“You really are exceptional, Griselda.”
—Marline, Top Girls, Act I
Six women gather at a restaurant, their husbands, children, and careers
momentarily left behind. They have come to dine, sympathize, and speak
their minds on personal problems, big and small. One has lied about
her sex so she can have the job of her dreams. Another left her beloved
sister behind as she traveled the world. A third denies her husband’s
abuse, so obvious in every aspect of her being.
This third woman sounds like a character out of the modern story this
setup seems to be. Yet she comes from a story that has passed from the
pens of Boccaccio, Petrarch, Chaucer, and finally late twentieth-century
playwright Caryl Churchill. Shakespeare and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
have also alluded to her in their works.(1) How has she, Griselda,
deserved to make so many appearances throughout the history of literature?
Griselda’s story of torture at the hands of a sadistic husband,
Walter, has the potential to make many profound statements about the
relationships between men and women, depending on how Griselda’s
responses to Walter’s treatment are slanted toward the feminist
or antifeminist. Literary theorist Julia Kristeva tracks subtle clues
in wording and speech, responses and relationships, and many other facets
of characters to measure the feminism of a given piece of literature.
Through the criteria discussed in her books Language: The Unknown,
Revolution in Poetic Language, and Desire in Language,
I have explored the protofeminism and feminism apparent in Geoffrey
Chaucer’s version of the Griselda story, “The Clerk’s
Tale,” and in Caryl Churchill’s version, included in her
play Top Girls.
Separated by over six hundred years, “The Clerk’s Tale”
(c. 1351) and Top Girls (1982) demonstrate two very distinct
points in the evolution of feminist literature. Chaucer throws a few
deft, satirical jabs at Walter, making the poet’s protofeminist
stance known, but not overstepping the boundaries of masculine propriety.
Churchill gives Griselda friends who curse Walter and push Griselda
to fight back.
Still, inside, the two Griseldas are not very different. Both cower
at Walter’s punishment, and neither stands up for herself in the
face of his abuse. I have traced the subtleties of Churchill’s
play that make her story the powerful feminist discourse that it is
through other characters and sarcastic, satirical dialogue. Top
Girls is a truly feminist piece for the modern audience.
An Introduction to Kristeva’s Language Theory
Julia Kristeva’s linguistic theory incorporates not only the field
of linguistics, but also those of philosophy and psychoanalysis into
the process of examining poetry and prose at the level of individual
words, as well as of sentences, paragraphs, and complete story lines.
Kristeva utilizes poetic units from phonemes and synonyms to complex
imagery to follow the path a poem takes from its inception as an idea
in the writer’s mind, to its translation to a paper version, and
its interactions with the life of the receiver. She examines relationships
between the speaker, the word, and the receiver of speech. In order
to apply her theories to any one particular piece of literature, one
must consider the implications of each level of criticism to the different
stages of understanding a poem as a whole.
Assuming that the most useful way to begin examining the way people
read poems is by starting from the reader’s viewpoint, Kristeva
asks what readers can learn about the creator of the poem by scrutinizing
the individual words of the piece. Her thoughts on the matter parallel
those written nearly two decades earlier by Roman Jakobson (Jakobson
96). Jakobson’s explanations being more concise, I will borrow
from his analysis of his similar techniques to elaborate. His examination
of word choice progresses as such: first, he asks what compelled the
speaker to choose between all of the possible modes of explanation,
and all the possible synonyms, that could have been used to name the
object of a given thought. He also deliberates on why the author chose
the particular word over its antonyms, and over words that appeal in
terms of similar phonemes, or humor (96). Then he asks why the chosen
words appealed to the writer more than other potential words. Often
his answer, and Kristeva’s, lies simultaneously in the emotional
and audiological preferences which people naturally sort through without
much, if any, conscious consideration. For instance, he states that
the phrase “innocent bystander,” heard incessantly on televised
and radio news in English-speaking nations, would never have become
such a “hackneyed phrase” if it did not consist of two dactyls,
which appeal to the natural poetic sense of listeners in these areas
(96).
One of Kristeva’s other major points, which takes a role in her
assessment of feminism in language, is her simple questioning of what
an instance of word choice can tell the reader about the speaker, known
as the “signifier,” and how words chosen to describe the
object, known as the “signified,” affect the signified.
The relationship between the signified and the word used to name it
is completely arbitrary—there is no real reason why a certain
pattern of sounds should stand for the given object, so the chosen words
tell us volumes about the person who chooses them (Kristeva, Revolution
21). The process by which a set of letters and associated sounds comes
to stand for an object is called semiosis (Kristeva, Revolution
22). This concept follows from the linguistic philosophies of Ferdinand
de Saussure, who tracks the process by which letters become a word,
a signifier (Kristeva, Revolution 40). While most writers do
not take part in the actual creation of new words, they choose from
among possible connotations associated with supposed homonyms, and therefore
participate in the process of studying the effects of words on the signifier
and the signified.
