Top Girls By Caryl Churchill - 1388 Words

Within Top Girls, Caryl Churchill explores a range of ideas that can be analysed through lenses to reveal different critical interpretations. Beauvoirian ideas from The Second Sex and Marxist ideas from The Communist Manifesto are used to compare and contrast these ideas, further supporting this an assortment of literary techniques. Caryl Churchill explores the Beauvoirian idea of women â€Å"denying [their] feminine weakness† in order to justify their strength, while the â€Å"militant male... she wish[es] to be† may be the catalyst of her masculine qualities dying; literary techniques are utilised to exploit these ideas. Within Churchill’s text, Nell says â€Å"our Marlene’s got far more balls†, by applying a male specific body part to Marlene, it†¦show more content†¦Therefore, it is evident that literary techniques are utilised to exploit the Beauvoirian idea of women â€Å"denying [their] feminine weakness† in order to justify their strength, while the â€Å"militant male... she wish[es] to be† however, Marlene accepts femininity and only wears a skirt to work. Additionally, the Marxist idea of â€Å"new conditions... [and] new forms of struggle in place of old ones† is explored through Churchill’s text and literary techniques are used to support this idea. Churchill uses Marlene as a symbol for the prevalent idea in capitalism that anyone can make it if they work hard enough but the non-linear structure emphasises the inevitability of Angie’s fate. Marlene’s contradicting statement that â€Å"she’s not going to make it† generate irony and pathos for Angie inability to move beyond her social class she in born into. In additional to the old struggle is Nijo, Churchill allows Nijo to be completely oblivious to the change in society, she says that it is â€Å"better to leave if your master doesn’t want you†. Unaware of the internal oppression and struggle she has gone through, whilst also the common human right of own choice has been taken away from her. Contrasting this, some ofShow More RelatedTop Girls By Caryl Churchill1337 Words   |  6 Pages Within Top Girls, Caryl Churchill explore a range of ideas that can be analysed through different lenses to reveal critical interpretations. Beauvoirian and Marxist ideas have be used to compare and contrast these ideas, further supporting this an assortment of literary techniques. Caryl Churchill explores the Beauvoirian idea of women â€Å"denying [their] feminine weakness† in order to justify their strength, while the â€Å"militant male... she wish[es] to be† may be the catalyst of her masculine qualitiesRead MoreMy Experience At Caryl Churchill s Play, Top Girls1281 Words   |  6 Pagesfrom the age of eight until I was eighteen years old. In my ten years of theatre experience, I have been in and have seen so many different shows. However, I have never seen a show as complicated as Otterbein University’s rendition of Caryl Churchill’s play, Top Girls. Before I see a show, I usually have some knowledge or understanding of what the show is about, but this time around, I knew nothing of the show. After the show ended, I still had no clue what the show was truly about until someone explainedRead MoreChurchill : A Single Issue Struggle Essay1649 Words   |  7 PagesCaryl Churchill: Political aGender I: Introduction There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. – Audre Lorde (138) Caryl Churchill is a prolific playwright whose body of work spans several decades. Current scholarship acknowledges her contributions to both feminist theatre and twentieth century British drama. Grounded in the Women’s Movement of the 1970s, Churchill’s work primarily focuses on contemporary feminist issues. In this paper, I will be discussingRead More How does Caryl Churchill affect the acting and production process through her script writing2333 Words   |  10 PagesHow does Caryl Churchill affect the acting and production process through her script writing Caryl Churchill has furthered feminist performance theory, in the last twenty years, and broadened traditional views of gender roles through her script writing. For example, her plays Cloud Nine and Top Girls defy traditional convention, with Cloud Nine’s cross-gender casting and Top Girl’s pro-Thatcherite ethos as its foundation. Churchill has affected the acting and production process inRead MoreFeminism in Top Girls and The Handmaids Tale Essay1635 Words   |  7 PagesBoth Top Girls and The Handmaid’s Tale relate to contemporary political issues and feminism. Top Girls was written by Caryl Churchill, a political feminist playwright, as a response to Thatcher’s election as a first female British Prime Minister. Churchill was a British social feminist in opposition to Thatcherism. Top Girls was regarded as a unique play about the challenges working women face in the contemporary business world and society at large. Churchill once wrote: ‘Playwrights don’t give answersRead MoreVinegar Tom: More Than Just a History Play2652 Words   |  11 Pagesover the women in them and in some cases even women over women. Caryl Churchill has explored such issues in her works mainly pertaining to the position of women in male-dominated societies. In fact, her works utilize various plot structure s to harness support for the improvement of the position of women in society while some attempt to illustrate women’s struggle against oppressive patriarchal agents. One of the plays in which Churchill focuses on women’s oppression is Vinegar Tom. The main characterRead MoreLife Of Galileo And Top Girls Analysis1542 Words   |  7 PagesLife of Galileo and Top Girls Life of Galileo and Top Girls are two plays that truly exemplify epic theater. They both tell stories in order to call the audience to some form of action, and they both alienate the audience from the characters. Epic theater’s purpose is â€Å"to cause the audience to think objectively about the play, to reflect on its argument, to understand it, and to draw conclusions† (â€Å"Epic Theater†). Therefore, for a work to be categorized as epic theater it must have an argumentRead MoreA Doll’s House and Top Girls2459 Words   |  10 PagesA Comparative Essay of A Doll’s House and Top Girls Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls both are a pillar of critical writing about the society they were originally produced in and have a central theme of the oppression of women, which makes them great sources of feminist reviews. Although Ibsen â€Å"abandoned the concept that the play was about gender roles† (Urban, 1997), the central question is beyond the original context within which the plays were produced and receivedRead MoreGender Equality And Gender Differences Of The Play Top Girls And A Streetcar Named Desire 1466 Words   |  6 PagesThe plays ‘Top Girls’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ are written in ways that explore the issues surrounding gender equality and gender differences. Churchill explores the ideas of a feminist utopia where the men and women live in separate spheres which are prescribed to suit the stereotypical roles of the genders. For example at this time power dressing was a real strategy used by the new breed of feminists struggling for identity in society. We learn about the relationship between women and workingRead MoreReading between the Lines: Use of Space and Body Language in Caryl Churchills Top Girls1364 Words   |  6 Pagesspace are used in Caryl Churchills `Top Girls is interesting. A traditional view exists that a play is dictated by the text to the extent that the actors ought not to deviate from a pure reading. This theory emphasises authorial control and allows performers little opportunity to interpret the text for the audience. A competing view is that a play is a complete entity only when performed, aiming for a collaboration between playwright, director, performers, and audience. Churchill is often thought