Glengarry Glen Ross Analysis

Vocabulary Words:

* Dreck: worthless trash; junk

* Polacks: a highly offensive term for a Polish person or somebody of Polish descent

* Supercilious: displaying arrogant pride, scorn, or indifference

* Thrall: domination; somebody whose life is controlled

* Amassing: gathering together

* Inured: hardened to somebody or something

* Wogs: a highly offensive term for a member of any people who have dark skin

Overall, I found this first half of the play to be very interesting. Neither of my parents have jobs in sales nor I have not taken any business classes so far at Clemson so this world is fairly foreign to me. One of the things that stood out most to me while reading was the repetition of the “f” word. It even had a numbing effect from being used so frequently. Mamet uses this repetition in order to convey to the reader the stress of the lives of the characters and show just how much the leads mean to them.

In the first scene, Levene is trying to persuade Williamson to give him a good lead. He says, “Do I want charity? Do I want pity? I want sits. I want leads don’t come right out of a phone book. Give me a lead hotter than that, I’ll go in and close it. Give me a chance. That’s all I want.” Part of me felt like Levene was being manipulative in trying to convince Williamson to break the rules and give him a good lead but another part of me was really able to empathize with Levene. The “board” of good sellers just sets the stage for a difficult cycle. If you don’t sell, you don’t get on the board, and if you don’t get on the board, you don’t get the good leads, which means it is even less likely that you will be able to make good sales. This system reminded me in a way of something we are talking about in my sociology class called stratification. There are different types of stratification but in particular we studied the Caste system in India, where people find themselves stuck in the class that they are born into; class mobility is extremely limited. Like someone in the Caste system, Levene finds himself stuck, and he feels as if his only option is to break the rules.

In the second scene, Moss is trying to manipulate Aaronow into robbing the office and stealing the good leads. Manipulation proves to be an important theme in the play, although Moss’ manipulation is portrayed to the reader as being more immoral that Levene’s. Moss expresses his frustration with the system, “you find yourself in thrall to someone else. And we enslave ourselves. To please.” He is unhappy with being the “lower man on the totem pole,” so to speak, and he desires upward mobility. Really, his desires are essentially the same as Levene’s, but instead of trying to reason with another employee like Levene did, he threatened Aaronow into robbing the office to fulfill his own selfish wishes.

Mamet presents a contrast in the third scene with Roma when George asks him what he should tell the police. Roma replies, “The truth, George. Always tell the truth. It’s the easiest thing to remember.” After two scenes of manipulation, Mamet finally introduces truth. This definitely stuck out to me about Roma and I am interested to see how his character develops in the remainder of the play.