Eliza and Rita

The characters, Rita in “Educating Rita” and Eliza in “Pygmalion” depict how people from the working class yearn for a change in life through education. Rita, a hair dresser and Eliza, a flower girl, struggle to live a better life by getting an education. However, both characters have lost their originality and social class in acquiring education.
In the pursuit of becoming educated, both Rita and Eliza lose their originality. At the beginning, both characters have great personalities. In “Educating Rita”, Frank admires Rita and initially rejects her as his student as he’s afraid that she might lose her uniqueness. True enough, she loses her originality in her chase of education. She becomes less original in giving her opinions by quoting facts from other people. For instance, when Frank introduces her to Blake, she tells him that she has ‘done him’ at the summer school. She responds monotonously unlike the old Rita. Instead of giving her personal opinions, she is more conventional in her judgement on Blake.
Likewise, Eliza loses her originality in her pursue of education. In order to transform Eliza into a duchess Higgins trains her to speak and act properly. The harsh training from Higgins changes Eliza; she starts speaking good English and gives up her cockney accent. Furthermore, she loses her originality when her appearance changes. These evidences indicate that Eliza loses her originality in becoming educated. However, unlike Rita, her character does not change; she remains spontaneous in her pursuit of education.
Apart from originality, Rita and Eliza lose their social class in becoming educated. Both characters feel alienated from their social class backgrounds as they have advance socially through acquiring education. For instance, Rita feels that she is a half-caste when she does not go to Frank's dinner; she thinks that she would not be able to fit in with the other guests. When she goes to the pub, she does not fit in there as well. This...