The Play Top Girls by Caryl Churchill - Book Report/Review Example

The successful 'Top Girls'. Top Girls is a play written by Caryl Churchill. This essay examines the constitution of the label 'Top Girls'. The play's title suggests that this is a story about the 'top girls' who are successful. The play opens with Marlene at a dinner party to celebrate her promotion to the post of director in her Top Girls Employment Agency. Her dinner guests are time travelers from the past. This scene is set in a dream like setting and suggests that this scene is a fantasy. The guests are Pope Joan, the explorer Isabella Bird, the harrower of hell named Dull Gret, the Japanese Emperor's mistress called Lady Nijo and Patient Griselda who is a character in The Clerk's Tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Each individual is equally confident that she is the most successful one present at the party. The women relate their own experiences in their attempts to out-do one another. They show horrible social behavior in their competition against one another. The dinner party which was set out to celebrate a success ends in failure with the ugly personal identities marring the beautiful social positions. The guests become drunk and ugly. The women represent different aspects of Marlene's personality. (Act 1, Scene 1). At the end of this scene, one cannot choose a winner to represent the image of a top girl who has been successful in her life. None of these women fit the definition of a top girl. (Churchill, 1982). Pope Joan thinks that she is a successful 'top girl'. She has given birth out of wedlock. She represents one aspect of Marlene's life. Pope Joan has sacrificed her femininity and gender identity as a woman for the sake of her career. She has failed to achieve a balance in her life as a woman. Pope Joan is an allegory to Marlene, who gave up her baby to her sister in order to pursue her career. Society demands commitment to her job in order to climb up the ladder of success. She is not a successful 'Top Girl'. (Act 1, Scene 1). Isabella Bird thinks highly of herself as a successful 'top girl'. She represents Marlene because Marlene is the sister who travels out of her rural home in the country into town to work and become successful. Isabella's other sister stays home to tend to the domestic matters. Isabella thinks herself to be successful because she has traveled to see the world and appears knowledgeable in many areas. Isabella forgets that her pleasures have been bought at the expense of her sister who has sacrificed herself in order that Isabella may be free. Marlene's sister, Joyce, takes care of Angie at the expense of her personal life. Joyce suffered a miscarriage as a consequence of her sacrifices for Angie and Marlene. Isabella is not a successful 'Top Girl'. (Act 1, Scene 1). Dull Gret thinks that she is a 'top girl' in spite of her dull personality that cannot maintain interesting conversations. She is the harrower who torments and breaks souls. Marlene's soul is tormented by guilt. This is shown when her conscience moves her to behave kindly towards her birth daughter Angie even while she is at her harsh office environment. Angie reflects Dull Gret's personality because she is dull and speaks in monosyllables, just like Gret. Marlene's soul has been stressed by her masculine work environment, which acted like a Dull Gret that torments her soul with demands. Angie is a sacrifice whose soul is harrowed by Dull Gret. Angie shows the effects of the wrongs when her real parents have neglected her. Dull Gret is definitely not a successful 'Top Girl'. (Act 1, Scene 1). Lady Nijo has airs about being a 'top girl'. She belongs to Marlene's past life. She represents Marlene's past submissions to a man who then betrays her and abandons her. Nijo was abandoned by her master when he left her unsecured after his death. Marlene was abandoned by her lover when she became pregnant with Angie. Marlene gave up the idea of motherhood and womanhood and consecrated herself to her career and materialistic ambitions. Nijo is in Marlene's personality. Nijo is not a 'Top Girl'. (Act 1, Scene 1). Patient Griselda thinks herself to be a patient 'top girl'. She is a part of Marlene too. Marlene sacrificed her child in obedience to her greater influence, the patriarchal working world. Patient Griselda thinks that her sacrifices are justified although she has missed the essential motherhood experiences of her children's growing years. Marlene has advanced in her career and she thinks her sacrifice of Angie is justified in exchange for her career. Patient Griselda is not a 'Top Girl'. (Act 1, Scene 1). Act Two shows the 'top girl' Marlene and her two women colleagues at work. Marlene handles her colleagues, clients and candidates with great ease and dexterity. Marlene embodies the modern feminist who has successfully carved a niche for herself in the patriarchal office world. She has succeeded in the competition against a man, Howard, and clinched the coveted post of Director. Marlene's two subordinates, Win and Nell, are equally generous in their appreciation of her promotion because it represents the success of feminism. There is irony in how the human touch is almost lacking in the sexless office. The job matching between employees and employers is done in record quick time to represent efficiency. The weaknesses are glossed over or deftly overcome by