Before leaving the domain of letters and phonemes, Kristeva provides
three guidelines for understanding the “phonetic, lexical, and
syntactical object of linguistics” (Revolution 15). First,
while an object may be discussed in many ways by many different people,
when taken in a single context, in a single passage of words, its meaning
is confined to the meaning in this particular text (Revolution 15).
This gives the author immense power over the meaning of his or her words
and subject matter. When considered in the sphere of feminism, its implications
are shocking. Looking into a piece of literature with these elements
in mind, a reader finds many questions about the relationship of the
writer to her text.
Second, as art becomes increasingly often a product of the artist’s
desire for money, new twists in the quest to interpret ideologically
challenging literature arise. Kristeva writes that something nonsensical,
which in earlier time periods would likely have been explained as “sacred,”
and now may be labeled a product of “schizophrenia,” may
also be questioned as to whether it exists for a higher purpose at all
any more (Revolution 16). Perhaps the artist only wrote his
or her piece in an enigmatic style to please the paying masses. In the
world of feminist criticism, this opens up questions as to whether the
artist’s feelings are genuine or not. While writers before the
Renaissance rarely stood to earn money from sales of their creative
works, Geoffrey Chaucer touches on the topic of craftsmanship for profit’s
sake in his stories such as “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.”
So a version of the question is on his agenda and therefore relevant.
Kristeva’s third point is that, after a poem has been broken down
into parts useful in discussion of social phenomena, parts remain which
describe things personal to the writer, and often not explainable in
terms of the experience of the general public. These pieces often detail
feelings on “arts, religion, and rites” (Revolution
16). She questions whether readers can and should generalize their understandings
of these phenomena to include their own personal experiences, or whether
the experience should remain solely the writer’s. This issue becomes
a feminist concern when we ask: can a reader claim to understand completely
the personal parts of a poem? Specifically, can one sympathize with
a member of the opposite gender, another class, or a far different ethnicity?
If someone claims this sympathy, what are his or her motives? What is
the true extent of the understanding? Is poetry confined to the words
on the page, or can it be expanded to mean the words another person
would use to express similar personal sentiments?
On the border between poetry and the living world, which is perhaps
the perfect area for feminist theory to inhabit, Julia Kristeva challenges
the lines which separate life from the words people use to describe
it. She asks, “before being a ‘natural thesis’ or
a ‘thetic function’ or judgment, isn’t thesis
above all a function of the ‘I’? Therefore, shouldn’t
the question be what the ‘I’ produces rather than the functions
of that ‘I’?” (Revolution 36). This evocative
question applies to the reader’s interpretations of both the text
and the author’s real-life experience. Should the reader question
literature at the level of the author’s motives or the text’s
utility? Of course, both have their positive sides, but making the effort
to consider the merits of each side suggests many possibilities for
mental and physical reaction. The question takes a different tone when
asked of one’s reaction to the author of a work. The age-old questions
asked by students and professors of literature remains, is the speaker
really the writer of the poem, or a fictional narrator? Is it important
to think about who this person is, or should we only consider what he
or she says?
Much more abstract is Kristeva’s concept of the “chora,”
“a non-expressive totality formed by the drives and their stases
in a motility that is as full of movement as it is regulated”
(Kristeva, Revolution 25). This prelinguistic formation of
ideas applies to young children, who have not yet acquired the ability
to speak coherently, and to modes of adult speech which do not use mature
speech. While Kristeva relates the chora to Freud’s concepts of
primary and secondary drives in her book (Revolution 25), indicating
that she considers the chora in relation to life rather than only to
books, it also applies to literature. Kristeva herself even comments
on how the chora helps with the interpretation of a certain written
work’s appeal. While an idea, described on paper using words,
relates what it symbolizes through semiotics, it also plays on human
drives not fully explainable with words. A description of something
often appeals to listeners, or readers who hear the words as speech
while they read, if it uses rhythm (Revolution 26). Often,
the reader cannot explain why this particular description is so appealing,
but when closely examined, it follows certain rhythmic patterns which
people tend to enjoy. Roman Jakobson’s intense scrutinization
of several such phrases finds that these speech patterns are surprisingly
set in each culture but varied between cultures (Jakobson 94). This
propensity for rhythm is only one example of the drives that Kristeva
sees as bridging the gap between people and poems. These drives simultaneously
fit into heteronomies and dichotomies (Revolution 167).
