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Louise is a woman who comes for an interview at the Top Girls Employment Agency with Win. She is forty-six, and Win describes her age as a “handicap.” Louise is frustrated in her current job, where she feels unappreciated and unrecognized despite the twenty-plus years she has put in there. She has watched young men whom she has personally trained go on to receive better jobs both at her own company and elsewhere, and is angry that she herself has been unable to advance.
Louise Quotes in Top Girls
The Top Girls quotes below are all either spoken by Louise or refer to Louise . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act Two, Scene One
Quotes
WIN: So I take it the job itself no longer satisfies you. Is it the money?
LOUISE: It’s partly the money. It’s not so much the money.
[…]
WIN: So why are you making a change?
LOUISE: Other people make changes.
WIN: But why are you, now, after spending most of your life in the one place?
LOUISE: There you are, I’ve lived for that company, I’ve given my life really you could say because I haven’t had a great deal of social life, I’ve worked in the evenings. […] I had management status from the age of twenty-seven and you’ll appreciate what that means. I’ve built up a department. And there it is I, it works extremely well, and I feel I’m stuck there. I’ve spent twenty years in middle management. I’ve seen young men who I trained go on, in my own company or elsewhere, to higher things. Nobody notices me, I don’t expect it, I don’t attract attention by making mistakes, everybody takes it for granted that my work is perfect. They will notice me when I go, they will be sorry I think to lose me, they will offer me more money of course, I will refuse. They will see when I’ve gone what I was doing for them.
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Louise Quotes in Top Girls
The Top Girls quotes below are all either spoken by Louise or refer to Louise . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act Two, Scene One
Quotes
WIN: So I take it the job itself no longer satisfies you. Is it the money?
LOUISE: It’s partly the money. It’s not so much the money.
[…]
WIN: So why are you making a change?
LOUISE: Other people make changes.
WIN: But why are you, now, after spending most of your life in the one place?
LOUISE: There you are, I’ve lived for that company, I’ve given my life really you could say because I haven’t had a great deal of social life, I’ve worked in the evenings. […] I had management status from the age of twenty-seven and you’ll appreciate what that means. I’ve built up a department. And there it is I, it works extremely well, and I feel I’m stuck there. I’ve spent twenty years in middle management. I’ve seen young men who I trained go on, in my own company or elsewhere, to higher things. Nobody notices me, I don’t expect it, I don’t attract attention by making mistakes, everybody takes it for granted that my work is perfect. They will notice me when I go, they will be sorry I think to lose me, they will offer me more money of course, I will refuse. They will see when I’ve gone what I was doing for them.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