clever manipulation of the staff at Top Girls Employment Agency. The feminist is efficient and ruthless. She does not have socialism because she does not take care of the society's greater benefit but advances the individual's personal success. The job applicants are matched without care for the long term benefits for the employer as the agency advances its goals of trying to achieve the maximum quantity of accomplished work in suitable job matches. Marlene seems to be a 'Top Girl' with her material success. Marlene shows her cold 'top girl' personality when Mrs. Howard Kidd arrives to plead with her to sacrifice her promotion in favour of her husband. She tries to use her socialism to fight against Marlene's feminism. Marlene is a feminist and does not agree with the sacrifice of personal advancement for another's benefit. The working attitude at Top Girls is similar. Feminism rules over socialism. At the time of this play's writing, this was the prevalent U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's message. She advocated the advance of feminism to improve the national economy without consideration for the setbacks against socialism. Caryl Churchill wrote her play Top Girls as a response to Margaret Thatcher's political values on Britain during her leadership. Churchill says that she wrote on American feminism and British socialist feminism. In an interview, Kimball King quotes that; 'Churchill states that "socialism and feminism aren't synonymous, but I feel strongly about both, and wouldn't be interested in a form of one that didn't include the other." (King 2001). Churchill wrote Marlene to represent the individual feminism and Joyce represents the collective group gain brand of British socialism-feminism. The facade behind Marlene's 'top girl' act is exposed in Act Three. The two sisters discuss their lives and their choices. Marlene represents feminism and Joyce represents socialism. Marlene epitomizes what feminism is about and its costly sacrifices. Joyce voices her regrets over her choice of socialism over feminism but finally concludes she would have it no other way. She realises the evils of feminism but has sufficient socialism in her to forgive Marlene. Marlene justifies her feminism by saying 'Anyone can do anything if they've got what it takes.' Marlene has the guts to give up Angie because that is what is required to become committed to success. The reader is invited to choose between Marlene and Joyce for the position of 'Top Girl'. One might be in favour of Joyce who has overcome the odds of hardship living in the economically poor rural area, working at several jobs to make ends meet, and raising her sister's child at the expense of having her own child. Joyce has persevered as a feminist in her own right and successfully embodied socialism into her cause. Joyce's response to Marlene's selfish individualism to give up Angie is; ' "Or what Have her put in a home Have some stranger / take her would you rather" ' (Methuen, 2001: 91). Joyce refuses to give up Angie because she thinks that she can have feminism and socialism together. Marlene has only succeeded in her professional career but failed miserably in her personal capacities as a human being. She is not a real top girl. Marlene wonders if a 'top girl' can combine feminism with family socialism. However, her projected regret is insincere. She still refuses to take responsibility of the teenage Angie as she refuses to acknowledge her biological relationship with Angie when Angie calls her Mom. (Methuen, 2001: 100). Angie has possibly eavesdropped on Marlene and Joyce and knows that Marlene is her real mother but Marlene throws away her second chance at redemption. Marlene is a loser in thinking that her successful career at Top Girls Employment Agency makes her a top girl in life. She chooses to hold on to her dream. A woman who fails in her personal life is not a 'Top Girl'. In Act Three, there is a competition between Marlene and Joyce for the position of the 'top girl'. Marlene reveals her capitalist mentality. She praises 'Maggie' and her brand of feminism because Marlene thinks that makes good top girls. Joyce corrects Marlene by pointing out that selfish feminism widens the income gap of the social classes. Marlene briefly wonders if she could have made it to the top if she had brought Angie along with her to the city. Joyce concedes that a capitalist top girl would not be able to achieve her position by a marriage with other responsibilities. Marlene tries to make amends has made one concession towards group socialism by volunteering to help Angie find a suitable job. Marlene is an allegory to Margaret Thatcher. Churchill shapes Marlene's characterisation to highlight the social ills from blind implementation of policies influenced by Reganomics' individualist capitalism. A 'Top Girl' should be a successful woman in her professional and personal life. Ideally, she should strike a balance between socialism and feminism. Marlene is a failure and not a 'Top Girl'. Joyce is a good model of an unobtrusive 'Top girl'. (Churchill, 1982). Works Cited. Churchill, Caryl. (1982). Top Girls. In Methuen (Ed.), (2001), The Methuen Book Of Modern Drama. Plays Of The '80s And '90s (pp. 1-100). Great Britain: Methuen Publishing Limited. King, Kimball. (2001). Modern Dramatists: A Casebook of the Major British and American Playwrights. (pp. 61). U.K.: Routledge. Read More