Top Girls- Quotations

"Don't you get angry? I get angry."

- Marlene, Act 1, p. 5

Marlene says this after hearing about the struggles that her female guests have experienced in their lives. She finds their stories of patriarchal oppression unbearable, and wonders if these women recognized the injustice as they lived it, the way Marlene has always struggled against societal gender roles in 1970s England. Marlene's anger, meanwhile, fuels her determination to get away from her blue-collar roots and aspire to financial independence. Marlene's abject refusal to let her gender get in the way of her success emerges many times over the course of the play. She leaves behind her daughter, thus throwing off the vestiges of motherhood, and behaves condescendingly towards women who do not want to devote their lives to overthrowing the patriarchy.

"I thought God would speak to me directly. But of course he knew I was a woman."

- Joan, Act 1, p. 14

Joan says this while explaining that as she rose through the Church hierarchy, she always believed that God, knowing she was a woman, approved of her ascent. However, when she became Pope and failed to establish a direct connection with God, Joan took this to indicate his disapproval. Joan's statement is deeply ironic, since to a modern audience the idea of speaking directly with God, even by the Pope, seems ridiculous. However, this statement also indicates the intensity of the gender divide during Joan's time. While women like Mrs. Kidd may look down upon Marlene's promotion over a man, in Joan's time, the patriarchy was so deeply seated that people believed only men could communicate with the Almighty. Joan sacrificed her life in her rebellion against the patriarchy - so at least Marlene is living in a slightly more civil time.

"And I hit him with a stick. Yes, I hit him with a stick."

- Lady Nijo, Act 1, p. 27

Lady Nijo describes her spirited retaliation against the Emperor for allowing his attendants to beat her and his other concubines during an annual festival. Nijo concocts an elaborate plan with the other women, to surprise the Emperor while he is alone in his bedroom. Nijo springs upon him and beats him with a stick until he promises not to allow anyone else to hurt the women again. Like Joan and Griselda, Nijo grew up during a time when certain conventions of patriarchy were accepted. Marlene is surprised that Nijo does not harbor more anger for having to spend half her life as a courtesan, but during Nijo's time, this was considered an honor. However, Nijo battled her male oppressor from within the infrastructure. She accepted many injustices that were ingrained in her society - but to her, this particular demonstration was crossing a line. The beatings ignited Nijo's inner rebel. The women at the table in Act I help contemporary readers put all our own struggles in perspective - and demonstrate that men have been oppressing women for centuries. The situation may have gotten better, but it is by no means entirely resolved.

"I think you could make me believe it if you put your mind to it."

- Marlene, Act 2, Scene 2, p. 33

This is a backhanded compliment that Marlene gives Jeanine during their interview. Marlene finds Jeanine's desire to be married at a young age, along with her lack of ambition, frustratingly pointless. She sees little potential in Jeanine and moves quickly to assign her to lackluster applications at companies that manufacture knitwear and lampshades. To Marlene, Jeanine is the antithesis to her ideal of driven individualism that values professional success above all else. Therefore, she gives Jeanine some tips for how to succeed during her interview - because Marlene does not believe that Jeanine is smart or experienced enough to actually succeed in business.

"I put on this dress to kill my mother."

- Angie, Act 2, Scene 3, p. 44

Angie makes this harrowing statement to Kit when the two are standing in Angie's backyard in the rain. Angie is intensely aggressive towards her mother, Joyce. The dress is significant because we will later learn it was a gift from Marlene, who is also hostile towards Joyce, and also foreshadows the revelation that Marlene is in fact Angie's biological mother. Angie does not know that Marlene abandoned her to pursue success in the big city, but just thinks of Marlene as her successful, stylish Aunty. Meanwhile, Angie puts on the dress and speaks these cold and callous words - suggesting that she understands (and sides with) Marlene's aggression against Joyce. Angie wants to be like her Aunty Marlene - but little does she know that the only reason Marlene is successful is because Joyce took over the duty of raising Angie.

