Caryl Churchill Roles Of Women

Discuss Caryl Churchill’s presentation of the roles of woman By placing two women in an interview situation, Churchill creates from the start, two characters that we subconsciously begin to compare and contrast. ‘right Jeanine, you are Jeanine aren’t you?’ The apparent lack of interest and her own sense of superiority over Jeanine combined with the blatant uncertainty of her name in the first line of the scene gives us a clear understanding of Marlene’s character and attitude towards Jeanine in the passage. Churchill presents the two woman’s conflicting backgrounds and primary interests in life in a way that clearly represents the society that they are written in. Marlene and Jeanine both symbolize two different aspects of society, on one hand there is Marlene, a highflying, ambitious ‘Top Girl’ who encompasses everything that the ideal ‘power woman’ would have had in 1981, then Jeanine, a woman who aspires to have a job in a position of influence and authority, but also wants to have the ideal family life. This expectation is something that as a modern day audience, we can compare with the 1981 creation of the ‘power woman’ and the present day equivalent, who in this case is Jeanine. Marlene’s view of her is critical, predominantly because of this lack of devotion and commitment she has towards her work. Her presumptions of Jeanine are clear from the start of the interview, doubting her job ‘sectary or typist?’ When Jeanine admits to being engaged, Marlene immediately assumes that Jeanine is incapable of following a successful and eventual position of significance in her career path because of the fact that she has created another main priority for herself. Churchill creates a clear sense of irony in the scene, as further on, Marlene speaks of a ‘marketing manager, ‘ he’s thirty five, and married…you won’t want to mention marriage there’, the facetious irony