Caryl Churchills Top Girls English Literature Essay
Caryl Churchill has a reputation for producing work that examined contemporary issues, often in challenging and confrontational ways and Top girls is no exception. It can be seen in the light of a feminist play due to the reoccurring question that comes up while reading the play of what it means to be a successful woman. Throughout this essay, I will show what is wrong with being a `top girl´.
At the beginning of the play you are introduced to the main character, Marlene, who is a top girl. A top girl being: a woman who is successful in her career. During the play you become aware that Marlene is at the peak of her career and has come a long way from working class to almost upper middle class but that she has made some sacrifices along the way to attain her position. First, she gave her child to her sister, Joyce (p. 80). Next to that, it appears that she has also sacrificed her personal life. She seems to have no real friends to invite to the dinner party and therefor invites historical women. Marlene also has difficulties to find a man that will accept her as the successful woman that she is and that will not try to change her into a `little woman´ (p. 83).
Although Marlene built herself up in her career and is an educated woman, in a different perspective, she is not a top girl. She was not able to manage everything she had and succeed while dealing with it all; hence leaving her child to her sister. According to Marlene she had to choose between her career and being a mother (p. 80). However, Marlene’s sister Joyce has sacrificed her personal life and goals to raise her sister’s child. Leaving us to question, what good is it being a top girl if it’s at the expense of other women?
According to a feminist view of equality, drive, ambition and ability, Marlene should have been able to juggle her career and her motherhood. She should have not worried about missing out on opportunities. You can conclude at the end of the play that Marlene is not a feminist at all but that she is very much an individualist: `I believe in the individual´ (p. 84). She worries about herself and her own needs instead of rising to her own personal responsibilities. She believes that everyone creates their own luck because, as she tells her sister Joyce, `Anyone can do anything if they´ve got what it takes´ (p. 86).
Marlene is a manager at a top girl company and is holding interviews for people to work at the company. During the interviews you notice how ruthless and cold (p. 46) Marlene is in relation to the working world and to who is or is not qualified enough to get the position. You see her take the role of a very business-like male attitude (p. 31). She interrupts the interviewee during their meeting and is very direct in telling them whether they have potential to join the company or not (p. 30).
Moreover, Marlene is very aware of her potential and believes that men and woman should have the same rights/opportunities. She makes this clear when she discusses with Howard’s wife, the man who lost the management position to her, about how the position was given to the most deserving person (p.p 58-59). Howards wife picks up on her male attitude and accuses Marlene of being masculine and unnatural (p. 59).
Her co-workers hold the same view as Marlene’s, in relation to rejecting the traditional female aspirations of starting a family, and they would rather focus on their careers like Marlene did (p. 58). One co-worker, Nell, does not want to get married (p. 48) and the other, Win, is having an affair with a married man (p. 45).
In Act 2, scene 3 you hear Marlene’s co-workers talking about their weekend. Win suggests that Nell could get married and continue working. Nell’s response is a very unnatural one; `or I could go on working and not marry him´ (p. 48). She is happy to use men for her own pleasure but not to commit to any. When the play was written, in 1982, this response would have been seen more as a male response than a female due to the fact that this was far more a male attitude to have than a woman.
All women in this company hold a very professional tone to themselves but they also all adopt very much a male role in relation to their careers and taking care of business (p. 46). Generally women want to settle and start a family, but because they are such business-like women they do not see the need of this and find themselves already fulfilled with their high ranking, successful jobs.
Additionally none of the co-workers, like Marlene, are true top girls. They have adopted male behavior instead of developing their own woman inspired role models. They have not excelled in anything besides their career.
What is also fallacious about these `top girls´ is that they do not see men as equals at all and at times discuss their male clients with the term `pretty´ (p. 50). This presents us with their very degrading view of how they see men in the business environment; however it also shows that they have enough confidence to address men in these terms.
One of the aims of the Woman’s Liberation movement in the 1970s was to change the terminology used to address women such as, baby, sweetie, girl, bird… Interestingly enough these `top girls´, in the play, use the same terminology to call each other (p. 48, 64). It seems that to them it is ok to call each other these terms but not to have men call them that; which defeats the purpose of female equality and gives a sense of female superiority. You could also say that these top girls do not consider themselves as women but see themselves as successful `people´ so they do not fall in the category of women fighting for/supporting that issue.
Although all woman in the play, after the first act, that are considered as `top girls´ are woman who have excelled in their career you could argue that Joyce, Marlene’s sister, is somewhat a top girl herself. Despite the fact of not having a successful career she is the only character in the play that tries to manage her responsibilities. She has several different jobs, is raising her sister’s child and still holds the responsibility of checking on her mother, like she informs Marlene `somebody has to´ (p. 79).
The first scene in the play shows what true top girls were before the feminist movement. It reveals the obstacles that they had to overcome and the freedom that woman nowadays have and take for granted. The women in the first scene are all women who have suffered in some way and have succeeded in being great without the need of going over other women to get there. They succeeded in the dominate-male world they lived in. This is the opposite of how Marlene has succeeded. Marlene succeeded at the expense of other woman.
In Act 1 Marlene raises a toast ‘To our courage and the way we changed our lives and our extraordinary achievements´ (p. 13). The use of `we´ and `our´ are very significant; it shows that Marlene considers herself as a woman who has struggled for her success but that has finally gained personal fulfillment. On the contrary, the other women have been through much more than Marlene ever did. These past woman are the true top girls who have been through it all in order for the next generations of woman to be free and independent.
It is striking that the only top girl that was obedient to men, Griselda, is the only one who is happy and pleased in her life. You could say that Griselda shows that virtue is its own reward. Marlene never waited for things and made things happen herself; which leads to an intriguing comparison between these characters. Griselda obeyed and waited and in the end is content and happy, while Marlene created her own success but abandoned other important things in her life to get there and is now unsatisfied. You see Marlene’s dissatisfaction throughout the whole play, with her drinking, having abortions, not finding a suitable man and trying to make amends with her sister.
In conclusion, the title is called `Top girls´ with an `S´. The play explores the different versions of `top girls´ in different eras. These distinct versions of `top girls´ demonstrates the diversity of womankind. The play demonstrates that women do not have only one quality or one thing that characterizes them like: career women, wives, mothers, daughters or sisters; they are complex individuals like any human being and have to juggle priorities and responsibilities to achieve what they consider to fulfill themselves. These varieties of qualities that women have and that are able to juggle with in life are what should make them a true top girl.