Glengarry, Glen Ross | Themes

Glengarry, Glen Ross Themes

The plot of Glengarry Glen Ross is simple: in Act I in three brief two-person scenes set in a Chinese restaurant we meet the principal characters and learn that they are under extreme pressure to sell apparently worthless land in Florida and that to succeed in this they need good sales "leads," which are under the control of the reptilian office manager, Williamson. Act n begins the next morning; the office has been ransacked and the leads stolen. The act ends with the apprehension of Levene, one of the salesmen, as the thief.

Duty and Responsibility

The major theme of Glengarry Glen Ross is business and, by extension, capitalism. Mamet never discusses, neither to praise nor to condemn, the workings of business; he shows the quintessential paradigm of business, the salesman, striving to survive by his wits in the system and how it damages and drains his better humanity. In the published...
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