Jacqueline Duran
Caryl Churchill’s 1982 play Top Girls brings about the issues that women face when it comes to the business world. Our main character, Marlene, works at the “Top Girls” Employment Agency, an agency that is meant to help women find employment. We see her lack of a social circle when she has to turn to her imagination to celebrate her promotion at work as the play opens with Marlene dreaming of herself at a dinner with women from history who have all made a name for themselves. We then see her reality in a cutthroat business world where she is now the manager. Since she is a woman in power, her authority is constantly questioned by those below her. For a woman to be moving up into a management position like this is a powerful statement that shows woman are just as capable as men in finding success in the business world. This is an opportunity that she should be proud of, and women as a collective group should be proud of her since this shows that women have the ability to move up and be seen as just as important as men. Unfortunately, Marlene finds that there are sacrifices that as a woman she had to make in order to get to this management position, which include sacrificing motherhood, for domestic life, and at the expense of her sister, Joyce. In a world in which men sacrifice, abandon, and prey on one another assume the role of “boss,” the women, in Churchill’s play, sacrifice, abandon and prey on one another but cannot seem to escape the expectations to fulfill the domestic roles of mother or wife.
Before looking closely at the play, it is important to set up some historical and political content on how I will analyze Churchill’s Top Girls. Since the play takes place in England in the 1980s, it is important to understand the influences behind the choices Marlene makes as well as understand the environment that she is competing in to be a successful businesswoman. During this time, Conservative, Margaret Thatcher, was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who served from 1979-1990, and this has a major influence on the working class during this time. She was the first woman to ever hold this position of power, and though having a woman hold this position may seem like a progressive step forward, Thatcher was unwilling to help other women progress and succeed like her. One critic, Stephan Evans, points out that, “The younger generation of One Nation Conservatives adapted themselves to the requirements of Conservative government policy under Thatcher because it was the only way to improve their political prospects and chances of promotion during the 1980s” (Evans 324). It is important to understand that people tended to adapt to her ways rather than fight them, and we see this with our main character, Marlene, as she is trying to make her way to the top. For someone in Marlene’s position, she has a better chance of being selfish and going after exactly what she wants even if it does mean having to sacrifice her domestic life or even if it does come at the expense of others. At first glance, it might seem harsh to believe that Marlene sacrificed the things she did, but if we look closer, we see that Margaret Thatcher was the main influence on a character like Marlene. If Marlene wanted to make it to the top and have the same opportunities as men, the only way for her to do that was to sacrifice behind her duties as a mother or a wife.
Even though Marlene gets promoted at work, she seems to only have her imagination to rely on in order to celebrate her success. At the beginning of the play, we get a dream-like sequence of a dinner table in which women from history are gathered with Marlene. This dinner is quite chaotic in that all the women end up talking over each other rather than actually listening to what they each have to say. It’s only about halfway through this scene that the other women momentarily pay attention as to why they are there to celebrate in the first place, which is because Marlene has been promoted to managing director. Though these women are from different centuries, we can see that these women in particular have all suffered in one way or another. Some have had to deal with no stability, family, or the loss of children, but no matter what they individually dealt with, it is important to look at them collectively as a group of women who should be listening to each other, and they have to understand that as a group they are oppressed. After listening to Isabella speak, Marlene asks the table, “Oh God, why are we all so miserable?” (547). Though this question is not answered by any one character in the play, it is still something for the readers to think about in terms of why women have been treated so poorly throughout history. After hearing what each woman has to say, we find that they all have one thing in common. They have all had to sacrifice something in order to have made a name for themselves throughout history and why they treat each other so poorly. Their sacrifices were only necessary because of the fact that they are women. If they wanted to succeed, just as Marlene desires to, they had to give something up whether that be their gender as a woman, their domestic life, or their motherhood. Having different women from different centuries shows that this is not just a problem for Marlene in the 1980s, but this has been a problem amongst the female gender since we do not seem to see this issue when it comes to men.
