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Civilisation has a tendency to attempt to divide people into different groups. Our environment weighs and measures us; then places us into a certain company. Frank and Rita are the very example of two persons placed in very different social compartments. Their places in society differ greatly as do their roles as student and teacher. And yet as one examines the script of Educating Rita it seems as though two people, who society has attempted to separate from each other in every possible way, still have the world in common.
The first big difference in the two characters's oil status is their sex. Rita is a woman, Frank is a man. Though we may try to deny it, there is quite a difference between what is expected from men and women. Age as well plays a large part in terms of theses expectations.
Frank is middle-aged whereas Rita is still in her late twenties. Rita is facing masses of peer pressure, it is expected of her that she should now have children and become a housewife. Her being fairly young and married, the thought of her going back to school instead of having babies is unheard of, quite abnormal, and even unacceptable. Frank, in contrast, is a middle-aged man and a divorce. As far as social pressure is concerned, he is now free to do his liking. He has already filled his middle-class duties; he is educated, he has something of a career and he has been married.
He now has a girlfriend, which people regard that he is entitled to. Nobody expects him to make a deeper commitment to his girlfriend, due, it seems, to the fact that he has already been married once. These differences lead to a certain lack of empathy on Frank's behalf. Frank doesn't understand Rita's situation, the social pressure put on her is incomprehensible to him. Frank believes that life is a simple matter: don't love your husband anymore, get a divorce; don't want to have children, don't have children. What he does not see, is that Rita is bound by the ways of her society, she's not allowed to differ from her mates, which has a greater impact on her than Frank seems to realise.
In a way of thinking, Frank is free and Rita is not. Rita is bound by a lot of expectations to live up to, whereas Frank has leave to simply enjoy the rest of his life. But, as Janis Joplin states in one of her songs: "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." Frank is free, but he will eventually be left with nothing but his memories. He has achieved a certain social status, but he can not be rid of it no matter what he does. Rita's situation is strictly contradictory, she has her safe old community and life to lose, which is a lot to her. But what Rita doesn't have to lose, is hers to gain.
Rita has the opportunity to exchange her life for something completely different. She wants to through away her present situation, not knowing what she will get in return. The ability to make this difficult choice makes Rita's life far more exciting, whereas Frank seems to have not interest in neither his own life nor the world around him. Inside Frank's office the distribution of roles is seemingly quite clear. Frank is the teacher, he has authority over Rita. He also imagines that he is in control, he believes that Rita only knows what he allows her to learn.
Frank believes, for most of the play, that he can forever impose his values upon Rita, not noticing that the two are teaching each other. Though Frank knows a great deal of all sorts of interesting things, they seize to excite him any longer. In the play he is introducing Rita to these things, for example poetry. Given that she sees their wonder and beauty for the first time, they awe her.
She is unable to comprehend that Frank is numbed to the wonders of literature. Rita could be compared to a stranger who sees the world for the first time. It amazes her, everything on it is simply extraordinary, the way everything works. Frank, in this case is like the rest of us. He has lived in the world for so long a time that he regards all its wonders, all the animals living in it as simply ordinary. Rita opens Frank's eyes once more to things he has lost, she gives him her original view of issues.
Frank is the teacher, but his relationship to Rita is giving and taking, the two teach one another about life and empathy.
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Research essay sample on Middle Aged Social Pressure
