Flipping the Script: Marion as the Capitalist Queen Bee and the Commodification of the Subjugated Woman in Caryl Churchill’s Owners

Abstract

Caryl Churchill's Owners presents a deeply thought-provoking vision of power, ambition, and gender relations in modern capitalist society. Rather than celebrating the rise of a successful woman as an unquestionable feminist achievement, the play compels readers to ask whether occupying positions of power necessarily transforms the structures that have historically oppressed women. While Owners has been studied from a variety of critical approaches, available research has not yet analyzed the text from a perspective that highlights how a successful capitalist woman adapts male tactics to subjugate others regardless of their gender. This paper attempts to enrich Caryl Churchill studies by analyzing the protagonist, Marion, as the perfect epitome of Queen Bee Syndrome, a condition in which a woman who attains authority within patriarchal institutions distances herself from other women and unconsciously reproduces the very systems of domination that once excluded her. The study further explores the commodification of the subjugated woman through the experiences of characters who become trapped within Marion's vision of power. Instead of creating spaces of solidarity, empathy, or collective emancipation, Marion internalizes patriarchal definitions of success and measures liberation through acquisition and possession. Her rise, therefore, exposes the paradox of a feminism that seeks equality by imitating the logic of patriarchal capitalism rather than challenging it.