EDUCATING RITA

Educating Rita

Educating Rita

Introduction

Educating Rita is highly regarded as a comic play as the complete title of several commentaries of Willy Russell's book “Educating Rita” suggest that it is a comedy produced by him. However, its interpretations and intention is largely comprised of a deep, figurative, and internal critique to the British society. Willy Russell had produced this comic play in 1980's, and it had produced astonishing influences in the scope of literature as the number of acts and a film with the same title depicts its astounding impression. This play apparently seems to have several strong and intellectual elements of comedy; however, this play is comprised of comprehending a substantially critical and serious elements, rather than mere aspects of fictional humor (Mahon & Chedra, 2003, pp. 11-15). In this paper, it will be discussed that Educating Rita does contain a few elements, which are presented by Richard F. Taflinger, in his theory of comedy (Taflinger, 1996, p. n.d.), but its complete treatment as a piece of humorous literature is highly irrelevant. This irrelevancy is due to its figurative depiction of critique in the British society and conventional ideas.

Discussion

In this play, Willy Russell has acquired a realistic setting to present this play. The play is comprised of a critical clash between British upper class and the middle class, in which Russell has in steeped significant differences among these classes in a remarkable manner. This difference is mainly regarded as the elements of humour in this play. As it has been based upon two major characters, including a middle aged teacher and mid twenties student of literature, this excerpt for the play can illuminate the distinction between the two classes portrayed in the manner of comedy. The excerpt is that:

“FRANK: Do you know Yeats?

RITA: The wine lodge?

FRANK: No, WB ...