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The Politics of Stasis and Movement in Top Girls

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2013, 26(2), pp.5-26
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

Hyun-joo Ki 1

1세종대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Drawing on theories relating to human and cultural geography, this essay investigates the politics of space for women. Under patriarchal dominance, moving out of the domestic sphere seems to guarantee women’s liberation. Top Girls by Caryl Churchill does not stop in showing women who succeed in the flight from home. From public space to domestic areas, it is hard to avoid the spatial divisions which confine women to appropriate sites. The play explores the themes of stasis and movement concerning women. The main character of the play, Marlene, becomes the very woman who is able to be involved in the spatial division she has learned in the capitalistic system. By placing female customers to ‘appropriate’ places, she helps to repeat and perpetuate the patriarchal system under which women including herself have been oppressed. Further, she refuses to find jobs for those who are ‘stupd, lazy, and frightened.’ By excluding women who have nothing, Marlene limits the possibility of the Top Girls Employment Agency, which can contribute to broadening the sphere of women. On the other hand, Joyce has been confined to her home taking care of her mother and raising Marlene’s abandoned daughter. Churchill does not suggest the fundamental solution to the oppressive condition of women. Rather she asks the audience to realize the plight of women and imagine ‘different’ space from one which is dominated by male centered system by demonstrating the limit of women’s movement.

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