Kristeva’s interpretation of drives, both those conveyed in literature
and those apparent in life, follow what might be seen as an Eastern
mode of thought in Freud’s theories on the division of drives:
Freud and Kristeva note that both sides are necessary, and act together,
though in opposite ways (Revolution 167). Feminist critics,
often more given to analyzing drives than other camps of critics, frequently
question the seemingly opposite nature of desires of women, both those
who are writing a text and those who appear in one. Many texts seem
to be paradoxically feminist and antifeminist at a basic level. This
is the germ of feminist study. A respect for the heteronomy and dichotomy
of drives will help the reader accept the presence of these divisions
and parallels, and allow the reader to move on to other questions without
having to make an absolutely certain conclusion.
In her book Desire in Language, Kristeva explores some of Freud’s
other applicable ideas. She meditates on the cycle of child becoming
parent throughout the history of mankind. One of her main focuses is
whether a parent should consider him or herself a parent or an adult
child. She asks, “Am I parent or child, cause or effect, chicken
or egg?” (Desire 272). While the most applicable answer for most
people is that they are both simultaneously, consideration of this question
can open up issues of vulnerability and the inheritance of behavioral
traits useful in literature.
Kristeva discusses the manner in which a writer’s word choices
show his or her attitude toward the object being described. In languages
with many synonyms, most notably English, one cannot escape using connotative
language when writing. In this way, no description of anything can be
unbiased. The symbols chosen always portray the author narrating with
emotion.
Kristeva also uses her favorite modes of philosophy and psychology to
discuss the actions and reactions of people, not related to books. Two
of the terms she views as most crucial are “rejection” and
“negativity.” Rejection comes from Freud’s theories:
“It implies a preverbal ‘function’, one that is pre-logical
and a-logical in the sense that the logos signifies a ‘relation’,
a ‘connection’” (Kristeva, Revolution 147).
The fact that rejection deals with the preverbal conception of a word
makes it important in the world of poetry, but also in that of thought
and the human mind. Freud believed that many processes began, ended,
and began again from the same point. Since the process would always
begin again, the point at which it had originally started was of no
significance (Revolution 147). Questioning this theory leads
to rich interpretations of the cyclical processes that often appear
in literature as well. Negativity comes from the theories of Hegel.
Negativity resides in the boundaries between being and nothingness.
Hegel believes that, if time is broken up and looked at one “snapshot”
at a time, both things that exist and do not exist would be the same
thing, a moment (Revolution 109).
Finally, Kristeva examines the role of the family in the interpretation
of people. She writes that people are interpreted “in terms of
family structure” (Revolution 90). Freud believed that
healthy young people rejected the friendship and affection of the parent
of the same sex, while desiring that of the opposite sex (Revolution
175). Kristeva notes that, too often, readers imagine these relationships
to be atavistic, when really they are normal. The questions brought
up by examining people and characters in these terms provides plenty
of fuel for discussion of gender relations in art and literature. Freud
explains that the alliance between daughter and father—called
the “Name-of-the-Father” by Jacques Lacan—also can
describe relationships between child and mother, or any other authoritative
group or figure (Kristeva, Revolution 176).
In Desire in Language, Kristeva also explores other sides of
motherhood. She asks whether a baby is the ultimate goal and fulfillment
for a woman. She pronounces the “slogan” of women in classical
art to be “Baby is my goal, and I know it all” (Desire 245).
In pieces charged with positive or negative statements about women,
this one sentence can serve as the starter of endless debate on feminist
topics of what defines mothers, and what defines the feminine.
Julia Kristeva’s interpretations of people, characters, plots,
and words do not all deal directly with feminist thought. However, looking
at a piece of literature with her terms and methods in mind prepares
the reader for making feminist realizations and statements. Her versatile
commentary sets the stage.
In Chaucer’s Own Words
Julia Kristeva’s theory provides an especially useful lens through
which to consider Chaucer’s retelling of the Griselda legend and
its potential feminist politics. While the Kristevan factors on their
own provide much insight to the structure and appeal, the resulting
questions frequently deal more closely with the deeper purpose of a
piece, and the social points it has the potential to make. I will combine
these theories, and raise questions, which together reach for the range
of feminist and other social statements that Chaucer’s version
of the Griselda legend can cover.
Kristeva delves deeply into the meanings of the thoughts that individual
characters express in works of literature. She tends to regard the thoughts
as the characters’ feelings, rather than those of the author.
Sigmund Freud’s theories distinctly shaped her ideas. Kristeva
details the relevant portions of Freud’s theory of rejection in
Revolution in Poetic Language (175–76). The two basic
halves of the concept are that each character in question rejects the
parent of the same sex, and “seeks the complicity of the parent
of the opposite sex” (Revolution 175) in the quest to
reject fully and dispose of the other parent. In Griselda’s case,
the relationship she had with her mother proves a difficulty, in that
neither the other characters nor the Clerk mention her absent mother.
