Restoration comedies ‘often deal with the absurdity of a world with elaborate rules and codes of behaviour or manners.’ To what extent is this view also true in Educating Rita?
Restoration comedies ‘often deal with the absurdity of a world with elaborate rules and codes of behaviour or manners.’ To what extent is this view also true in Educating Rita?
There are a lot of rules and codes of behaviour that are presented to be absurd in Educating Rita, most are introduced by the character or what the character says.
Frank sets up the first code of behaviour when he stereotypes his impending student, calling her ‘silly’ before he’s even met her, a word that can be considered undermining and childish for a man who is a university lecturer. This sets the play up nicely for then the whole play is spent proving Frank’s original judgemental opinion wrong. Rita’s bubbly personality immediately interests Frank and he results in spending the first scene answering her with jilted answers using the filler ‘erm’ excessively and the use of ellipses enhances the irregularity of his sentences. This shows how Rita has surprised him and exceeded his initial expectations. By setting this up, Willy Russell could be seen as creating a moral like: don’t be judgemental before you really know someone.
Unlike the idea of the characters setting the rules and codes up to be proved wrong or absurd, the door is also used to show absurdity of codes of behaviour. Rita knocks on the door the first time she enters but then doesn’t knock again until act 2. This lack of knocking and the fact that social convention generally dictates that is respectful to knock and you are being rude if you don’t, shows that Rita and Frank have thought this code unnecessary and pointless. The first time Rita enters she is unknown to Frank and so the code exists because neither knows if the other agrees with their idea that it is silly. Rita generally ‘bursts’ into the room, to an audience this could suggest that, being friends, the knocking protocol is not needed as it doesn’t matter what the person is doing, nothing needs to be hidden it also gives the impression that Rita, due to
There are a lot of rules and codes of behaviour that are presented to be absurd in Educating Rita, most are introduced by the character or what the character says.
Frank sets up the first code of behaviour when he stereotypes his impending student, calling her ‘silly’ before he’s even met her, a word that can be considered undermining and childish for a man who is a university lecturer. This sets the play up nicely for then the whole play is spent proving Frank’s original judgemental opinion wrong. Rita’s bubbly personality immediately interests Frank and he results in spending the first scene answering her with jilted answers using the filler ‘erm’ excessively and the use of ellipses enhances the irregularity of his sentences. This shows how Rita has surprised him and exceeded his initial expectations. By setting this up, Willy Russell could be seen as creating a moral like: don’t be judgemental before you really know someone.
Unlike the idea of the characters setting the rules and codes up to be proved wrong or absurd, the door is also used to show absurdity of codes of behaviour. Rita knocks on the door the first time she enters but then doesn’t knock again until act 2. This lack of knocking and the fact that social convention generally dictates that is respectful to knock and you are being rude if you don’t, shows that Rita and Frank have thought this code unnecessary and pointless. The first time Rita enters she is unknown to Frank and so the code exists because neither knows if the other agrees with their idea that it is silly. Rita generally ‘bursts’ into the room, to an audience this could suggest that, being friends, the knocking protocol is not needed as it doesn’t matter what the person is doing, nothing needs to be hidden it also gives the impression that Rita, due to