However, what these women fail to realize is that as women, they are an oppressed group, and they have the ability to work together in uniting and lifting each other up rather than seeing each other as competition. Furthermore, if we look to Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, she argues, “The ‘Feminine World’ is sometimes contrasted with the masculine universe, but it must be reiterated that women have never formed an autonomous and closed society; they are integrated into the group governed by males, where they occupy a subordinate position; they are united by a mechanical solidarity only insofar as they are similar” (de Beauvoir 638). From this idea, we see that the female gender collectively has been “governed by males.” Women have been set up to compete against each other, rather than unite or lift each other up. Churchill sets up this idea in the beginning of the play. Marlene should have a real group of friends in which she can celebrate her accomplishments, but we clearly do not see that since she has to retract into her own head and imagine that a group of friends would be happy for her. Furthermore, even in her own head, we see her idea of women as they tend to talk over each other rather than listening and uniting together as one group. One critic, Rebecca Cameron, takes a careful look at how Churchill writes the opening scene. She states, “Churchill’s innovative use of overlapping dialogue, suggest that a common gender does not easily overcome cultural, political, and class differences” (Cameron 156). I agree and would take this argument further to point out the fact that Churchill is not just using women from one particular time in history, but by having women from different centuries throughout history come together, Churchill is attempting to establish the fact that women have not been able to ever see themselves as a collective group at any point in history, and this is why they have not been able to “overcome cultural, political, and class differences.” Women have never been able to see each other as equals or even unite as a group, and I find that Churchill wants us to understand that this is the major issue that women must overcome in order for any women to find success in whatever they want to do. Simone de Beauvoir echoes this same idea when she says, “they are united by a mechanical solidarity only insofar as they are similar” (638), meaning that women are only united at more of a perfunctory level. By referring to it as a “mechanical solidarity,” de Beauvoir points out that women can recognize that they should “unite and help each other,” but even if we look back at our own history, as Churchill expresses in Marlene’s dream, we find that women have not actually followed through in helping to lift each other to the top. This also helps explain Marlene’s lack of a real-life female social group. She literally dreams of having women surrounded around her celebrating her accomplishments, but even in her own imagination, she cannot imagine a world where those kinds of women who genuinely care for her achievements exists, and if she cannot even celebrate in her own imagination, then that reveals the bizarre reality and issue of women not being able to be genuine with each other.
After this dream-like sequence of a dinner, we get a first-hand look into the reality of Marlene’s position in the business world, and we see how strict and cutthroat she has to be in order to maintain her status as a female manager. And this is where I find that the main problem lies. There are women seeking employment, and Marlene has the ability and the power to help these women find jobs. With this in mind, we would expect her to want to help these women since she knows firsthand how difficult it is to succeed in the business world as a woman herself. However, even though she’s at the top, she fails to help other women be just as successful as she is. We see this when she’s interviewing a woman named Jeanine. During the interview, Marlene asks the typical interview questions. The questions abruptly shift to questions about Jeanine’s personal life including her marital status, motherhood, and age, even judging her appearance. Based on this judgment, Marlene recommends that Jeanine go into knitwear or lampshades even though Jeanine initially asked to work in advertising. Finally, at the end of the interview, Marlene asks where she wants to be ten years from now:
Jeanine: I might not be alive in ten years.
Marlene: Yes, but you will be. You’ll have children.
