Glengarry — Zhuoya Li
I watched the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. In this movie where dirty words are all around our ears, I can see the desperation and deception that people exhibit through out the play.
The play starts with a boss motivating his workers of working harder to closing more deals. According to him, if they are not able to close them, they are total losers. They cannot blame the quality of the deals, for they cannot find excuses for themselves and they should only blame themselves. It sounds like they worth nothing at all if they cannot do their jobs. All of the things can be prescribed on money. The good guy can make nearly a million dollar a year, and all of the workers are required to work off their ass to become earn that much for themselves. It is ruthless and no respect for human dignity at all, but they have to bear all of these humiliation and mental abuses and be obedient to the boss. There is no mercy for the weak and incapable people. The only criteria for them is how much deals they can make.
Levene is a tragic man, standing on the brink of total catastrophe for his family. His daughter is in hospital and she has no nurse to care for her because Levene cannot pay for the bill. He often stays on his past accomplishments and boast about how many months he stays on the first of the board. He loses his hope for the future, thinking that he might possibly be the last of the group and get fired. He clings to everything he can to make him closer to survival and keeping his job. Since he wants success so bad, he loses all of his constraints and shows off all around the office.
Williamson is called the “company man” because he works for the company to implement orders from the superior. He does not concern about how his fellows feel about his inhuman request, nor does he sympathizes with his workers’ concerns of getting bad deals and fail to close the deals. He works as an office manager, so he does not need to go out meeting with clients and sale the real estate. In other words, he does not earn money based on commission like sales do, so he can be indifferent about their hatred toward the requirement of last two get fired. It is like forcing people to finish the work they cannot possibly do.
Moss is a smart guy. He cleverly uses people’s mind to control them for his own use. He knows that Aaronow wants high-quality deals, so he sets a verbal trap to force him commit the crime of office robbery. Then he chooses Levene to be his partner of crime, for he is also desperate to make some deals. Moss is good at analysisinp human emotion, and he can use his ability to target people to be his accomplices.
This play displays a microcosm of how the capitalism system works. The top people get the incredible high payment , in this office—a Cadillac. The bottom of the people are living in the shadow of losing their jobs. This arrangement actually encourages workers to work not only for their own success but also for their colleagues’ downfall. That is why they’ve got so many cheating and exploitation happen in this office.