Critique of the Movie Educating Rita Essay -- Movies Film Educating Ri

Critique of the Movie Educating Rita Director: Lewis Gilbert Screenwriter: Willy Russell Released: 1983 With Julie Walters, Michael Caine, and others Rita (Julie Walters) is a twenty-six years old hairdresser from Liverpool who has decided to get an education. Not the sort of education that would get her just a better job or more pay, but an education that would open up for her a whole new world--a liberal education. Rita wants to be a different person, and live an altogether different sort of life than she has lived so far. She enrolls in the Open University, a government program that allows non-traditional students to get the kind of higher education that used to be reserved more or less for the offspring of the upper classes, and mainly for male students at that. "Educating Rita" describes the trials and transformations that the young hairdresser has to go through to develop from a person with hardly any formal schooling at all into a student who passes her university exams with ease and distinction. In the course of telling this story, the film also suggests what the essence of a liberal education may be. The story is presented in the form of a comedy, a comedy that revolves around the personal and pedagogical relationship between Rita and her main teacher, Dr. Frank Bryant (Michael Caine). Frank Bryant teaches comparative literature, and it is his job to prepare Rita for her exams. Unfortunately, Frank Bryant has lost all enthusiasm for his academic field and its related teaching duties. He loathes most of his regular students, and the main function of the rows of classical works that still fill the bookshelves in his office is to hide the whiskey bottles without which he is not able to get through the day and the semesters anymore. When he teaches his regular classes he is frequently drunk, and in response to a student's complaint that students are not learning much about literature in Bryant's class, the burned-out teacher gruffly advises: "Look, the sun is shining, and you're young. What are you doing in here? Why don't you all go out and do something? Why don't you go and make lo ve--or something?" Frank Bryant is a disenchanted intellectual who has no real use anymore for literature, culture, or the life of the mind. Introducing working people in particular to the world of higher education seems utterly pointless to him. When he find... ... having overcome the limitations of her old world through education, and by recognizing the limitations of what she has acquired at the University, she finds herself in the same situation as Frank: in some sort of existential Australia where "everything is only just starting." She has choices to make, and it is her having grown beyond old forms of life that gives her the freedom to make these choices. This in the end is the essence of her education, and the essence of any liberal education as such: the knowledge-based ability to step back from all form of life, the capability to deliberate freely, and then to embark on a course of action that does not grow out of established patterns and unexamined impulses, but out of critical reflection and informed decisions. What Rita thanks Frank for at the end, and what has made him a "good teacher" during all her trials, is that he has helped her to get into this position: "You have given me a choice." Education, in other words, is liberat ion. It is the emancipation of a person from a state of being a mere extension of a given environment to an active agent who can choose who she or he will be: a potential creator of his or her own world.

Manipulating Meaning Worksheet Essay

Part A: Twain’s Family Tree Use all the skills you have learned throughout this course to complete a close reading of the description you’ve chosen. Use context clues to make sense of things that are not clear at first. Pay attention to Twain’s tone and the humor devices he uses. 1. Which of Twain’s ancestors did you select? Charles Henry Twain 2. What is the ACTUAL story of that man’s life? Provide supporting evidence from the text. â€Å"lived during the latter part of the seventeenth century he converted sixteen thousand South Sea islanders, and taught them that a dog-tooth necklace and a pair of spectacles was not enough clothing to come to divine service in† He was very well liked by his flock of people. 3. What techniques does Twain use to create satire in the description you selected? Provide supporting evidence from the text. I think he used wit and humor, when naming it â€Å"twains demented family tree† Part B: Create Your Own Satire For this part of the assignment, you will appropriate Twain’s technique and write a burlesque of an event in your life or in the life of a celebrity. Remember, a burlesque plays on contradiction between a subject and the way it is treated. Twain used humor to describe serious, sometimes awful, events, but you can turn it around and present something fun or happy in a very serious way – the choice is yours. Requirements: Incorporate at least two humor devices Write a minimum of five sentences Paste your completed burlesque here: One time I was riding a very high powered four wheeler, Yamaha raptor 700rr. This bike topped out at about 95mph (no exaggeration) and I was going about  60-70mph down a dirt/rock road. When I needed to slow down I tapped the front brakes a little to hard and the bike stood up on its front two wheels, now in my head, rather than getting eaten by a 400lbs bike I decided to jump off to my right. I tumbled and tumbled lost my shoes and oddly enough ripped my shirt off (couldn’t even find it). Had road rash from head to toe and everywhere in between. Though I was very fortunate not to break anything I was not in the best condition. When I got home (after pushing the bike home) I tell my father what happened and he says â€Å"well that was smart, dumba$$!† to which I replied â€Å"it was definitely one of my smarter moves!† He then helped me get cleaned up, picked the rocks and gravel out of my wounds then spent the next 3 weeks in my bed. ;/ After you have written your burlesque, answer these reflection questions in complete sentences: 1. Factually describe the event you wrote about in your burlesque. I was to in experienced on a high experience bike. I’m far more experienced now (pro) I’m lying about the pro part, but definitely know how to ride 2. What humor devices did you incorporate? Why did you choose them? I used sarcasm; I used sarcasm because I am fluent in that particular literary device. I also used sarcasm because it’s a true story and that’s how it went, exactly. So I felt it was only appropriate.

The Dynamicity of Lady MAcbeth - 509 Words

The strive and ambition for power can seem to be utter perfection, but one should be careful what they wish for because that power and ambition may cause their eventual downfall. An example of this would be shown in Lady Macbeth’s character in William Shakespeare’s â€Å"Macbeth†. Lady Macbeth’s strive for power leads her into a dark tunnel of guilt and a battle with herself subconsciously and consciously. For one thing when Lady Macbeth hears of her husband’s newly gained title of Thane of Cawdor, and the witches’ prophecy, her immediate thoughts are of murdering the King. The witches said that it was fate that would bring Macbeth the throne, so the fact that Lady Macbeth displays early signs of dark ambitions so quickly is quite startling and conveys her lust for power. At one point Lady Macbeth states: â€Å"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be/ What thou art promised. Yet I do fear thy nature. / It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;/ Art not without ambition, but without/ The illness should attend it†, by this, Lady Macbeth expresses her belief that her husband is not of evil nature, and therefore will not to murder the king (I, v, 25-30). More ruthless than her husband, Lady Macbeth exploits her ambitions to help her get what she wants, for example, manipulating Macbeth to kill their ruler. Lady Macbeth, unlike her husband, holds no loyalties to King Duncan, causing her to feel detached and the decision to kill