Jeanine: I can’t think about ten years. (557)
Just from this interview alone, we see that Marlene projects and forces Jeanine to think about motherhood rather than having her think about herself and her goals as a working woman. Marlene insists Jeanine has to think about her future children and her life as a married woman. She has the power to help Jeanine find a job that she may enjoy and succeed in, and as a woman herself she could recognize the power that she has, but we see that she is unwilling to help this young woman find success. By forcing her to only think about children in the future, Marlene indirectly forces her to stay in the home and tend to her domestic duties rather than possibly doing something for herself and finding success in the business world. As previously mentioned, Margaret Thatcher had a similar attitude in that she became Prime Minister, which for a woman is an unprecedented success, but once she took on that role, she refused to use her power to help other women be at the top with her. We see this same attitude with Marlene in that she has the ability to help shape this young woman’s life, but we find that she would rather keep Jeanine at the bottom probably in the hopes that Marlene can keep her position at the top, and Jeanine, probably like many other girls hoping to find success, will be one less person in the competitive pool of women. Professor Z.K. Ravari, focuses on the voice and agency in Top Girls, and she points out, “Women in [Churchill’s] plays are not just depicted as victims in a patriarchal society but as fighters and survivors” (Ravari 410). This is one angle to consider because she argues that we should not only see these women as victims, but that they are in fact women who want to be as successful as the men around them. They are dominated by the patriarchal society, but if we look at them as victims, then there is a sense of weakness. Rather Ravari finds that these women are fighters and survivors of the patriarchal society. Marlene might seem selfish for only thinking about herself, but in a male dominated business world, she has no other option but to think this way. She must fight her way to the top, and only when she is at the top can she bring change to everyone beneath her.
We see how cutthroat Marlene is when it comes to her job, and at first, we might think that this is selfish of her to treat women like Jeanine the way she does. In contrast, when Mrs. Kidd shows up to talk to Marlene, we see how her authority, being a female manager, is questioned and threatened. There is a man named Howard, who never actually appears in the play, who works at the employment agency as well, and we learn that Marlene was promoted as manager over Howard. Upset and angry about this decision, Mrs. Kidd comes into the office looking for Marlene. As soon as she finds her, Mrs. Kidd complains and even threatens Marlene about her being manager over her husband. Within this conversation, Mrs. Kidd complains, “He hasn’t been at all well all weekend. He hasn’t slept for three nights. I haven’t slept,” she goes on, “it’s very hard when someone has worked all these years,” and she continues, “what’s it going to do to him working for a woman? I think if it was a man he’d get over it as something normal” (574). We have to look at this interaction in two different ways. The first way to think about this is how it affects Mrs. Kidd and her household, and the other way to look at this is how Marlene’s authority, as a woman, is questioned. Instead of being proud of her, woman to woman, Mrs. Kidd feels threatened enough to come and talk with Marlene in person and threaten her for getting a promotion over her husband. We see that a woman getting the job has affected Howard so much that he hasn’t been able to sleep all weekend; thus, his wife is just as worried and threatened by Marlene as well. In some sense, we should feel sympathetic towards Mrs. Kidd in that Howard getting the job as manager would be a great success for him because we have to recognize that he also has a family and a wife to provide for. Mrs. Kidd’s feelings are valid. On the other hand, knowing how hard it is to rise up and get the position of a manager as a woman, Mrs. Kidd fails to realize that as a woman herself she should be empowering and even proud that a woman can now be recognized or even have the chance to be a manager at all. When she says, “what’s it going to do to him working for a woman?” this is where we see the failure of women uniting as a collective group. She is only questioning Marlene’s authority solely because of her gender. If a man had been promoted over Howard, she would not question or even think to come in and threaten him. She goes on and even states that if it had been a man instead of Marlene, Howard would be able to “get over it as something normal.” She insinuates that a normal situation is a man in charge, and at the same time, she suggests Marlene being in a top position is not normal. Again, this is another situation where we see women bringing down other women. Mrs. Kidd and Howard are not used to seeing women as authoritative figures and are only familiar with the traditional ways of a man being in power, which to them is the norm. As a couple, they are also part of the problem as to why women are set up to see each other as the competition. Both of them question Marlene’s authority and by doing so, they are oppressing the female gender as a whole. They are not allowing for women to move up into higher corporate positions of power. If this mindset continues, it will be more difficult for women to hold places of power. Even though this is just a small business, we see people’s real thoughts and concerns about women being able to hold power, especially if that power is over men.
