Laughter in Churchill’s Top Girls: A Metaphorical Form of Expression

The study at hand examines Caryl Lesley Churchill’s talent in skillfully employing an oral yet a nonverbal mode of expression on stage. Churchill’s female characters’ laughter, in Top Girls, does not only metaphorically communicate their inner feelings and conflicts, but it also reflects universal human dilemmas and struggles. Having consulted some physiological and psychological facts about human laughter, the present study investigates Churchill’s talent in using an oral yet a nonverbal mode of expression to highlight different human conflicts through analyzing these characters’ type, time, and place of laughter. This article strives to decode Churchill’s female characters’ attempts to subtly express their bewilderment and pain not merely as women but as human beings. Issues of human identity and human universal struggles are dominant throughout the play and are metaphorically conveyed in Churchill’s female characters’ laughter.