Topic 13 - Shared knowledge and absurdist drama (Session A) > Analysing Rita > Task A

Analysing Rita

Task A - General interpretative thoughts

Rita:

Rita does not conform in any way to the schematic stereotype we outlined, and the way in which she was dressed in the film correlates with this. The graphology for her turns indicates that she speaks with a non-standard, probably working class, accent, and her grammar is decidedly more informal than Frank’s (cf. turn 28: ‘It’s terrible these days, the money, isn’t it? With the inflation an’ that. You work for the ordinary university, don’t y’? With the real students.’). In turn 24 (‘I was dead surprised . . .’), she uses an adjective in a position where standard English would demand an adverb. She also seems much more pushy, feisty and opinionated than we would expect a student to be on meeting her university tutor for the first time. Notice, then, that she, and her behaviour, are foregrounded because she deviates from our schematic assumptions about female mature students. We will clearly need to explore this in more detail.

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