"We'd rather it was you than Howard. We're glad for you, aren't we Nell."

- Win, Act 2, Scene 3, p. 50

Win and Nell both applaud for Marlene after her promotion, while simultaneously revealing their envy. Win assures Marlene that they are happy she was promoted over Howard, but Nell then tells Marlene that she doesn't like coming in second. Marlene bluntly responds, "Who does?" The exchange shows the mixture of admiration, envy, competition and support that characterizes the relationship amongst the women at the office. The conversations between Win, Nell, and Marlene mirror the surreal dinner party in Act 1 - the women all bond over their struggles against patriarchy. Although they do get jealous of individuals at times, they can recognize the grander societal importance of Marlene, a woman, being chosen for a promotion over Howard, a man.

"Nobody notices me, I don't expect it, I don't attract attention by making mistakes, everybody takes if for granted that my work is perfect."

- Louise, Act 2, Scene 3, p. 52

In her interview with Win, Louise expresses frustration over the unfair sacrifices she has had to make and the double standards that she has endured to stay in good standing at her company for over 2 decades. The character of Louise represents hidden patriarchal structures that modern women still face in the workplace. Although Louise has the same human and spiritual rights as her male counterparts (unlike Joan or Nijo), she is highly aware that society views her as inferior to the men around her. Instead of accepting it, though, she is finally ready to do something about it, even though Win reminds her how difficult it will be for an older woman to get a new job. Louise is a contrast to Marlene - and shows that even though the feminist movement had made significant advances by the 1970s, gender equality was still a long way off.

"Christ, what a waste of time."

- Nell, Act 2, Scene 3, p. 63

Shona's interview with Nell starts off well, but eventually collapses when Nell realizes that Shona's eagerness and toughness are a façade, and that she has fabricated her entire resume. At first, Nell finds Shona's individuality and spunk appealing, even suggesting she might be able to work for Top Girls. However, Shona's ridiculous story of driving a Porsche around the country and staying at luxurious hotels on the company's expense account reveal she knows nothing about the day-to-day life of professionals. Shona represents another female archetype, just like the other women who come to Top Girls for interviews. She does not have a grasp on reality, nor does she understand that she will have to work very hard to achieve the kind of life she dreams about. She is clearly sheltered and clueless - the antithesis of Nell and the other "tough birds" who work at Top Girls. Nell's dismissal of Shona, however, shows how Marlene and her coworkers are highly individualistic and unwilling to help a misguided young girl - because helping her would not do anything to advance their own careers.

"I believe in the individual. Look at me."

- Marlene, Act 3, p. 84

This statement is effectively Marlene's rallying cry, and she delivers it during her argument with Joyce over politics in 1970s Britain. Marlene believes in the conservative party's emphasis on personal responsibility and hard work, as well as the idea that class does not truly exist as a barrier to self-advancement. Her position mirrors the public statement delivered by Margaret Thatcher that only "individuals and their families" exist, not class. It also shows that Marlene fully embraces the ideology of late capitalism

Marlene: I didn't really mean all that.

Joyce: I did.

- Marlene and Joyce, Act 3, p. 87

At the end of their argument in Act 3, Marlene appears to want to reconcile with Joyce. She seems to regret some of her harsh criticism against unions, the working class, socialism and even Joyce herself. Joyce, however, holds firm to her position, recognizing that Marlene will always be dependent on her pro-capitalist ideals to advance her own financial standing. Joyce's resolution implies her understanding of the deeply- seated class struggle in 1970s Britain, versus Marlene's desire to attribute their disagreement to marginally important personal differences.

