Comedies often contain satirical elements. How far do you think that Educating Rita can be seen as a satire?

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Comedies often contain satirical elements. How far do you think that Educating Rita can be seen as a satire?

Comedies can often use satire to achieve their purpose, which is to make their play humorous. Satire contains many different language features and which criticize or ridicule an individual's behavioural flaws. Sarcasm, irony and parodies are examples which can help a genre to be categorised by the use of satire.

In Educating Rita, we get a satirical look at life, love, education and gender relations. We also get a view of social stratification based on social class. The play follows the learning journey experienced by Rita and also Frank. Although the play's main plot is the educating of Rita, we also see Frank learning new things as he interacts with Rita. The language used throughout Educating Rita is a key element to portraying to the audience how much the character's develop and satirical devices within the spoken discourse help to do this.

The play starts with the audience getting to know a bit about Frank and what sort of person he is- carefree, most likely drunk. As Frank picks up a call from his partner Julia, he uses a lot of sarcastic remarks such as "Darling, you could incinerate ratatouille, radiate it, cook it in the ovens of hell, napalm the bloody stuff and still it wouldn't be cooked!" there is a lot of hyperbole used here to get across how he feels about the meal and it sounds like he is mocking Julia by stating what she plans on cooking is boring and simple. So although this is used for a comical effect, it can also be quite cruel, which is common in comedy; a lot of humour is often based on cruelty and negativity.

When the audience...