While the reader could create infinite fictional explanations about
what happened to Griselda’s mother and how she feels about her,
let us assume for compliance’s sake that the mother has been rejected.
Why does Chaucer not allow her to be alive in the story for at least
part of it? Perhaps simply because she does not appear in earlier versions
of the story. Chaucer, however, does not often hesitate to alter old
stories to make his point. So if she is not there, it is because Chaucer
does not want her there.
Griselda’s father remains. How does their supposed alliance manifest
itself? Why would Griselda attach herself to her father as strongly
as Freud and Kristeva theorize if he will not protect her from a terrible
husband? A feminist might suggest that with such an appallingly weak
sense of self-preservation, Griselda needs a man to instruct her as
to what she should be doing with herself at all times. Since Chaucer
describes her as having a “sad contenance” (“Clerk’s
Tale” line 293) while doing daily chores for her father before
she even meets Walter, we know she is sad by nature. We never see her
happy for even one moment. Griselda seems to be passed from one man
to another; she has no strength of her own.
Judith Butler attacks this set of assumptions about children and their
mothers in her book Gender Trouble. She writes, “it is unclear
whether the primary relationship to the body Kristeva and Lacan appear
to accept is a viable construct, and whether it is even a knowable experience
according to either of their linguistic theories” (Butler 80).
On the very basic level, in Butler’s terms, we cannot make such
large assumptions regarding the child’s relationship to her mother
based on our postulations made through the Name-of-the-Father ideals.
This seems commonsensical: life experience suggests that the quality
a person’s relationship with one parent in no way implies the
quality of the relationship with the other parent.
Another applicable side of the Name-of-the-Father complex is that a
person’s alliance with the parent of the opposite sex also melts
into the desire for other authority figures of the opposite sex (Kristeva,
Revolution 176). Walter certainly fits into this category.
Griselda’s clinging to him seems to be a combination of device
for the expression of the author’s idea and an exaggeration of
the submission of wife to husband. However, a Freudian interpretation
might argue that Griselda thrives on her father’s authority, and
as she reaches the stage of a marriageable woman, needs a husband who
can fill his place. She gets more than she bargained for.
Exploring the possibilities for interpreting the manifestation of the
Name-of-the-Father complex is one of the most potent ways of using Kristeva’s
theories as the starting point for feminist thought. The main problem
left to a reader and interpreter is what to do about the parts that
are not clear-cut, such as the absence of Griselda’s mother. Should
we assume an applicable past for her, or leave her out of the equation?
Butler adds an interesting edge to this portion of the Name-of-the-Father
debate as she works to divide the woman from the feminine. Butler writes
that Kristeva does not show enough division in her writing between a
woman herself being repressed, and her femininity being repressed (Butler
93). This argument brings into relief an important distinction in the
reading of Chaucer’s “Clerk’s Tale.” While Walter
always repressed Griselda and her freedoms, he does not always hold
back her femininity. Griselda becomes a mother, one of Kristeva’s
hallmarks of the feminine. She is the bride in an opulent wedding. She
can be beautiful and motherly but chained down. However, sometimes these
two things are simultaneously repressed. When Walter takes away each
of her children, he asserts his power over her femininity as well as
her body. Butler, no doubt, would want to call the reader’s attention
to how Griselda is repressed in each situation, while Kristeva might
resist such an interpretation.
The question of what a reader can and cannot add to the story feeds
into another large Kristevan question: where do the boundaries of the
story, Griselda, and the Clerk lie? In such a piece that employs a frame
story, the division is most complicated. The story is about the character
Griselda, who speaks her thoughts as direct quotations. Within the story,
however, Griselda’s words are being repeated by the Clerk, so
they are, in actuality, paraphrases. The entire work—Griselda,
Clerk, and all—was written down by Geoffrey Chaucer. I, a woman,
am reading the story and bringing my own experience to my personal interpretation.
When I speak of my interpretation of “The Clerk’s Tale,”
Griselda’s speech and actions flow from a fictional female mind,
to a fictional male mind, to a living male mind, to a living female
mind. Add the differences in time and culture through which the original
story has been sifted, and the objective of separating one level from
another and assigning meaning becomes highly problematic.
The most relevant stage in matching gender with thought in the story
comes as we separate the Clerk from Griselda. The Clerk’s explanations
of how Griselda feels at certain crucial points in the story create
especially strong discrepancies between what he says is happening, and
what a reader expects to see within the range of normal emotions. For
example:
Walter hire gladeth and hire sorwe slaketh;
She riseth up, abaysed, from hire traunce,
And every wight hire joye and feeste maketh
Til she hath caught agayn hire contenaunce.
