Glengarry Glen Ross

Though there is an obvious and prominent lack of women in the play, they are left to pull the strings of their marionette, male relations. In fact, it seems that women in Glengarry Glen Ross resemble either the weak or evil female characters of the Shakespeare variety. In that sense, the transition from King Lear to Glengarry was an easy one. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy reading Mamet’s play, because I did. I found the dog-eat-dog world of men’s real estate similar to my home state of New York. And, though there’s no arguing that a strong female presence is missing onstage, I strongly agree with Roma when he says “…it’s not a world of men…” (105).

Maybe it’s because I’ve never heard of Mamet until recently, or partly for the reason that I’ve only read this one play by him, but I disagree with feminist critics who labeled his misogynistic. Who knows? Maybe Mamet was abused or somehow degraded by girls in his past; maybe he was Catholic and hated all the nuns so much that he only viewed females as only a necessity only to be acknowledged for procreation. Or maybe, none of this happened, and in the 80s mainly men worked in real estate offices. There’s no exact time for the play set as far as I can recall.

Whether it’s Shelley Levene’s daughter, Jimmy Lingk’s wife, Harriet Nyborg, or the mysterious “ex,” the females of the play have great leverage over the males. Shelley Levene’s daughter is sick and he struggles for work and better leads so he can take better care of her. Unconsciously (literally, for her), she controls his actions and dictates how he lives his life. Jim Lingk’s wife went a little overboard when she learned of her husband’s investment. She called the attorney general and the consumer’s office and demanded that the check should be refunded immediately, or she would call the State’s attorney. She obviously has strong influence over her husband, because Lingk later admitted to Roman that he didn’t “have the power [to negotiate]” the deal (92).

ANext, there’s Harriett Nyborg. When Levene went to pitch an area of land to them, she served him store-bought coffee cake. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not exactly sure what this means, except that maybe she’s not a very good hostess or housewife. As Levene’s telling his story of his $82,000 sale, he mentions Harriett’s name quite frequently. Maybe he knows that it’s the woman that he has to sell before the man commits. Sure, they couldn’t afford the purchase, but that’s not the first time the couple did that. Williamson reminds Levene often that the sale won’t go through, and they like to talk to and mess with salesmen. Lastly there is the “ex” mentioned early in the play. She divorced her husband and had the judge invalidate the sale of the land. These instances don’t really “put women down” or demean or debase them.

Realistically, a critic could look at the same play and at the same lines or scenes and say the exact opposite – that the author is putting women on a pedestal. I could see where people could interpret Mamet’s portrayal of women as anti-feminism, but I don’t buy into the notion.