Act 2 - Scenes 2 & 3

It is incredible how much has Rita changed (or, in my opinion, pretends to have changed) during the last scenes! I've just said that, for me, she pretends to have changed because she seems to be acting this new self and not really be living or experiencing it. For example, this can be easily seen in her change of voice and in the way she speaks. She tells Frank that now she has to speak like that because Trish says that there is not a lot of point in discussing beautiful literature in an ugly voice. Como on! What is Rita making say so? Deffinitely Rita is trying to show that she has changed and that she is not the same ignorant Rita that she thinks she used to be. And we can perfectly see how Frank feels about her trying to change: he says 'you haven't got an ugly voice; at least you didn't have. Talk properly.' Here we can see how Frank tells Rita that he does not agree with her 'new' self: he says that 'at least you didn't have (an ugly voice)' because he wants to show her that her voice now is not nice simply because she is pretending and it is not her real voice. Frank shows throughout these two scenes that he feels uncomfortable with this new Rita and that he just want her to be the same person that he has met in the first tutorial. He says 'Rita! Just be yourself!' He wants to show her that in order to get the better life that she wants it not necessary for her to change her essence but, on the contrary, she has to keep on being the person she have always been! With all her pretending to be someone she is not is will end up being one of those she used to criticise before. What she wanted to do from the first time we met her in this play was to improve her knowledge for her to be able to face life differently and I trully believe that what Frank feels is that, by acting in this way, she is not trying to improve herself but trying to change her self: when Frank tells Rita that for him her essay on 'The Blossom' is not well done he wants to show her that, although he cannot say that her essay is not wrong, he wants to make her aware of the fact that what she has written is not based on her own views. He says: 'What I'm saying is that it's up to the minute, quite acceptable, trendy stuuf about Blake; but there's nothing of you in there!' When Frank says this, Rita answers him saying that when she started coming to Frank's he asked her to find her own views and, according to her, what she has written in her essay are her views. She says that he has asked her to consult recognised authorities and, according to her, that's what she did. The only answer that she would get from Frank after saying that is: 'It means - it means be careful.' But, what did he mean by saying that? Well, for sure, it's not an easy question to answer, don't you think? But well, I'll try to do my best ;) I think that what he meant was that he really wants to have Rita think (critically) on what she is doing with her essays (and, for me, what she isn doing not only with her essay but also with her life). He does not want her to change her views and her way of expressing them because of wanting to be seen as something she is not: a 'recognised' woman as someone literate and from a social group that will spend most of her time 'talking' and 'discussing' about literature because now she has changed and has been taken as another member of the 'students' she has, some scenes before, seen as very far from her reality. Frank warned Rita to be careful because he does not want her to leave her own views (not only about essays but also about her life and her own self) behind as she did, for example, while wanting to change her vioce because of being told that that wasn't the proper voice for discussing beautiful literature. Frank cannot believe how has Rita come to believe that her voice was ugly and not proper for talking about literature! He says 'Be Careful!' because he thinks that Rita is changing. He thinks that Rita is leaving her self aside for getting into a world that, in my opinion, Frank believes not to deserve Rita's changing her essence...