Churchill and Brecht: structure and the alienation effect in the opening scene

The structure of the play is experimental. The first scene is a fantasy influenced by Bertolt Brecht's concept of the "alienation effect" that was designed to prevent the audience from getting emotionally involved with characters. (Brecht felt such emotion would prevent the audience's developing an active concern for the problems he presented.) Churchill employs effective distancing techniques, such as the overlapping dialogue and the tales of the women guests juxtaposed with Marlene ordering a dinner more typically associated with male preferences—steak, potatoes, and plenty of liquor.

Structure of the rest of the play

The other scenes are realistic and depict the bleak and petty world of the employment agency and of Marlene's family in Suffolk, who are unable to compete in the capitalistic world of Margaret Thatcher's England. The realistic scenes in the play are also treated experimentally, for Churchill wrenches them out of their linear time sequence. The first scene, the fantasy dinner party, actually is chronologically in the middle of the various events. Chronologically, the first scene is Marlene's visit to Joyce's home, which occurs a year before the fantasy dinner, but the scene is placed at the end of the play. The effect of this is to give the revelation that Marlene abandoned her daughter, Angie, even greater force. The two Monday-morning scenes at the employment agency are interrupted by the Sunday scene in Suffolk, which ends with Angie dressed in the too-small dress Marlene gave her—as the audience will learn in the play's final scene—one year earlier.

Feminist empowerment

Churchill, in this play and others, explores the meaning of feminist empowerment. She examines the dichotomy between traditional women's work, which centers on concern for and nurturing of others, and traditional men's work, which is focused on power and competition. She shows that women have been able to compete with men but that without concern for the powerless (such as the women coming to the Top Girls Agency), winning such competitions does not constitute a feminist victory.

Churchill does not advance an answer to this problem in Top Girls, but she firmly rejects the notion that there is progress by stressing the lack of women who are both successful and fulfilled. Clearly something is missing in the lives of the "top girls" as well as in the lives of those like Joyce and Angie who will not "make it."

Success and sacrifice throughout history- is it the same as it has ever been?

In Top Girls, Churchill analyzes the relationship between women, success and sacrifice, and examines possibilities of the past and present. In the first scene, the women of history and legend start by boasting of accomplishments, then gradually become bitter as they realize what they have lost. The bonds shared by these women is based on negative aspects of experience—dead lovers, lost children, and anger at the power that others, usually male, exercised over them.

Female solidarity

The solidarity of women becomes both a theme and a problem. The historical figures of the dinner party in act 1 can be seen as a context for Marlene's success, a tradition of women who took risks and made their presences felt. Yet each is also presented as isolated in her historical moment, unsupported by a larger society of women and actively discouraged or attacked by men or institutions created by men. Similarly, in the ensuing modern scenes, Marlene and the other Top Girls are shown to have paid high prices in the attempt to succeed in a "man's world" not established with their ascent or their needs in mind.

Success is for the elite few

Perhaps gender equity has improved if a woman such as Marlene can rise into management or Margaret Thatcher can be named prime minister; these advances form the basis for Marlene's claim that women do not need a movement or feminist politics to move forward.

This seeming rise is potentially damaging to the majority of women; Joyce and Angie's scenes show that, in Churchill's view, most women face disadvantages and lack of opportunity and that the career track of Marlene is a rare exception, not a prototype that all women can follow. For every Lady Nijo or Isabella Bird, there have been uncounted women restricted in their options, left to obscurity and poverty.

Marlene's nature- male characteristics, making women play it her way; she does not try to change the patriarchal system, merely tries to outwit it

For every Marlene, there are many women like the three job applicants: underqualified, unconfident, and lacking the rare combination of intelligence, beauty, drive, and style that have propelled Marlene. Marlene offers to help them, and companies pay her well to do so, but the women must play by her rules—for example, keeping quiet about plans to marry someday.

Remaking women in her own image is the key to Marlene's success, and supposedly to theirs. Aggressive confidence and the power to persuade employers and sales clients are methods recognized by the men with whom such women must work and against whom they must compete. Yet even the women who manage to "beat" the patriarchal system are merely outwitting it, not reforming it to make the field more fair to all women.