Walter hire dooth so feithfully plesaunce
That it was deyntee for to seen the cheere
Bitwixe hem two, now they been met yfeere. (1107–13)
Yes, Walter has reunited Griselda with her two supposedly-dead children.
The wedding party turns out to be a celebration for Griselda herself,
taken back by her husband. But who believes that Griselda is really
happy? Her response seems strained. Since the first telling of this
ancient story, the teller has made Griselda happy as a device for creating
disbelief and anger in the listener. This is one intense separation
of character and teller.
The more difficult part at this point is separating the Clerk from Chaucer
the author. While the Clerk states clearly that he believes Griselda
to have given Walter too much of her patience (1142–48), his overall
reaction to the situation remains ambiguous. He follows his disagreement
with Griselda’s patience with the lines:
For sith a woman was so pacient
Unto a mortal man, wel moore us oghte
Receyven al in gree that God us sent;
For greet skil is he preeve that he wroghte.
But he ne tempteth no man that he boghte,
As seith Seint Jame, if ye his pistel rede;
He preeveth folk al daym it is no drede,
And suffreth us, as for oure exercise,
With sharpe scourges of adversitee
Ful ofte to be bete in sondry wise;
Nat for to know oure wyl, for certes he,
Er we were born, knew al oure freletee;
And for oure beste is al his governaunce.
Lat us thanne lyve in vertuous suffraunce. (1149–62)
The Clerk is not so horrified with the story that he will fail to
use it to prove a serious point about powerful suffering placed on people
by God. Would anyone who truly felt that Griselda had been severely
abused use this story as a positive allegory? I believe that her reaction
is indeed a creation of the Clerk's. Chaucer, in his role as “poet,”
takes away the seriousness of the story at the end when he jokes about
wishing that his wife could hear the story, then inviting the pilgrims
to drink some ale to lighten the mood (1212a–12g). Of course,
the story has been shaped at all of these levels by Chaucer himself.
He adapted Griselda’s reactions from those in earlier versions
of the story, created the Clerk, and wrote himself into the story. The
question of where to pick his influence out in the story still hangs
in the air.
The reaction of the individual reader remains a large, and a small,
issue in the Kristevan analysis of a literary text. On the one hand,
the reaction of each individual is nothing that any critic can touch
on. It is only possible to write of one’s own reaction, along
with what is definite in the story. However, Kristeva does delve into
the matter of whether one should add his or her own experiences to a
personal interpretation of the piece (Revolution 16). No matter
what those experiences may be, they change the reaction that the author
hoped for.
Whatever the reader brings to Griselda’s story I believe that
Kristeva’s question deserves to be considered in two somewhat
opposing ways. First, the author wants the story to mean something powerful
to each reader. He understands that everyone will bring personal experience
to his or her reading and respects the potential that creates. Then
again, the story can only be interpreted within a certain range of ways
without stretching it beyond its intended boundaries. I believe that
the reader should consider a reading as close to unbiased as possible,
along with the personal reading, to attain the maximum understanding
and appreciation of the piece.
Caryl Churchill’s Griselda
Twentieth-century playwright Caryl Churchill borrowed Griselda from
The Canterbury Tales for use as a character in her play Top
Girls. She credits the inspiration for her character to Chaucer,
rather than to the original in Boccaccio, in her production notes: “Patient
Griselda—is the obedient wife whose story is told by Chaucer in
‘The Clerk’s Tale’” of The Canterbury Tales.
To the audience, she quickly lists some of the prominent places Griselda
has appeared throughout centuries of Western literature: “Griselda’s
in Boccaccio and Petrarch and Chaucer because of her extraordinary marriage”
(Churchill 31). That Churchill’s primary source for the Griselda
legend is Chaucer is important because of the great differences between
her telling of the tale, and Chaucer’s. While “The Clerk’s
Tale” makes for a piece of questionably feminist poetry, Churchill’s
telling is undoubtedly feminist. Some of Julia Kristeva’s criteria
for examining literature help explain Churchill’s choices of writing
method. Churchill also strengthens her feminist statement by having
other female characters in the play provide supportive, or at least
provocative, commentary. Churchill adds a new stage in the evolution
of Griselda’s story, and a powerfully liberating one at that.
Caryl Churchill has a strong and worthwhile message in this play about
the eternal challenges of womanhood. Designing the play with the public
in mind suggests her goal of reaching as large an audience as possible.
