As a result, she remains quiet instead of speaking out, which prevents her from being fully in control of situations when she confronts people, especially Lucy; Elinor is often dominated by the other characters. However, despite her passive disposition, Elinor keeps her relationships with other characters so stable that she earns herself the title of the one with sense throughout the book. One of Elinor’s greatest strengths is affection. Upon hearing people’s despair and anxiety, she is easily attached to the story she hears and shows a great concern in people. Elinor’s attitude is well portrayed throughout the novel, especially when Marianne is involved.
Great rewards and opportunities also come about while going through the process of growth and development. This is significantly demonstrated in the texts ‘Educating Rita’ by Willy Russell, ‘An Education’ by Nick Hornby and the poem ‘The Door’ by Miroslav Holub. Rita, the street-wise, fast-talking, main character of Educating Rita, embarks on an Open University course because she wants more out of her life. She is discontented- “out of step” with her husband, family and friends- and wants to learn “everything”, hoping that an education will allow her to move into a different world, one where she has some “choice” about the direction of her life. This links to the film ‘An Education’ where David is describing Jenny, “Isn’t it wonderful to find someone who wants to find out new things”.
Growth and change often comes about when new stages of experience allow a transition ‘into the new world’. This is illustrated in Educating Rita as Rita grows with knowledge and changes as a result of moving into the world of education and middle-class society. The changes made in Rita’s life include her name, from Susan to Rita after her favourite author. We also see Rita leave her husband Denny and her social class pressures, slowly gain confidence in herself to associate with ‘proper’ students and her views on Frank, her tutor, as well as her attitudes towards her tutorials. Rita desires to ‘know’ and expects Frank to teach her ‘everything’ in order to have choice and direction in her life, ‘I wanna discover meself’.
Ignoring that, Nancy Lee still raises her head up and smiles, “This won’t keep me down. But when I’m a woman, I’ll fight to see that these things don’t happen to other girls as this happened to me” (Hughes). Even though Nancy Lee is disqualified to receive the scholarship, she still accepts it and lets it pass. Nancy chooses to face her own struggle by using it as her own advances instead of letting it paralyze her. Moreover, because of her decision, Nancy Lee becomes more mature and responsible.
By listening to her video, she is very passionate at what she is doing. Her voice captures the reader’s attention to make you feel as though you are sitting in the audiences listening to her. Fisher’s vocal sound just makes you fall in love with her speech. She shows that she does not want anyone to feel sorry for her. All Ms. Fisher wants is for readers in listeners to learn from her speech and do not become a part of the everyday statistic.
Mother describes how Dee would read to her and Maggie “without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice” (104). The mother uses the words without pity, forcing, and trapped to show that she and Maggie had no choice but to listen to Dee. The mother goes on to say that Dee would “shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand” (Walker 104). Dee was not trying to educate or even attempt to help her mother and Maggie understand what was being read. Dee only wanted to lord over them her superior intelligence and education, therefore boosting her own ego.
When I was reading the book I was so surprised at how much Esme used multiple intelligences and different use of texts, media, visual, and other many good practices. Esme’s classroom was a canvas of stimuli and visuals. When told by a colleague that her room was distracting Esme thought to herself that the teacher in question was jealous. I have to agree with Esme, I believe the teacher was jealous of Esme’s enthusiasm, youth and spirit. The teacher may have genuinely been concerned with presenting too much information to students but through my classes at Sage, excessive stimuli is good of students with ADD because it gives them many things to focus on instead of causing behavioral problems.
Carroll shows another characteristic of young Victorian girls that they always do what they are told to and were not allowed to challenge authority. Towards the beginning of the novel, Alice is very respectful of her elders even though they are all extremely rude to her. While most of the other characters bluntly make no sense at all, but she listens inventively and takes their criticism without complaining. This shows struggle becoming an adult because she is still maintaining her great respect for elders characteristic, even when they treat her poorly (Rituals II-Etiquette
On the last day of school, he finally found his own way through the image “right-hand turn”, which is an entendre of a physical right hand turn of a bus; on the other hand, it also describes a correct choice and freedom leading to his future intention. Having in common with Rita, the protagonist of the play “Educating Rita”, after realising her disorientation of life, she has been seeking her new senses of belonging through the tool “education” that life has given her. By enrolling in an Open University course, getting to know Frank who represents the “educated class” and learn about literature, education has given her choices and confidence to lead her life, highlighting through the fact she discussed confidently with other university students about literature and her independence away from Frank after the Summer School. Rita’s changing in choice of formal language in conversation with Frank, and especially the stage direction “moving to the window” is a metaphorical image for her triumphs in moving to the academic and contacting with people outside. Due to people’s chagrin with their current life, life always gives us the opportunity to search for our true belonging to connect further with our
In the exposition of this play, Russell introduces us to the characters of Rita and Frank. The dialogue here helps us understand their relationship and makes us aware of the central concerns of the play. Frank is a university professor, and Rita is a hairdresser who is studying through the Open University. From the opening scenes, we are aware of the differences in their lives and characters: “Rita: (studying the picture) it’s very erotic.” “Frank: (looking up) actually I don’t think I’ve looked at it for about ten years, but yes, I suppose it is.” Frank is an educated man, who is accustomed to culture and sees it as a work of art but as for Rita she is “gobsmacked” and finds the painting a work of “pornography.” Rita wants to learn as much as she can and become properly educated; Frank feels inadequate to teach Rita: “Frank: And the thing is, between you, me and the walls, I’m actually an appalling teacher…you want a lot, I can’t give it.” Frank believes he is a useless teacher; he isn’t ready to face the challenge as he has lost the ability to teach a woman like Rita who hasn’t had the benefits of an education. Setting and symbolism helps us understand both characters and their changing relationship.