How important is context to our understanding of Churchill's Top Girls?

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How important is context to our understanding of Top Girls?

The fact that Churchill grew up just before the beginning Second World War tells her background to the audience. What she faced and went through, like the lack and struggle for food and shelter.

“I was horrified by the lack of equality across class, gender and race”- Caryl Churchill

England by that time- the 1980s was completely riven with the political instability, the liberalization of sexuality and the period of economic growth. The context of the play is mainly to do with these times but also about Margaret Thatcher, when she came to power and Britain was believed to have more power and influence over industry than the government. Thatcher was known to break the power of the unions, as she promised that when she will be elected and she was.

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Churchill’s success started to grow in the 1980s and it was sudden appearance and shock to society of a woman being a playwright during this period.

“Between 1959 and 1980 only 8% of the plays produced at the Royal Court were by women and most of these were by Caryl Churchill.”

The context of Top Girls is feminism too, which occurred from the period in the 1970s when the focus on the unpaid labor women did around home began. This was symbolic as a woman being subordinate to the man. A lot of playwrights, including Churchill, wrote plays ...

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