However, her reasons for choosing drama run deeper. Dialogue allows
the women to speak as they would in real life, or as Churchill desires
them to, without any of the constraints of verse. Her female characters
deride Walter’s treatment of Griselda, and allowing them to argue
in a manner free from the strictures of poetic form gives the participants
in argument scenes in Act I the ability to resound as ferociously and
angrily as possible. They also allow for interruptions and for one woman
shouting over another. The layers of meaning and juxtapositions of questions
and answers being shouted or spoken over one another create forceful
portraits of abuse.
All of the women express their conflicting feelings about Walter’s
behavior. Within a few seconds on the stage, Nijo has explained that
all is well since Walter returned the children to their mother in the
end. Isabella expresses relief, but calls Walter’s method “barbaric”
(Churchill 36). Marlene interrupts, shouting “Walter’s a
monster! Weren’t you angry? What did you do?” (Churchill
37). Meanwhile, Griselda describes her relief at seeing her children
alive, and some pleasure at the way villagers fawned over her. While
Griselda’s feelings are natural, if not partially self-indulgent,
she does not reply to Marlene and Isabella’s disgust. With her
silence she accepts Walter’s abuse once again. Since Chaucer’s
characters rarely interrupt each other, he does not provide similar
interactions. Churchill’s shouting matches finally allow bystanders
in the Griselda story to express the level of their disgust with Walter.
They portray anger in ways familiar to modern audiences, who are used
to watching quarrels on stage as forums for discussing controversial
material. This is the best way possible for Churchill to convey not
only her ideas, but also the dialogue and the debate she believes help
women to analyze and overcome their problems in marriage.
On the topic of marital and family problems, Marlene’s own story,
told in Act II, provides another angle on the issue. Her discussion
with her sister Joyce regarding Marlene’s giving up her daughter
Angie brings up questions about the freedom of modern women. In Act
I, Marlene’s ability to share her opinions against men and her
freedom to choose life as a single woman, allow her always to come out
on top. She can critique everyone else’s lifestyles, but no one
can deny that hers is the farthest along the scale of evolution for
women’s independence. However, Joyce, who has taken the pain of
Marlene’s choices, criticizes plenty. She says, “You was
the most stupid, for someone so clever you was the most stupid, get
yourself pregnant, not go to the doctor, not tell” (Churchill
91). Joyce blames Marlene’s irresponsibility for ruining her own
family life. She says that the stress of her adopted daughter Angie’s
care caused her to miscarry her own baby (Churchill 92). Neither Joyce
nor Marlene, however, comes across as representative of the perfect
woman. Marlene gives up a child and has two abortions (Churchill 92)
to let her stay in the working world. But Joyce, a modern woman who
makes similar family choices to the historical women in Act I, is a
downtrodden and unappealing figure. If the viewer would guess the ultimate
modern woman to be one who can balance a family and career and be happy
with her husband, Joyce certainly does not fit the bill. Why would Caryl
Churchill leave her story without giving a perfect role model? With
the perfect woman, the dialogue would end. Everyone has a different
ideal for the lives of women, and none is really the ultimate. Trends
do change, though, and Marlene and Joyce show that the debate over what
is best for a woman still goes on, though, of course, things have gotten
better.
Judith Butler criticizes Julia Kristeva’s opinion that women break
away from the patriarchal language system through use of the semiotic
(Butler 80). She writes, “[Kristeva’s] theory appears to
depend upon the stability and reproduction of precisely the paternal
law that she seeks to displace” (Butler 80). She also criticizes
the semiotic itself: “Kristeva alternately posits and denies the
semiotic as an emancipatory ideal. Though she tells us that it is a
dimension of language regularly repressed, she also concedes that it
is a kind of language which can never be consistently maintained”
(Butler 80). Perhaps escaping the realm of the patriarchy requires not
a certain type of language, but a situation. I myself am skeptical about
Kristeva’s ideas on masculine and feminine language uses. I believe
that men and women use basically the same language, but apply it differently.
Griselda’s language choices are not significantly different when
she is with the men in the Chaucer version or the women in the Churchill
version. But she is allowed to say different things because her audience
is different.
While analyzing Top Girls’ feminist possibilities, the
question arises as to whether the play also has the anti-feminist tendencies
of “The Clerk’s Tale.” Is Top Girls’
attitude equally paradoxical? I believe that the answer comes in multiple
parts. Churchill’s characters have varying reactions to the treatment
Griselda has received, as well as diverse responses to her reactions
to the events. Marlene and Isabella are infuriated; Lady Nijo sympathetic,
but uncritical of Walter; and Dull Gret and Pope Joan mainly uninvolved.
