To What Extent Do Top Girls by Caryll Churchill and Dancing at Lughnasa by Brien Friel Agree on the Choices Available to Women?
To what extent do Top Girls by Caryll Churchill and Dancing at Lughnasa by Brien Friel agree on the choices available to women?
Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and Brien Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa are both plays set in times of great change. The former deals with the implications of the electoral success of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, while the latter grapples with the consequences of industrialization in Donegal, Ireland. The chief concern of both plays is how political changes affect the choices available to ordinary women. The two plays appear to be making political statements conveying personal standpoints of the playwrights. In the case of Churchill, it can be said that she is critiquing the Conservative Thatcher government and the negative impact it had on women. Friel is drawing attention to the introduction of factories in Ireland and the impact this had on working class families. Both plays evoke sympathy for the struggles of working class women. Margaret Thatcher was not a feminist and was not interested in advancing the position of women in society. She believed in individualism and that women could make it to the top if they worked hard enough; behaving like a man, but dressing like a woman. The character Marlene in Top Girls clearly fits into this category of a new breed of woman as she has achieved senior management status at her company without acting like a man, or at least not on the surface: “I don’t wear trousers in the office. I could but I don’t”. Changes occurring at the time were not benefiting women, rather, they were hindering their opportunities, because women were succeeding at the expense of other women. Again, Marlene is representative of this as she virtually abandoned her sister, mother, and daughter in the pursuit of a successful career. So too is Lady Nijo’s character, in the fantasy scene, as she fulfilled the role of mistress to other women’s husbands. Furthermore, Win, in Top Girls, is having an
Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and Brien Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa are both plays set in times of great change. The former deals with the implications of the electoral success of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, while the latter grapples with the consequences of industrialization in Donegal, Ireland. The chief concern of both plays is how political changes affect the choices available to ordinary women. The two plays appear to be making political statements conveying personal standpoints of the playwrights. In the case of Churchill, it can be said that she is critiquing the Conservative Thatcher government and the negative impact it had on women. Friel is drawing attention to the introduction of factories in Ireland and the impact this had on working class families. Both plays evoke sympathy for the struggles of working class women. Margaret Thatcher was not a feminist and was not interested in advancing the position of women in society. She believed in individualism and that women could make it to the top if they worked hard enough; behaving like a man, but dressing like a woman. The character Marlene in Top Girls clearly fits into this category of a new breed of woman as she has achieved senior management status at her company without acting like a man, or at least not on the surface: “I don’t wear trousers in the office. I could but I don’t”. Changes occurring at the time were not benefiting women, rather, they were hindering their opportunities, because women were succeeding at the expense of other women. Again, Marlene is representative of this as she virtually abandoned her sister, mother, and daughter in the pursuit of a successful career. So too is Lady Nijo’s character, in the fantasy scene, as she fulfilled the role of mistress to other women’s husbands. Furthermore, Win, in Top Girls, is having an