Educating Rita & Stags and Hens
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In Stags and Hens and Educating Rita, both by Willy Russell, we get a satirical look at life, love, education and gender relations. We also get a view of social stratification based on economics and class. There are also quite a few observations on marriage versus sex as well as drinking. In Stags and Hens, we follow a group of women and men as they celebrate the traditional bachelor and bachelorette parties held by men and women for generations. The actions occur primarily in the Water Closet of a dance club. Within the play we see many values expressed about the morals, customs, dispositions, and stark realities of modern day England and its people. One of the biggest realities we see is the sharp contrast between the genders. The girls in the play are primarily preoccupied with thoughts of men, for men seem to represent the one means they have of escaping a stifling existence with little education, talent or money. At the beginning of the play, the women are talking about how lucky Linda is that she has found a man. Not only has she found a man but also she has found a man who will be different than the types of men her friends are married to. However, all these women seem to use to define their own voice, image and identity is the prospect of a man, “Just imagine Lind, after tomorrow you’ll have your own flat, your own feller. You’ll be a married woman” (Russell 189). The women who have a husband regret t
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as, “You left this town. Y’ walked out. You’ve got no claims here. You left this town, so when you’ve finished tonight just fuck off out of it! Get out!” (Russell 257). While they are mad at Peter for trying to get with Dave’s fiancée, they are also mad at him because he represents someone who has taken the escape Eddy wants to. He has gotten out of the socio-economic trappings of his environment and developed his own identity not limited by the elements limiting Kav and Robbie and the other guys.
In Educating Rita, near the end of the play, we see an exact mirror parallel of these sentiments in Rita, who, when questioned about opposite-gender affairs, says to Frank, “No. What time have I got for an affair? I’m busy enough findin’ meself, let alone findin’ someone else. I don’t want anyone else. I’ve begun to find me-an’ it is great y’ know, it is, Frank. It might sound selfish but all I want for the time bein’ is what I’m findin’ inside me. I certainly don’t wanna be rushin’ off with some feller, cost the first thing I’ll have to do is forget about meself for the sake of him” (Russell 315).
Rita has suffered the abuses of a marriage that is one like Bernadette’s. Here husband burns her books because she will
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Approximate Word count = 2815
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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