Now that we have seen the issues that Marlene has to face at work, presumably on a daily basis, we should consider the different obstacles that she had to sacrifice in order to get to the managing position. At first, Churchill sets us up to believe that Marlene is this selfish, strict “ball buster;” however, towards the end of the play, we start to get an understanding as to her life and the choices and sacrifices she herself had to make, and we begin to feel sympathetic toward Marlene. The final scene of the play takes place a year earlier, and we learn some family history about the sisters. Marlene’s sister, Joyce, learned that Marlene was pregnant and was considering giving up the baby to an orphanage since she believed that motherhood would hold her back from being able to work in the business world. Joyce is quick to tell her that she is willing to take Marlene’s daughter in as her own since she didn’t believe it was right to give it up. However, Marlene sacrificing her daughter also put pressure on Joyce to take care of her to the point where she lost her own child while she was pregnant. Joyce admits to Marlene, “Listen when Angie was six months I did get pregnant and I lost it because I was so tired looking after your fucking baby because she cried so much […] and the doctor said if I’d sat down all day with my feet up I’d’ ve kept it” (589). Even though Marlene was able to give up the baby to her own sister, we see here that Joyce ended up sacrificing her own child just to take care of Marlene’s child. Even though she was willing to take Marlene’s daughter, it’s not until years later that she’s able to admit to her own sister the repercussions of her own life, specifically having lost the opportunity of being a mother to a child of her own. We see the resentment when Joyce says, “I was so tired looking after your fucking baby.” Because she had to take on the responsibility of Marlene’s child, she was unable to focus on herself, and this led to her losing her own child. We can start to understand the sacrifices Marlene had to make, and we can see that it would have been strenuous to make it to the top with the responsibility of a child. In order for Marlene to be able to climb up the ladder to success, she needed Joyce. There seems to be no room for motherhood nor a domestic life in the business world. Marlene had the dreams of being a businesswoman, and if she had not made the sacrifice of giving up her baby, her chances of succeeding would have been that much harder since she would have had to focus on being a mother. From this, we see the issue of women unable to desire or dream about achieving goals. A traditional mindset, such as Margaret Thatcher or Mrs. Kidd, would believe that Marlene should stay home to raise kids. Though there is nothing wrong with making motherhood a priority, the bigger issue here is that Marlene is pushed into a corner and ultimately has to sacrifice something. In contrast, we see that only women have to make these kinds of sacrifices. We almost never see men having to pick whether they want to be married with kids or find success in work. They are allowed the privilege of having both. Marlene is left with only two options: either she gives up her dreams of being a businesswoman to raise kids, or she gives up her motherhood to be a businesswoman. During this time, and even centuries before this, there is very little to no room for being able to succeed in both realms (work life and domestic life), so Marlene made a choice and entered the business world knowing the sacrifices she would have to make along the way. As she is making her way to the top and finding success, we find that Marlene’s success comes at the expense of Joyce’s suffering. She was willing to break the glass ceiling and become a manager, but she failed to consider that Joyce would be hit with the shards of glass that came falling on the way up. One critic, Victoria Bazin notes, “It is important at the Top Girls agency that only women like Marlene herself, women willing to make huge personal sacrifices, are given positions of power and authority” (Bazin 126). We can infer that Marlene was only able to hold this position of power because of the personal sacrifices that she makes. She chose to disregard motherhood completely, even to a point where her relationship with Angie is an Aunt-Niece relationship, one in which they only see each other every few years. This could not have been an easy decision to make, but it seems that because she has the capacity to completely neglect motherhood, she was rewarded with the position of manager. This could be the reason why Marlene is so cutthroat at her job. She needs to see which women are willing to make sacrifices, and who makes work a top priority. She understands that a successful businesswoman cannot be successful in both the domestic and work life. As a woman, Marlene understands that women must be willing to make sacrifices, and only those who do will come out on top.
