Glengarry Glenn Ross

Mamet’s play consists of all male characters and is fueled by male characteristics such as dominance, aggression and competition. Even though there are no women participating in the dialogue of Glengarry Glenn Ross, there is a definite female presence within the play, as well as the film version of the play. All of the salesmen are in a race to close the most leads. The losers lose their jobs. Levene’s motive for wanting to close his leads is his sick daughter, who he needs to be able to care for. Although we never see or hear from Levene’s daughter, it is our knowledge of her existence that leads us to feel sympathy for Levene’s situation. In other parts of the play, women are portrayed as naïve or weak links. In the scenes where Levene is contacting potential customers, he generally speaks to women and asks then when he can get them and their husbands together. He knows he needs the husbands in order to make the sale but he uses the wives to get to them. In one of these scenes, Levene comes to the house and is asked to leave by the husband, who says that because of his wife, they have been “plagued” by land salesmen. This doesn’t apply to Roma’s sale to Lingk, who is the weak link (no pun intended) in his situation. Roma manipulates Lingk into purchasing with friendship, something we are led to believe Lingk doesn’t have much of due to an overbearing wife. Lingk follows through with the transaction, possibly because he feels a connection with Roma, but it is overturned by his wife, who forces him to cancel the transaction. Lingk is the contrast to Roma and the other salesmen as he is the most feminine character. Aranow and Williamson follow behind as Aranow is too soft to make a sale and probably the most likely to be fired when the contest ends. He even admits that he is not a good salesman because he cares about the customers. Williamson is constantly berated by the others for going home to spend time with his kids, something a working man should not be concerned with. These men are somewhat feminized by their counterparts in the play, and femininity is linked to weakness.