Educating Rita

Education is arguably the most important theme of the text, but the role it plays is ambiguous. For Rita, education is a means to jump social classes, to escape a lackluster life, and to act as an arena in which she can make her own choices and be her own person. Through her education she does indeed achieve all of these things, but education is not a panacea. Frank’s comments and behavior reinforces the fact that education can shape a person in certain ways, but can also be a superficial, rigid structure in which a person’s individuality is swallowed up. Educated people have their own mores, norms, and codes of behavior and thinking that are just as limiting as those of the working class. Education, as Frank believes and as Russell may be asking us to consider, cannot transform a person’s inner being. On the other hand, education is the mark and maker of a civilized person, and being “civilized” offers many more opportunities than the other options available. Thus, there are multiple relevant messages about education within this text.