Since we have a better understanding of the sacrifices Marlene was forced to make, we can look back at the middle of the play, when Angie comes to visit Marlene at work. After talking with Angie, Win, one of Marlene’s co-workers, mentions to Marlene that Angie wants to work at the Top Girls Employment Agency in the future. Marlene’s response is curt and blunt when she responds, “She’s not going to make it” (580). At first, Churchill leads readers to believe that this is her speaking about her niece, and this is not the response we expect since they are family; however, knowing that Marlene is her biological mother, this response is even more jarring and bizarre because we see that Marlene has completely neglected and disregarded her motherhood. She has completely switched over and is locked into the mindset of a businessperson, so much so that she has the ability and the audacity to predict that her own “daughter” will not make it in the business world. Bazin also comments about this part of the play and argues, “Unlike Win, she cannot see that her own daughter is a ‘nice kid.’ And more tellingly, she cannot see that Angie worships her. Angie’s love for Marlene is blocked by Marlene’s own blindness to her daughter’s humanity. Her assessment of Angie’s prospects reveals more about her own emotional limitations, more about what she has lost, than about Angie’s ability to survive in the new economy” (Bazin 128). Bazin points out that this line says more about Marlene than it does about Angie. Angie is a teenager who looks up to her Aunt, and I agree because her predicting that Angie will not make it shows how corrupt and cruel this business world is. This capitalistic business world has forced Marlene to be selfish to the point where she is not willing to help Angie succeed in something that she can help her with. She would rather let her drown than give guidance or even have a chance at being just as successful as she is. For Marlene to remain at the top, she has to keep others below her, even when it comes to family. This is a cruel characteristic, but we have to understand that Marlene is only trying to survive in an economy in which someone like Margaret Thatcher has the influence of remaining on top while leaving others to find their way even if they have the power to help those below them. Marlene struggled and sacrificed to get to where she is, and I believe she only finds it fair that everyone should go through what she has been through. In her defense, if she should have to make personal sacrifices, then those who desire to be at the top should also be willing to make personal sacrifices. To Marlene, this is only fair. Bazin mentions that this line reveals “more about what she has lost,” and I find this to be true because we see that Marlene no longer has, or maybe she never had, the ability to have motherhood or the domestic life as a priority. The business world has always been her main goal, and along the way she learned that to be on top, to be a manager, she has had to miss out and reject motherhood. We can understand Marlene further once we see what it took for her to get the position she wanted, and we have to understand where Marlene is coming from. Her feelings about the business world and people making it to the top are completely valid; on the other hand, she remains part of the problem when we think about women as a collective group. Now that she is on top, instead of using her power to help others climb up the ladder, like Margaret Thatcher, she refuses to help women succeed and by doing this Marlene is feeding into the oppression that women have faced for centuries.
Some might question what exactly lead Marlene to say that Angie would not make it. If we look to the final lines of the play, which take place a year earlier, Marlene visits Joyce and Angie after about 6 years. While the two of them talk, Angie is in her room waiting to speak with Marlene. Joyce has gone to bed, and Marlene is sitting by herself when Angie comes in looking for her mother:
Angie: Mum?
Marlene: No, she’s gone to bed. It’s Aunty Marlene.
Angie: Frightening.
Marlene: Did you have a bad dream? What happened in it? Well you’re awake now, aren’t you, pet?
