In the essay below, Clurman explores the allegorical nature of Golden Boy.

Atkinson compares the construction of the themes and dialogue in Golden Boy to a symphony.

In this assessment of Golden Boy, Young praises Odets' handling of dialogue, adding: "In this respect Mr. Odets is the most promising writer our theatre can show. "

In the following review, Krutch states: "There are moments when Golden Boy seems near to greatness; there are others when it trembles on the edge of merely strident melodrama. "

[In "Golden Boy"] Clifford Odets has written what is certainly his best play since "Awake and Sing." To say this is to say that the piece exhibits unmistakable power and genuine originality, even though it is not, unfortunately, to deny that there is still in his work something which suggests imperfect mastery of a form he will probably have to invent for himself if he is ever to become completely articulate. There are moments when "Golden Boy" seems near to greatne...

[Even] in Golden Boy, which is far and away better theatre fare than any other Odets play, he is still the most personal of all playwrights, still speaking for himself and listening to himself as he speaks. He is still recording rather than creating, still not quite dramatically mature, with all of his faults as plain to see in his playwriting as white figures on a blackboard. But he has vigor, a mental and spiritual pressure of ideas against his material which does not let his story down, and he is acquiri...

It seems to me the first thing about Mr. Odets' new play ["Golden Boy"] that we should mention is a certain quality in the dialogue. He has a sense of character drawing that exhibits the courage of outline. An unusual number of the characters in "Golden Boy" are set beside one another with the right bold theatre instinct, a perception of the fact, unknown to most playwrights nowadays, that character in fiction and character on the stage are two very different mattersȁ...