Churchill, however, clearly supports Griselda. In general, she makes
the dialogue defending Griselda much stronger than that which opposes
her. Lady Nijo, the only woman besides Griselda who sometimes defends
Walter, does frequently comment on her views on misogyny. While Nijo
usually seems overly forgiving of the men, her intense descriptions
of the abuse she has suffered at the hands of her husband, and the way
she once fought back, make her message mixed. For example:
Lady Nijo: So the Emperor beat us all very hard as usual .
. . that’s normal, what made us angry he told his attendants
they could beat us too. Well they had a wonderful time. So Lady
Genki and I made a plan, and the ladies all hid in his rooms,
and Lady Mashimizu stood guard with a stick at the door, and
when His Majesty came in Genki seized him and I beat him till
he cried out and promised he would never order anyone to hit
us again. Afterwards there was a terrible fuss. The nobles were
horrified. “We wouldn’t even dream of stepping on
Your Majesty’s shadow.” And I had hit him with a
stick. (Churchill 38)
After accepting her sale to the ex-Emperor, and her continual degradation
as his concubine for so many years, she fights back with the anger she
has saved up. Yet she never regrets her own former passivity against
Walter’s perversions. Thus Nijo serves as as similar sort of anti-feminist
character to Chaucer’s never-complaining Griselda.
While readers can say that Chaucer’s Griselda never defends herself
against her husband, and therefore does not personally provide feminist
material, Churchill’s Griselda does once. She becomes angry as
Marlene sarcastically upholds Walter and Griselda’s life together
as the stuff of fairy tales (Churchill 32). After hearing the story
of their life between the wedding and Walter taking the children, Marlene
suggests that something is quite wrong with Walter (Churchill 33). In
defending him, Griselda exposes her true feelings on the difficulties
at the crux of their marriage: “Walter found it hard to believe
I loved him. He couldn’t believe I would always obey him. He had
to prove it” (Churchill 33). Although this statement is supposed
to support Walter, it really shows that Griselda believes Walter a flawed
man, at least in the realm of love. This differs from Chaucer’s
Griselda, who will never say one ill word against her husband. The comment
“He’s only a marquis, Marlene” (Churchill 39) could,
however, be a statement of humility, with no serious anger attached.
One other comment undeniably rejects Walter: “I do think—I
do wonder—it would have been nicer if Walter hadn’t had
to [commit all his objectionable acts as discussed in the play]”
(Churchill 39). In small ways, Griselda most certainly states her objections.
Chaucer’s Griselda does, however, make one bitterly sarcastic
comment to Walter himself: “Deth may make no comparisoun unto
youre love” (666–67). This one sentence falls into Julia
Kristeva’s category of statements that break free of the constraints
of masculine language. Kristeva, after reading Sigmund Freud’s
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, came to believe that each
language depends, as Freud put it, on “One Langue, One Discourse,
One Syntax” (Kristeva, Revolution 273), but that this
system does not completely fulfill the linguistic needs of all people.
Most overlooked are women and young children. She believes that language
does not allow women to express fully their thoughts and emotions, so
women develop physical and verbal ways of breaking through; this includes
Churchill’s unconventional language usage, bursts of anger, and
sarcasm.
Is Churchill’s Griselda more open in her ideas and speech? A more
self-confident, outspoken woman would certainly be a modern update for
Churchill's contemporary audiences. However, the pinnacle question of
the Griselda legend is that Griselda does not defend herself against
Walter. She does not on her own make a feminist statement. In fact,
the situation is very much the opposite. Griselda cannot even defend
herself in an era where strong women are all the rage. Of course, her
counterparts from other historical eras and places in Top Girls
do not modernize their behavior either. What is modern is their interactions
and the audience reactions the characters are meant to provoke. If in
this 1982 update Griselda were suddenly to call Walter a vicious psychopath
and then leave him the audience might likely cheer, but they would learn
nothing different from this than from other feminist dramas. Griselda,
on the other hand, still has the shock value that she did in fourteenth-century
England and Italy. She falls with every punch and then fairly asks for
more by saying she deserved it. The discourses created on stage and
by every woman who views Top Girls spread Churchill’s
feminist message.
Though she acts out her traditional plot line, Griselda takes on the
air of a mistreated Western wife of the twentieth century. Her ideologically
poor, yet impassioned, defenses of her abusive husband resonate with
listeners as the stories they’ve heard from friends and sisters:
“Marlene, you’re always so critical of him. Of course he
was normal, he was very kind” (Churchill 33); “I’m
sure he loved me, Marlene, all the time” (Churchill 33). With
a character so familiar and so personal to the audience, Kristeva’s
question (Revolution 16) again arises: should readers and viewers
feel free to add their own experiences to the meaning of the story?
