This conflict between them causes comedy as there are misunderstandings, which are amusing and the audience feel superiority over the characters who do not understand some of each other’s references. At the start of the play when Rita refers to a poem about “fightin’ death an’ disease”, Frank automatically assumes its “Dylan Thomas” as Thomas’s poem about death is a part of the literary canon. However Rita replies it’s “Roger McGough’s” poem that she’s describing. This misunderstanding conveys to the audience that these characters would not conventionally associate with each other. It could be amusing to the audience as it highlights the absurdity of the situation.
"Modern comedy is cruel and cynical” Barry Cryer. To what extent do you agree that cruelty and cynicism are at the heart of the comedy in ‘Educating Rita’? Cruelty and cynicism play a vital role in creating comedy in ‘Educating Rita’. Both of the characters have aspects of their lives that the audience can laugh at, however for a majority, it can be perceived as cruel due to the fact that most of the circumstances we laugh at negatively impact the lives of the characters. Willy Russell uses superiority theory to engage the audience by creating comedy through the misfortune of others.
This is significant because Rita’s lively and irreverent speech is a source of humour in the play. For instance, when Rita animatedly refers to a painting, using words such as “erotic” and “tits” she is clearly comfortable talking in this manner to her lecturer, this makes conservative Frank feel uncomfortable and as a consequence he replies to her with brief answers. Just this conversation alone has comedic value as it shows how very different these two characters are, they have opposing lifestyles, behaviour and seem to be moving in opposing directions. In the first encounter between Rita and Frank, their dialect and everyday speech confuses them both as Rita speaks in a colloquial language and Frank in Standard English. Her understanding of a simple question ‘And you are?’ asked by a well-educated person confuses her and she fails to understand what is really being asked.
Along with the use of comedy as a means of critique, Fey also incorporates humor as a tool to downplay the serious aspect of her topic and as a way of keeping the attention of her audience. Fey incorporates humor throughout her entire narrative in order to critique the patriarchal society that she finds herself surrounded by. Fey’s use of humor is made up of sarcasm and does a good job at making her harder to refute. “The only person I can think of who has escaped the ‘crazy’ moniker is Betty White, which, obviously, is because people still want to have sex with her” (Fey p.3). Fey makes choses to talk about the way women are treated in the entertainment industry with a joke on Betty White, which targets both sexism and ageism, which Fey repeatedly addresses, but with a softer approach through the use of humor.
In the play, Hortensio describes Kat to Petruchio in order to explain how rude she is after telling him how much money her family has, “Her name is Katherina Minola, Renowned in Padua for her scolding tongue”(55). Hortensio introduces the idea of Kat to Petruchio and what kind of person she is and yet he still does not explain what her reason is for being that way. Neither does anybody, including Kat herself, give her a reason for her shrew attitude. In contrast, your film portrays her as a slightly different character. Rather than just being rude, she obviously has her opinions about certain things and sticks to them.
The Importance of Being Earnest Paper The Importance of Being Earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde that is comical and absurd in its plot and its characters. Much of the humor in Wilde’s play covertly makes fun of the social establishments and institutions of the time. This downplayed humor adds to the plot and makes it more surreal yet entertaining. One of the topics made fun of in Wilde’s play is girls’ treatment of each other during his time. The scene in which this is expressed represents women of the late 19th century in a proper but ridiculous manner.
“The examination of Education and how it is influenced by social class, is central to the dramatic comedy of Educating Rita.” How far do you agree that education is a central theme in Educating Rita?” In the dramatic comedy Educating Rita, the eponymous heroine desperately wants to enter the middle class world of the ‘properly educated’ at university. However, Rita explains to Frank early on in Act One that her comprehensive education, where she witnessed ‘ripped-up books, glass everywhere, knives and fights an’ sadists’ has left her ill-equipped for the live she craves. “Comedies tend to include all classes of people”(John Moreall), so Russell’s comic technique of juxtaposing Rita’s working class roots alongside Frank’s persona of a ‘properly educated’ middle class man who ‘can always rely on Dickens…genius and keeper of the Scotch’, humorously exposes the irony of both protagonists being misfits in their respective social classes. The playwright has created both protagonists as misfits in their culture, both wanting what each other appears to have. Rita is desperate to aquire the knowledge that Frank has from his highly educated background.
Gellburg’s response to Slyvia’s outburst is not evidently displayed through speech, but through the use of Miller’s stage directions: ‘He is stock still; horrified, fearful’. The words ‘horrified’ and ‘fearful’ suggest that the news of such events came as a shock to him and undoubtedly indicate that he is affected by such news and is also stricken by Sylvia’s powerful, unexpected revelation of her feelings. Miller conveys the message that that Gellburg finally comes to understand his ignorant attitude as one that has led to his self-denial and self-hatred. It later becomes clear in the play that Gellburg is suppressing an important part of who he is, and in scene eleven, he confesses to a bottled-up desire of ‘going and sitting in the Schul with the old men and pulling the tallis over my head’. Sylvia, in her frustration with Gellburg, says ‘Don’t sleep with me again’ in a rather commanding manner.
Whilst being feisty and brash, she does not define herself by men and is against the idea of love – something very rare during the era when the play was set. This loudness and feistiness can be interpreted in more than one way; while some may argue that she is merely strong-willed and comedic, others may take the view that she is rather self-absorbed and annoying. The film and play version portray Beatrice as the former of these two, appearing more comedic and cheerful than narcissistic and monotonous. This is shown by the way that those around her laugh at her comments, for example, in the conversation in Act 2, scene 1, ’He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less of a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him’ (Act 2, scene 1, line 30). However, as there are few stage directions within the text, it is difficult to see whether Leonato, Antonio and Hero find these comments humorous or tiresome, and so the text therefore appears as the latter of the two ways mentioned of viewing Beatrice.
Franks confusement and surprise shows he hadn’t understood her properly thus edifying the dissimilarity in tone giving the audience information based on Rita’s background and social class. Rita’s colloquial language is very different in contrast to Franks. Her accent is very slang as she’s from Liverpool in addition her lack of word choice when she attempts to discuss the painting In Franks office and how she perceives it to be “very erotic”. with her vocabulary and lack of knowledge not being so dazzling she doesn’t fully establish how she truly feels about it making her come out with an almost intelligent answer. In conclusion it is believed that Rita isn’t quite as sophisticated as Frank regarding her academic standard of vocabulary and knowledge.