Angie: Frightening. (594)
When first reading the play, these final lines might be confusing as to what Angie means by the single word response “Frightening.” Bazin reaffirms, “It is Angie who represents the revolutionary force within the play, and it is Angie’s ‘frightening’ vision of the future that suggests the possibility of political change. It is not, however, that Angie represents the way ‘forward’ but rather that she represents both the way forwards and the way backward” (Bazin 119). Because we learn, from a conversation between Kit and Angie, that Angie already suspects that her aunt is really her mother, and since Marlene and Joyce have the capacity to lie to her about who her biological mother is, she finds this to be frightening. More specifically, she finds the world of women to be frightening because as a teenager, she knows that this is what her future will be. She finds that if she cannot trust the two main female figures in her life, Marlene and Joyce, then she probably cannot or should not rely on anyone, especially other women, and this is quite “frightening.” If we look back to an earlier line, Marlene and Joyce express their opinions about the middle working class and Marlene tells her, “If they’re stupid or lazy or frightened, I’m not going to help them get a job, why should I?” (593). It is important to look at the wording that is used here. Churchill specifically chooses to use the word “frightened.” This line in particular foreshadows the fact that when Angie comes to Marlene at the end of the play saying “frightening” (594), Marlene does not believe anyone with this quality of being “frightened” can succeed in the business world, and this helps explain why she anticipates Angie not having a future in business and why she is not going to make it. To reiterate, Marlene should have the capacity to help those below her, but if we look at this from Marlene’s perspective, I argue that Marlene believes that the business world is not a place for those who are easily frightened. If Marlene had been frightened by Mrs. Kidd coming in and threatening her about her power as a woman, Marlene could have been easily scared off and maybe would have backed down from the position. She completely understands that there is no room in the business realm to be frightened by anything. If she was, then she would not be able to hold any position of power.
Even though Churchill’s play is set in the 1980s, the main issues she explores are still just as valid and prominent today. Though we have seen progress, very little, in trying to make the business realm equal for both men and women, we are just barely beginning to scratch the surface of understanding what it means to be a businesswoman and how difficult it is for a woman who desires to be successful in the work life. Having this play set in the UK, we must recognize that Churchill want us to understand that change comes from those who are above us. With the overpowering influence of Margaret Thatcher, we can see the struggles Marlene was forced to face and that she was only trying to survive in this dog-eat-dog world. Churchill specifically wants us to think about the history of women and how often we have had the opportunity to bring change for women as a collective group, yet we still seem to be waiting for a woman in authority to recognize the power she has to bring change and help women no longer be oppressed. As soon as women collectively recognize that they need to unite and help lift each other up, only then can we start to bring change into our society. Top Girls conveys the importance of a woman in power, and that only with the right power and authority do we find that we can bring real change and improve the lives of others.
Works Referenced
Bazin, Victoria. “‘[Not] Talking 'Bout My Generation’: Historicizing Feminisms in Caryl Churchill’s ‘Top Girls.’” Studies in the Literary Imagination, vol. 39, no. 2, Fall 2006, pp. 115–134. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=28036497&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Cameron, Rebecca. “From Great Women to Top Girls: Pageants of Sisterhood in British Feminist Theater.” Comparative Drama, vol. 43, no. 2, Summer 2009, pp. 143–166. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/cdr.0.0063.
Churchill, Caryl. Top Girls. 12 Plays: A Portable Anthology, edited by Janet E. Gardner, Bedford/St. Martin’s 2003. pp. 533-94.
de Beauvoir, Simone. “Chapter 10: Women’s Situation and Character.” The Second Sex, Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, Vintage Books, 2011, pp. 638-664.
Evans, Stephen. “Touching from a Distance: The Younger Generation of One Nation Conservatives and Thatcherism.” Parliamentary History (Wiley-Blackwell), vol. 33, no. 2, June 2014, pp. 321–341. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/1750-0206.12102.
Ravari, Z. K. “Investigating Voice and Agency in Caryl Churchill’s Selected Plays”. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 6, no. 4, July 2015, p. 409-416, https://www.richtmann.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/view/7093.
Biography
Jacqueline is currently in her last year of her grad studies, and she will graduate from Cal State Fullerton with an MA degree in English as she wants to be a professor. Her interests include the Victorian era, modernism, postmodernism, and feminist studies.