Kristeva never gives this question a firm answer. I believe that, in
having this sort of discussion between the characters, Caryl Churchill
invites the audience to enter into the story. If she had wanted to keep
the original story lines completely intact, she would not have matched
them up in this play. The women, especially modern Marlene, criticize
and question each other’s choices: Joan lying about her gender,
Isabella traveling to Morocco in old age, Nijo spending twenty years
as a wanderer. This practically asks for one more, silent, character—namely,
the listener. How does your story fit into the dialogue?
On the subject of women’s reactions to Griselda, Griselda may
potentially have differences in character now that she is filtered through
the mind of a female author instead of a male. I believe that Griselda
is much the same in each story. First of all, Churchill lifted Griselda
from the pages of The Canterbury Tales, so Chaucer’s
effects on Griselda’s character would be difficult to sort out
and discard. However, in addition I believe that both authors allow
Griselda to act for herself, as much as any fictional character can.
They instead shape reactions to her within the story, as well as from
readers. These do take different paths. Chaucer’s Griselda evokes
more disbelief and disgust as she pleasantly agrees with whatever horrors
Walter verbally and physically throws her way. Churchill, on the other
hand, draws out Griselda’s emotional responses, such as her acceptance
of the murders of her children. Still, the same things happen to each
Griselda, and they react the same ways. She is one woman. Churchill
kept her intact.
The Name-of-the-Father complex from Kristeva’s Revolution
in Poetic Language (176) is still present in Top Girls,
though we do not see it first-hand. During the course of the play, the
other women are Griselda’s equals. Still, her need to obey men
is as evident here as in Chaucer. She tells the feminist Marlene, “But
of course a wife must obey her husband. And of course I must obey the
Marquis” (Churchill 33). Her dependency does not change.
Through her method of keeping Griselda’s story intact from “The
Clerk’s Tale’s” version, but changing the reactions
of characters around Griselda, and her audience, Caryl Churchill turns
the legend into a powerfully feminist piece of prose.
Conclusion
What remains to be said about Griselda’s transition from the fourteenth
century to the twentieth? Only a few warnings and reiterations.
First and foremost, readers comparing Griselda in these two settings
must remember that these are only two of her numerous appearances throughout
Western poetry, prose, and drama. Chaucer’s Griselda was not the
absolute invention of the character, though he did shape and popularize
the woman and her story. Readers wanting to know where Griselda came
from prior to Chaucer must turn to the Decameron, or hunt for
threads in earlier folk tales. Caryl Churchill’s Griselda of Top
Girls does not mark one big jump after six hundred years of absence
from the literary scene. Rather, she marks the return to an earlier
interpretation of a character who appeared, if only in provocative references,
in the works of Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in numerous
works of visual art, and in a 1960s musical.(2)
Why focus our attentions on these two points in Griselda’s evolution?
Each shows a significant place in the creation of feminist literature
throughout the centuries. Chaucer dared to speak out for women when
few people of either gender would. He cast an intense story of spousal
abuse into the popular spotlight for the scrutiny of all classes of
people. Caryl Churchill took the same woman as a symbol of the struggle
to balance family interests in the busy world of modern women.
Incredibly few characters remain so intact through centuries worth of
storytelling. Even fewer retain their ability to stand as figureheads
for contemporary social questions for so long. Caryl Churchill respected
Griselda’s enduring qualities and allowed her to be the same woman
today that she was over six hundred years ago. By changing the social
setting but keeping the same character, Churchill makes her as much
a figure for the modern woman as Chaucer did for the medieval.
Footnotes
1Boccaccio, The Decameron; Petrarch, “A Fable of Wifely
Obedience and Faithfulness,” in Epistolae seniles; Shakespeare,
The Taming of the Shrew, II.i.330; and Browning, Aurora Leigh.
2 The Canterbury Tales, The Musical.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
New York:
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Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Clerk's Tale.” The Riverside
Chaucer. Ed. Larry D. Benson
and F. N. Robinson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. 137–54.
Churchill, Caryl. Top Girls. Hollywood, Cal.: Samuel French,
1982.
Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.
Ed. Peter Gay. Trans.
James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1963.
Harmon, William, and Holman, C. Hugh. A Handbook to Literature.
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Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2000.
Jakobson, Roman. “Linguistics and Poetics.” The Structuralists
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Strauss. Ed. Fernande DeGeorge and Richard DeGeorge. Garden City,
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York: Anchor, 1972. 85–122.
Kristeva, Julia. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature
and Art. New
York: Columbia UP, 1980.
Kristeva, Julia. Language: The Unknown. Trans. Anne M. Menke.
New York:
Columbia UP, 1989.
Kristeva, Julia. Revolution in Poetic Language. Trans. Margaret
Waller. New York:
Columbia UP, 1984.
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