Manipulation of Time in "Cloud Nine" and "Top Girls"

The manipulation of time is important in the Cloud Nine and Top Girls, two plays by Caryl Churchill. In one, she manipulates the passage of time to create a connection between the oppression of women and the oppression of those living in the British colonies. In the other, she puts the present first and the past last, suggesting that the past is more important than Britain would like to admit. Like Patrick Wright, she is questioning the idea of a national identity or heritage that wants to continue class and racial discrimination but give it a different name. The history for Churchill is very important in developing the future not only for her characters, but for Britain in general. Churchill questions the need for one history, but instead pushes forward Wright’s idea of a “heterogeneous society” where each individual can define their own history. Churchill shows the ugliness of colonial Africa, of racism, of classism, of sexism, and of homophobia while also showing that these characters that represent the “other” have histories that are just important to Britain as those who are the so-called “custodians”.

Caryl Churchill brings the past and the present together in Cloud 9 with an Act One focused on the colonial past and the second act focused on how the modern family is just as dysfunctional. In the first act, Churchill focuses on colonial Africa and the way race and gender were approached. With the character of Clive we get the Britain which is unable to see diversity and believes they are helping the colonies by being a father in the way that Clive treats Joshua. However, by having Joshua pointing a gun at Clive in the end we see Churchill’s introduction of the opposing view and how the colonies actually viewed Brit...

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...s still in a patriarchal profession. Marlene could take a job from a man but she still had to deny parts of being a woman such as motherhood. Much is made of the last scene of the play when Angie declares the whole thing "frightening". It seems that the idea of Marlene completely denying her past to climb the ladder of her future was just as frightening as Britain ignoring its past all for the "aura" of a national heritage that ignored the ugliness of imperialism and sexism.

Works Cited

Churchill, Caryl. Cloud 9. (New York: Routledge, 1980)

Churchill, Caryl. Top Girls (London: Methuen, 1991)

Godiwala, Dimple. Breaking the Bounds: British Feminist Dramatists Writing in the Mainstream since 1980. (New York: Peter Lang, 2003)

Wright, Patrick. On Living in an Old Country: The National Past in Contemporary Britain (London: Verso, 1985.