andor feminist concerns by means that it can help them to restructure the order of representation Schmidt, 2005: 22-25. Women need
to be „recognized‟ for what they are, not what society wants them to be.
2. Fragmentation as a Medium to Revalue Women’s Position
Women after all this time have been placed after the men. It means that they are the inferior whose power is lower than men. Hence, through Top Girls, Churchill tries to
restructure, or revalue as the writer calls it, their position to be either the same or higher than men. It is in line with the „Postmodern Feminists‟ attention to difference, language
and power, which have much to offer discussion on this issue‟ Marchand and Parpart,
1995: 127. Above all, they emphasize the need to situate women‟s voices experiences in the specific, historical, spatial and social contexts within which women live and work.
Churchill in her Top Girls adopting postmodernist technique by using fragmentation. In her play, rather than unite the story in one clear set, she fragments Marlene‟s
characteristics, the settings and the plot. She uses fragmentation as her medium to underline her concern on w
omen issues, by means on women‟s position. In the previous part of this chapter, it is clear that Marlene portrays different
characteristics from Act One to Three. In Act One, she becomes a good listener and responsive to all her friends‟ stories. In Act Two, she shows the audience that she is a
high qualified woman worker who successfully beats Howard as her competitor to be promoted as a Managing Director. While in Act Three, the audience is shown the fact
that Marlene needs to abandon Angie and rarely visit her family to get that successful life.
That fragmented character of Marlene can not be separated from the language that
she uses in her speech in each act. In Act One where she holds her dinner party, she uses a quite polite language and tone in speaking with her imaginative friends compare it
to the language and which she uses when speaking with her family and co-workers. She treats people surrounding her differently based on their power level. She thinks that all
her imaginative friends have equal power to her. It is equal because all of them has succeeded in breaking down the classic stereotypical ideals about women from their own
period of time. Therefore, feeling the equality in the sense of power, Marlene tends to use the supportive language and tone. Different from speaking with her family and
co-workers, she uses more male-language, the rude or abusive one. Lakoff and also Dale Spender 1980 argued that women‟s language style was
characterized by the use of elements which signalled subordination. These features consist of: mitigating statements, hedges, tag questions and elements which signal
indirectness, tentativeness, diffidence and hesitation. In contrast to this, male speech was characterized as direct, forceful and confident, using features such as
interruption Eagleton, 2003: 134.
The F-word and other rude words she uses are considerably male-language because it indicates speaker‟s power and confidence. Marlene thinks that it is okay for her to uses
those male-language because among all of her family members and co-workers, she has higher power than them.
Marlene‟s dinner party which appears in the Act One seems to be inspired from July Chicago‟s The Diner Party which is performed in the 1978 Eagleton, 2003: 32. Both
invite the „great women‟ from separated centuries and continents and put them up together in one moment.
From all of Marlene‟s imaginative friend‟s stories, it is seen how the concept of time can be used in interpreting women‟s lives whether they are longed or passed.
The concepts of „experience‟ and „memory‟ have, as we have seen, been subject to
careful scrutiny but they remain central to feminist attempts to interpret women‟s lives and the significance of women‟s life cycles Eagleton, 2003: 47.
From Marlene‟s diner party sene, it is also seen how women longed for a better life although all the „great women‟ in Top Girls have had to successfully break down the
stereotype ideals of women. They do traveling, drinking alcoholic beverages, become a nun, disguising as a man just for an education, become a Pope ,and even become a leader
to fight against the devils. But then, there are also portrayal of women‟s traditional value that they must obey their husband if they are married.
The fragmented setting and plot in Top Girls has significant role in being a medium to revalue women‟s position. Top Girls‟ plot and setting goes like this: the play begins
with Marlene‟s dinner party scene on a Saturday night, then it jumps to Marlene‟s interviewing Jeanine on Monday morning in Top Girls Employment Agency, then it goes
to Joyce‟s backyard on a Sunday evening, and then it switches again to Marlene‟s office where she has an Angie‟s visit, her co-workers‟ interviewing two girls who seeks for a
job, and a visit from Mrs. Kidd who asks her to give up her promotion and give it to Mr. Kidd, and the last scene is actually the very first scene which shows Marlene‟s visit to
Joyce‟s home and in this scene the audience is shown the fact that Angie is Marlene‟s biological daughter.
