked - or in her 'new' eloquent way. She chose the second alternative. Frank wants to take her with him to Australia but she yet has got the choice between going abroad with Tiger or visiting her mother's. Frank hands her a packet - a dress for an educated woman. She complains that she always has taken from Frank and now she wants to give something - she gives him a new haircut, which would "take ten years off [him]" (111.26). __________ [*1] posh: vornehm [*2] inevitable: unvermeidlich; pre-ordained: vorherbestimmt [*3] clumsy: unbeholfen [*4] huffy: eingeschnappt