Authors of literature use their characters to voice out their concerns with the social movements of their generation. In the extract of Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls”, set in the context of 1980s Britain with the effects of Thatcherism being seen, we are presented with Marlene and Joyce arguing about their troubled past, and it is being revealed that Angie is Marlene’s biological daughter who was given to Joyce so Marlene could pursue a lavish career. Churchill emphasises that the pursuit of a high-profile and established career leaves women like Marlene lacking the emotional comfort of family. Churchill indicates that pursuing an esteemed career often forces women to isolate from their family, while the hyperfixated capitalist society of Churchill’s time makes it impossible for women to simultaneously take care of their children and provide for them financially. A binary is established between work and family, and Churchill emphasises how they are exclusive through the characters of Marlene and Joyce, where Marlene has delved into her work at the expense of being estranged from her family, while Joyce takes the role of the family breadwinner, and yet has no prospects for escaping her low-middle class life.
Through the construction of Marlene, Churchill is able to represent the career-focused women of the 1980s which have lost their connection to their family in the pursuit of wealth and power. Churchill indicates that their lives are unfulfilling as despite being financially well off, they are missing the fundamental human desire for a loving family. When Marlene ask Joyce “Why can’t I visit my own family?”, she tells her not to “go on about Mum’s life when you haven’t been here to see her for how many years.” Churchill uses a questioning, entitled voice to suggest that Marlene sees herself as deserving of making amends with her family. Joyce indicating that it has been years since Marlene visited her mother represents how distanced she has become with her family. Churchill’s portrayal of Marlene as undeservingly demanding to re-enter the family dynamic after having selfishly left it in her pursuit of a prospectful career makes readers question whether Marlene’s pursuit of a high-functioning career was the right choice for her family. Joyce later admits to Marlene that she can’t fathom “how you could leave your own child”. By utilising a despondent and disgusted voice, Churchill uses Joyce’s dialogue to attack the idea of putting work over one’s children. Churchill indicates to audiences that Marlene’s choice to place precedence on her career over the wellbeing of her own daughter is a terrible decision which has lead to her estrangement from her sister Joyce. Hence, through the character of Marlene, Churchill conveys that women who are fixated on the advancement of their career have made a horrendous and morally unjustifiable sacrifice of which their family bears the burden.
In contrast, the portrayal of Joyce works to emphasise how society is unsympathetic for women who choose to nurture and support their families, as Joyce is represented as struggling with taking care of Angie as a single mother. Joyce tells Marlene that “when Angie was six months old I did get pregnant and I lost it because I was so tired looking after your f*cking baby”. The tone of Joyce’s dialogue shifts from disappointed and absent to angry and emotional, which works to convey the physical and emotional trauma of losing her own baby during her pregnancy. Joyce is portrayed to readers as exhausted and weary after having to bear the brunt of the consequences from Marlene’s teen pregnancy. The reader understands that Joyce struggles with having to take care of Angie by herself, and thus sees how the 1980s society of individualistic greed has left Joyce behind to endure alone. Joyce points out how Marlene “couldn’t get out of here fast enough”, suggesting that she has been left to survive by herself in the lower-class suburb that is Marlene’s childhood home. The reader is directly informed that Joyce is stuck in this suburb having to raise Angie, with no possibility of social mobility. While she is free to take care of Angie by herself, she is financially disenfranchised by a society which does little to help her as a single mother. Hence, Joyce is constructed as a struggling mother who works tirelessly to continue to raise her daughter, with society having ostracized her from a stable, unburdened lifestyle.
