Research Guide to American Literature
272 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
- Almost all discussions of Mamet’s plays note his adept use of language. Anne
Dean observes, “the sharklike salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross are constantly
propelled forward by their language; to them, to talk is to survive. As the words
spill out, so their behavior endeavors to match them.” Indeed, to sell the worth-
less property, they themselves must sell out. Language in this play is no longer
a means of reliable communication and has been corrupted by the salesmen;
however, it not only reveals their corruption but serves further to corrupt them.
Using Dean’s discussion of Glengarry Glen Ross (pp. 189–221) as a starting point,
students could analyze a particular speech or scene to determine various uses of
language and its role in furthering the corruption of the characters. What does
a character reveal about himself and his values (or lack thereof ) in his speech?
How do characters use language to persuade themselves and others? What does
their language conceal? Students should pay close attention to the salesmen’s use
of jargon, fast-paced and overlapping dialogue, rhetorical questions, inspirational
sayings, incomplete sentences, silences, and obscenities. Many scenes in Glen-
garry Glen Ross lend themselves well to this type of analysis, including Moss’s
manipulation of Aaronow in act 1, scene 2; Roma’s monologue-like speech to
Lingk in act 1, scene 3; Levene’s speech about the great sale in act 2. Students
might also consult David Worster’s “How to Do Things with Salesmen: David
Mamet’s Speech-Act Play” in Kane (pp. 19–45).
- In Glengarry Glen Ross the salesmen become so divorced from their own needs
that they are able to justify their existence by their sales records. After the
play’s appearance at London’s National Theatre in 1983, a reviewer described
the men as “microcosms of a system so distorted that it martials considerable
human resources and intelligence in pursuit of the grand con. So this is a
morality play” (quoted in Sauer, p. 145). Morality plays traditionally refer to
medieval allegorical dramas in which sermons are dramatized and characters
represent not individual personalities but abstract personifications (Everyman,
Truth, King, Mercy, Greed). Later morality plays included scenes of broad
comedy satirizing or burlesquing political or social situations of everyday
life. Using the characteristics of traditional and later morality plays, students
could examine the play to see how well the play fits this characterization. In
particular, students should consider what abstract qualities are personified by
the characters and to what end and the ways the play makes fun of or satirizes
contemporary political or social situations or ideas.
- Glengarry Glen Ross features an all-male cast; women have only a presence off-
stage. This fact, coupled with the macho way characters speak and act, has been
cited as evidence of Mamet’s gender bias. Hudgins and Leslie Kane provide an
overview of the complexity of the “critical and popular debate about Mamet’s
work [which] often centers on whether or not he is a misogynist, or, more
broadly, on whether we should read his often misogynist, unlovable, and unlov-
ing characters as reflecting his own misogyny or should recognize some Mam-
etian irony in his depiction of these figures of his fertile imagination.” Hersh
Zeifman argues the latter, viewing the play as an exploration and undercutting
of “American masculinity myths.” These critical works would be useful for the
student wishing to examine the construction of gender in Mamet’s play. Closely
