"Top Girls" Made Easy: Literature Guide

By Students' Academy

Caryl Churchill is now a well-known name in the field of drama and theatre. Caryl is among few modern playwrights who have their great influence on the modern literature and theatre.

“Top Girls” by Caryl Churchill was first launched in 1982. The play is focused on a woman named Marlene. She happens to be an ambitious and career-driven woman. Her only interest in life seems to be women’s success in business and their careers.

With the progression of the play, Marlene’s past life is revealed. It transpires that she has come from a poor background. She happens to be the mother of an illegitimate child.

"Top Girls" Made Easy: Literature Guide
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Aug 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310464096

Students' Academy

Easy study guides for the students of English literature.

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Top Girls Made Easy: Literature Guide

Students' Academy

Copyright

Top Girls Made Easy: Literature Guide

Students' Academy

Copyright@2014 Students' Academy

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Chapter One: Introduction

Caryl Churchill is now a well-known name in the field of drama and theatre. Caryl is among few modern playwrights who have their great influence on the modern literature and theatre.

Top Girls by Caryl Churchill was first launched in 1982. The play is focused on a woman named Marlene. She happens to be an ambitious and career-driven woman. Her only interest in life seems to be women’s success in business and their careers.

With the progression of the play, Marlene’s past life is revealed. It transpires that she has come from a poor background. She happens to be the mother of an illegitimate child.

Marlene takes her sister Joyce’s help and gives Joyce her little daughter and then she begins to walk along the path that eventually leads her to ‘success.’

This contemporary play explores the theme of the role of women in society. It also attempts to illustrate what is the meaning of a successful woman.

It is often said that the play Top Girls was written as a response to the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She was England’s Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. Margaret Thatcher was from the Right Wing.

Top Girls is set in London, England. The time period is the early 1980s. It is said that right before writing Top Girls, Churchill had been to America. She met several women there. Feminism was gaining strength in America and the women were quite excited by the new opportunities that were available to them at that time.

Churchill liked the idea of feminism and embraced it; however, she remained skeptic whether those opportunities given to women would really get translated into a victory for feminism.

Through the present play, the playwright seems to be criticizing the extreme individualism and hyper professionalism. Both these things are highly valued by the capitalist society.

The prevailing and widely spread idea during the 1980s was that feminism equates liberation with financial and professional success.

The play was very well received by both critics and audiences. It was a critical success from its opening run. The play has been staged in various cities and towns around the world including London and New York. The play has been running successfully for the past thirty years, and even today the audiences flock to watch it whenever it is performed at a prominent theatre in any city or town.

The play, when it was launched for the first time, received highly positive reviews, although there were some critics who believed that the playwright has exaggerated some