Within the play ‘Top Girls’, Churchill uses language in order to establish certain characters social status and identity. This allows for the audience to see the distinction between certain characters lifestyles and reflects the differences between lower and higher social classes. One particular character that we are able to see reveal their identity and social class through their use of language is Joyce. Through the way in which Churchill constructs Joyce’s language and contrasts it to Marlene’s, the fact that she is of a lower social class is made apparent to the audience.
One evident factor that reveals to the audience that Joyce is of a lower working class is the way in which she constructs her speech. The fact that her speech is not constructed in a grammatically correct way is an example of this and is seen when Joyce says, “You was in America or somewhere”. From this quote we can see that Joyce is not aware of the correct grammar she is meant to be using as instead of saying ‘were’ she had said ‘was’. This is significant because it suggests to the audience that Joyce has not been well educated and as a result she won’t be able to get a high paying job like her sister Marlene. This in turn implies to the audience that Joyce’s social status is quite low as she is uneducated and as a result has a menial job as a cleaning women. This can be seen when Joyce is talking to Marlene and she states, “I know we’re not on the phone but we’re not completely in the dark ages”. This line makes it clear to the audience that Joyce’s family is not in a great financial situation as they cannot afford a phone to talk to Marlene. As a result of this the idea that Joyce is in a lower socioeconomic class is enforced. Furthermore, when Joyce states, “I hate the cows I work for and their dirty dishes with a blanquette of fucking veau”, the idea that she is of lower social class is once again suggested, but now through the nature of the words she is using. Here she refers to the people she works for as ‘cows’, suggesting that she shows no respect towards them and doesn’t care about what they think. Her use of profanity here also builds on this idea, instilling a sense in the audience that she is of low social class as her language is not at all respectful or sophisticated as would be expected of high class people. Due to this, through the way in which Churchill constructs Joyce’s speech, it is made apparent that she is of a low social class.
Other than her social class, Churchill also reveals aspects of Joyce’s identity through the way she speaks. When Joyce says lines such as “fucking rotten little cunt”, the vulgar language that she uses suggests to the audience that she is a very casual person who doesn’t really care about what she says. As well as this, the fact that she says this line about her ‘daughter’ Angie makes her seem like a very angry and frustrated person who may be taking out her emotions on her daughter. The reason which this is happening could be due to the fact that Angie is actually Marlene’s biological daughter and not Joyce’s. This as a result reveals aspects about Joyce’s identity as well, because one of the reasons that Joyce doesn’t have a good job is because Marlene left her with Angie while Joyce was quite young. This resulted in Joyce being a mum for Angie and juggling four different cleaning jobs to pay the bills. As well as this Joyce’s husband cheated on her and left her resulting in Joyce being left alone and not in a great financial situation. Due to all of these events affecting her life, Joyce’s identity may have changed making her more of an aggressive person. This could reveal why Joyce seems to be very angry and almost resentful of Marlene, especially since Marlene’s social status is so different to hers. Marlene gave up the ‘family lifestyle’ to work in a corporate setting, earning quite a lot of money, which contrasts the type of life that Joyce has drastically. From comparing their language alone, we can see that Marlene speaks with correct grammar since she has been better educated which is why she has a good job and is of a higher social class.
Overall, through the way in which Joyce speaks, the audience is able to see that she is of a lower social status and that as a result of it she has become an angry person who resents Marlene. This ultimately suggests the idea that sometimes characters true identities can be lost and that the real way that they are defined is by their social status, as Joyce is only seen as a working class women representing the majority of women at that time.
