eats crudely and steals bottles and plates when no one is looking, putting these in her large apron. Throughout most of the dinner scene, Dull Gret has little to say, making crude remarks such as "bastard" and "big cock". Her rare speech is coarse, reductive and amusing while her relative silence adds an element of suspense up to the point where she recounts the tale of her invasion. Lady Nijo Lady Nijo is a thirteenth-century Japanese concubine who enters the play near the beginning of act one and proceeds to tell her tale. As the most materialistic of the women, she is influenced more by the period of time before she became a wandering nun than by the time she spent as a holy woman. It may be suggested that it is her social conditioning that Churchill is condemning, not her character, as she is brought up in such a way that she cannot even recognize her own prostitution. She is instructed by her father to sleep with the emperor of Japan and reflects on it positively; she feels honored to have been chosen to do so when discussing it with Marlene in Act 1. In relation to Marlene, this may suggest that Marlene, like Lady Nijo, has not questioned the role given to her by society and merely played the part despite the consequences; as she does whatever it takes to be successful in an individualistic business environment. Patient Griselda Patient Griselda is one of Marlene's dinner guests in act one. She is the last to arrive, so Marlene and the other characters in the scene order without her. Historically, Griselda first came into prominence when Chaucer adapted her (from earlier texts by Boccaccio) for a story in The Canterbury Tales called "The Clerk's Tale." In Chaucer's tale, and also in Top Girls, Griselda is chosen to be the wife of the Marquis, even though she is only a poor peasant girl. The one condition that he gives her is that she must promise to always obey him. After they have been married for several years, Griselda gives birth to a baby girl. When the baby turns six weeks old the Marquis tells Griselda that she has to give it up, so she does. Four years later Griselda gives birth to a son. She has to also give this child up after two years because it angers the other