Themes in Top girls

relationships between women
1. M and Jeanine
  1. M doesn't let her speak or interups her
  2. Jeanine tries to justify herself "i wanted to go to work"
  3. cutting "you haven't got the speeds anyway" "i think you could make me beleive it if you put your mind to it
2. Louise and other women in the company
  1. "Are you the only women?" "Apart from the girls of course, yes"
  2. "i took on a young women assistant, I always had my doubts."
  3. "I don't care greatly for working with women, i think i pass as a man at work"
3. Act One
  1. Division
    1. To concentrated with their own problems, don't listen to each other
    2. they completly ignore the waitress; put her apart because of her age and her background; not united
    3. Isabella looks down on N "I certainly never saw my father drunk. He was a clergyman. And I didn't get married till I was fifty
    4. exclude and ignore Gret
      1. Isabella, just says "hello Gret" and then continues with her normal conversation
    5. Different religion, from different places on earth
women and dreams
1. career
  1. Jeanine wants a change, prospects and more money
  2. "people often do think advertising"
2. getting away
  1. M"I can't get away" I
women and conflict
1. Parental
  1. wish of death from angie x1
  2. A doesn't want kit to pay for her as J doesn't want M to pay for her
power
1. Angie and Kit
  1. Angie < Kit
    1. dropped out, not smart
  2. Angie > Kit
social backgrounds
1. language
2. shame
  1. M doesn't want to talk about her sister, "do you have a sister? yes in fact." I
time
1. marlene
  1. keeps interuping jeanine + goes staight to the point
  2. "one of them is going to be late but we won't wait"
  3. "I haven't time for a holiday"
  4. reflects the women the general thinking in todays world "We don't all have to beleive the same
2. louise age "It's not necessarily a handicap, well it is of course we have to face that, but it's not necessarily a disabling handicap, experience does count for something."
3. differences
  1. N 14 marries the emperor aged 29 who rapes her but it's normal to her "Are you saying he raped you?"
motherhood + Family
1. M to Jeanine
  1. "I'm saving to get married" "does that mean you don't want a long term job, jeanine?"
  2. "where do the prospects come in? no kids for a bit?"
  3. "so you won't tell them you're getting married?"
  4. "you won't want to mention marriage there"
2. Angie is the source of most of Joice's problems ; wouldn't be stuck there if A wasn't there.
  1. m "quote"
men
1. Jeanine
  1. getting married
  2. an object
    1. "to three of them, really, they share me"
    2. m "i've sent him a girl before and she was happy"
    3. m "we'll send you there, shall we"
2. marriage = stuck with a man
  1. "does your fiancé want to travel"
  2. Isabella stuck with Dr John Bishop
    1. found married life a drudgery and fell ill again
  3. Nell "I could go on working and not marry him"
3. carreer
  1. Louise "I've seen young men who I trained go on, in my own company or elsewhere, to higher things"
  2. "vacancies are going to be ones where you will be in competition with younger men. And there are companies that will value your experience enough you'll be IN WITH A CHANCE"
  3. There are also fields that are easier for a woman"
  4. M "Business life is full of little setbacks [...] He'll bounce back in a day or two. We all bounce back"
  5. "I think it is different, because he's a man"
4. alcohol
  1. Louise
    1. "I think I understand you sufficiently" "Well good, that's good" "Do you drink"
    2. talking about drinking ends the conversation once and for all
    3. "I drink" "I don't" "good for you"
  2. seen as something specific to men "It was always the men who used to get so drunk"
  3. Marlene
    1. the party
      1. "I think a drink while we wait for the others. I think a drink anyway. What a week" = escape
    2. Joice
  4. N "It was always the men who used to get so drunk"
5. Howard
  1. "you women this, you women that" ==> generalises = shovenist pig
  2. hurrasses physically and psycologically his wife
    1. " I haven't slept"
    2. cf mrs kidd
Thatcherism
1. Marlene
  1. "I think I'm going up up up"
  2. "She's a tough lady Maggie" "First women PM. te
  3. "this country needs to stop winning"
2. Joice
the role of women
1. highflyers
  1. win
    1. very professional like
    2. tries to understand Louise
    3. sees straight away something is wrong with Louise/ hinding something
      1. "now between ourselves is there any trouble, any reason why you're leaving that wouldn't appear on the form?" "nothing like that" "like what?" "nothing at all." "no long-term understandings come to a sudden end, making for an insupportable atmosphere?" "i've always completly avoided anything like that at all." "No personality clashes with you immediate superiors or inferiors?" "i've always taken care to get on very well with everyone" "i only ask because it can affect the reference ans it also affects your motivation, I want to be quite clear why you're moving on." ==>Louise is on the defensive + uses superlative --> shows that she is lying/ can't be true "completly" "anything" "at all" "very" "everyone"
  2. Nell
    1. win "he rang on saturday morning" nell "lucky you were free"
    2. condecending
    3. slept with two different men on the same weekend and enjoyed the sunday night most
  3. Marlene
2. traditional view
  1. male dominated society; patriarchy
    1. "What's it going to do to him working for a woman? I think if it was a man he'd get over it as something normal"
    2. "But he's got a family to support. He's got 3 children. It's only fair."
  2. stay at home; have children
    1. J "A not going to get a job when jobs are hard to get [...] She'd better get married"
    2. "Nuclear Physicist" "whatever for?"
    3. "My father taught me latin although I was a girl" Isabella
  3. Mrs Kidd : represents the typical housewife
    1. "You're not natural" ==> single working woman is against nature ; refers to Mac beth
    2. "You'll end up miserable and LONELY"
    3. "I'm reffering to you being appointed INSTEAD of Howard ==>M stole his place
    4. M should quit the job because howard "hasn't been at all well all weekend" and "hasn't slept for 3 nights"==> disproportioné
    5. "It's very hard when someone has worked all these years" ==> M hasn't work for this place; doesn't deserve it
    6. gets hit
      1. "It's me that bears the brunt"
  4. object
    1. "let the wild goose come to me this spring" = women possesion passed on from father to husband
    2. "I belonged to him, it was what I was braught up for from a baby" N
Equality between sexes
1. sexual liberation
  1. appearance
    1. "she has a different style, she's a new kind of attractive well-dressed"
    2. "there is a kind of woman who is thirty now who grew up in a different climate. They are not so careful. They take themselves for granted. I have had to justify my existence every minute"
2. carreers
  1. N "Priests were often vagrants, so why not a nun?"

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Themes in Top girls

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	Created by nathalie.a.howe over 10 years ago