Sacrifices women have to make

Women have traditionally been relegated to the private sphere of homemaking and parenting, and a woman such as Marlene, who dares not only to enter but also to insist on advancement in the public sphere of economic activity, necessarily embodies a larger, inherent cultural tension. Giving up her daughter, beating out other women, and living without a partner are Marlene's particular instances of the larger disjunctions between women's rights and the rules of capitalist society, as Churchill sees it.

The issue is not whether successful businesswomen are paragons of feminist victory or bloodthirsty man-haters (though characters in the play express both these notions) but whether these women, like all beneficiaries of capitalism, have lost much in the quality of their lives, even as they appear to reject economic subservience to men.

Women are becoming more male- lack of female solidarity, its all about the individual- they are constantly competing with each other

Successful women, like their male counterparts, have acquiesced to a system of domination and profit refined over centuries by men in power, and even if they benefit from it as individuals, they ultimately are complicit in the oppression of their own gender. Marlene works at eradicating the signs of inequality between women and men in public life, but she does not pay attention to the larger patterns of dominance. This can take the form of Marlene's competing subtly with her friends Win and Nell, her apparent neglect of her sister and daughter, or even the spiritual emptiness and despair behind her bright demeanor, glimpses of which Churchill allows at moments throughout the play.

Does Top Girls offer a pessimistic view of opportunities available to women in British society?

Generally speaking, the play takes a pessimistic view. On one level, Marlene is portrayed as an assertive and successful woman who has achieved a considerable level of competence in her job, She is independent and financially stable. However, she gave up her infant daughter to be raised by her sister, and it may be this decision that allowed her the freedom to pursue a business career. Her sister on the other hand remains in a lower social class and is an unhappy parent who resents Marlene's success and independence. Both of these characters represent a kind of pessimistic viewpoint since neither of these women feels fulfilled or happy; the suggestion is that despite outward appearances of success and happiness, contemporary women who choose either work or family (as opposed to both) feel something is missing from their lives. This is due to the ways in which society tend to judge both choices harshly, depending on whose persective is being offered.

Feminism

1)ISOLATION

2)POWER/SUCCESS

3)GENDER EXPECTATIONS

ISOLATIONS- could be spoken about in terms of how women are isolated in job roles (marlene/pope joan) also how women are isolated in stereotypically female roles (lady nijo and grieselda-who are housewifes and only allowed to do as husbands say.)

POWER/SUCCESS - you could speak about how typically men have the power eg grieseldas hubby(gives away her children etc) and also her father (tells her she has to marry him) and also lady nijo (told to be a prostitue and so on.) Also could include the speach from act 2, where man's wife comes in and says to marlene you should not be promoted shud be my husband, its a mans job etc. BUT THEN u could say how churchill has disturbed these tradition views in an attempt to expresses feminist ideas that women should have equal jobs etc...does this by marlene getting promotion and also by Pope Joan being a successful pope.

GENDER EXPECTATIONS - talk about how men=masculine, women=feminine, and how churchill conforms to this typical mainstream theme in characters like grieselda and marlenes sister who be the housewife, career, obident so as told, seen and not heard femine gender. but then gives females masucline attributes

Marlene- an opportunist

Marlene is a social opportunist in that she does not have flesh and blood friends, she prefers to surround herself with long-dead or fictional characters to associate with. Marlene puts herself with this group of women who all achieved some measure of success, but at a great price. Marlene feels that these women are the only suitable social companions for a woman of her stature.

Marlene is a personal opportunist because she was able to give up her child, on the basis that she did not wish to be encumbered with a child. She gave her child to her sister, in part because her sister seemed unable to have children, but also because it was the easiest way to rid herself of a nuisance.

Marlene assesses what opportunities will best benefit her, and gives no thought to the ramifications for anyone else. The irony being that Marlene has been left with an empty life because of those choices.