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Top Girls

 

            
             The principal topic of Top Girls by Caryl Churchill deals with the price women have to pay for their emancipation.
             Marlene, the main character, hosts a dinner part in a London restaurant to celebrate her promotion to managing director of 'Top Girls' employment agency. Her guests are five remarkable women from the past: Isabella Bird (1831- 1904) - the adventurous world traveller; Lady Nijo (b1258) - the mediaeval, Japanese courtesan who became a Buddhist nun and travelled on foot through Japan; Dull Gret, who as Dulle Griet in a Bruegel painting, who was well-known for her quick tongue and who led a crowd of women on a charge through hell; Pope Joan - the transvestite early female pope who sacrifized her womanhood and having a family for her career and last but not least Griselda, an obedient wife out of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. However, she is the only fictive character of all the other historical figures. As the evening continues we are involved with the stories of all five women and the impending crisis in Marlen's own life. .
             Personally I think that Caryl Churchill made a very good comparison to the historical women figures and the women in the modern times. Furthermore the comparison shows that all characters in history are somehow highlighted through their changing ideas, themes towards women and oppression and the struggle in their life's.
             Top Girls has educational values and an extremely serious aspect to it, but at the same time can be intriguingly entertaining and addictive, so much so that one may feel that they are emotionally dragged into one of the many, sometimes tense, sometimes funny, sometimes shocking conversations between the excellent constructed characters.
            


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