By using fragmentation, the audience is involved in the story by means that the playwright triggers them to work their imagination and leap their fantasy and go beyond
the story. The fragmented and non- linear plot is used to „voice the playwright‟s view‟
Dancyger, 2006: 154. The lack of narration has become a key to help the playwright to voice their view towards something. In this case, since there is a lack of narration, the
play provides variety of interpretation.
There is no unconditioned ground to reality - no absolute perspective, no God‟s eye
view of the world - only a plurality of forces that form themselves into groups, break aplete wholeness. The positioning of the characters and the use of language in their
dialogues are wrapped in the fragmented scene plot to simply address the issue. Top Girls
does not directly mock male‟s dominance but more on showing how Marlene can be a high achieving woman in the supposedly man‟s world.
The first act shows a happiness of Marlene‟s celebration of her getting promoted to the higher level in her office. The audience is shown that all the participants in the Act
One are extraordinary women with all their high achievement. It is supported by Marlene‟s saying „To our courage and the way we changed our lives and our
e xtraordinary achievements‟ Churchill, 1990: 67. But then, there is a mood shift from
celebration to a exploration of a shared pain session which is started by Joan. Joan‟s story of her sex‟s getting revealed in the public procession and her loss of child leads to
another story of the same subject. Lady Nijo also shares the same experience which she needs to give up her children. From that scene, it is clear how the women are terrible like
what Marlene has said: „Oh God, why are we all so miserable‟ Churchill, 1990: 72. As the play opens with the present time‟s scene to the past life, from Act Three, it is
clear that Marlene does not come from the higher hierarchy, but only from the working class in which her sister Joypart, and reform in other combination Hart,
2004: 46. It is different if the playwrights uses the linear plot as it could not make the
audience be more active and participatory because they have make the message of the story clearer through the linearity. It is unlike the non-linear one because the audience is
asked to re-arrange the fragments and observe the hidden message before uniting them into a comce is still committed to.
JOYCE. You say Mother had a wasted life. MARLENE. Yes I do. Married to that bastard.
JOYCE. What sort of life did he have? Working in the fields like MARLENE. Violent life.
JOYCE. an animal. Why wouldn‟t he want a drink? MARLENE. Come off it.
JOYCE. You want a drink.
MARLENE. I don‟t want to talk about him. JOYCE. You started, I was talking about her. She had a rotten life because she had
nothing. She went hungry. MARLENE. She was hungry because he drank the money. He used to hit her
Churchill, 1990: 138-139. Marlene completely realizes that her life is not what she has expected for so long. She
escapes from her current life and commits to no marriage nor have children nor being inferior under her husband like what Joyce portrays. At that time she expresses her
frustration by saying “Don‟t you fucking this fucking that fucking bitch fucking tell me what
to fucking do fucking” Churchill, 1990: 133. She does not like being in a working class. Therefore she decides to go to the men‟s world at her age of thirteen and promises
herself not to have a life like her mother Churchill, 1990:139. After having a successful life like what she has got in present time, Joyce seems to
get jealous of Marlene. First, she thinks that Marlene would never make it if she decides to raise Angie by herself. But then, Marlene makes a justification by saying:
MARLENE. I know a managing director who‟s got two children, she breast feeds in
the board room, she pays a hundred pounds a week on a domestic help alone and she can afford that because she‟s an extremely high-powered lady earning a great
deal of money Churchill, 1990: 134.
That „high-powered lady‟ Marlene has been mentioned earlier sounds like a self-created figure because in the previous Act, it is clear that her co-workers are all single and she
also suggests Jeanine not to tell the employers that she Jeanine is engaged and planning to get married. Second, Joyce insults Marlene‟s stupidity of getting pregnant in her
