Top Girls a feminist comedy?
Top Girls
"Reading Top Girls as a feminist text helped me to find ways to dramatize the price women pay for success in a patriarchal society" (J.T Burk). To what extent can Top Girls be classified as a feminist comedy?
Caryl Churchill’s play, Top Girls, has many social, political and cultural observations about modern women throughout the centuries. It was written in 1982 and in this, Churchill presents women from both modern and historical periods who seem to have been successful in one way or another. During the eighties, feminism has an extremely negative effect on society in that the strong, modern business woman were problematic for the male dominated world; perhaps, Churchill uses the theme of feminism to a great extent in this play as the backbone which helps shape many of the characters? What is feminism? Is it to be accepted in a male-dominated world or is it to see oneself as a successful woman based solely on one’s merits? Although Top Girls has been used to represent feminist ideals by some, it is also a theatrical presentation that describes the division within the different types of women in the play and their psychological insecurities. This essay will discuss how Churchill achieves the portrayal of these women through ‘new’ theatrical language and through the personalities of the characters, all of whom are women.
The play does not happen in chronological order. It is like a cycle that leads to nowhere. The play opens up with Marlene's character- introducing her as the protagonist of the play, before eventually closing the chapter of her life. It is possible to see this play in a completely different light; that, although each woman strives for her kind of success, each one is dissatisfied with the results; the women are, in fact, unhappy. Churchill may then be saying that the feminist plan has a dark future. This concept is put forward by Lizabeth Goodman and Juli Thompsonas when they say “typical structure of women’s lives” – Contemporary
"Reading Top Girls as a feminist text helped me to find ways to dramatize the price women pay for success in a patriarchal society" (J.T Burk). To what extent can Top Girls be classified as a feminist comedy?
Caryl Churchill’s play, Top Girls, has many social, political and cultural observations about modern women throughout the centuries. It was written in 1982 and in this, Churchill presents women from both modern and historical periods who seem to have been successful in one way or another. During the eighties, feminism has an extremely negative effect on society in that the strong, modern business woman were problematic for the male dominated world; perhaps, Churchill uses the theme of feminism to a great extent in this play as the backbone which helps shape many of the characters? What is feminism? Is it to be accepted in a male-dominated world or is it to see oneself as a successful woman based solely on one’s merits? Although Top Girls has been used to represent feminist ideals by some, it is also a theatrical presentation that describes the division within the different types of women in the play and their psychological insecurities. This essay will discuss how Churchill achieves the portrayal of these women through ‘new’ theatrical language and through the personalities of the characters, all of whom are women.
The play does not happen in chronological order. It is like a cycle that leads to nowhere. The play opens up with Marlene's character- introducing her as the protagonist of the play, before eventually closing the chapter of her life. It is possible to see this play in a completely different light; that, although each woman strives for her kind of success, each one is dissatisfied with the results; the women are, in fact, unhappy. Churchill may then be saying that the feminist plan has a dark future. This concept is put forward by Lizabeth Goodman and Juli Thompsonas when they say “typical structure of women’s lives” – Contemporary