Every Fear Hides a Wish: Unstable Masculinity in Mamet's Drama Author(s): Carla J. McDonough Source: Theatre Journal, Vol. 44, No. 2, American Scenes (May, 1992), pp. 195-205 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3208739 . Accessed: 03/06/2011 18:07

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http://www.jstor.org Every Fear Hides a Wish: Unstable Masculinity in Mamet's Drama

Carla J. McDonough

When the secretsof the age were clearto him he took it like a man, which is to say as one who has no choice. David Mamet,from "AllMen Are Whores:An Inquiry"'

David Mamet's most recent collection of essays, SomeFreaks, offers insight into his ideas of masculinity which help to illuminate a reading of the gender issues of his plays. Whether describing the men who hang out at the hardware store in small- town Vermont rhapsodizing about poker, recounting his adventures at the fifth annual convention of Soldierof Fortunemagazine, speculating about what women want, or defending the pleasure of "spending time with the boys," this collection is often a defense of and a tribute to male activities in a time when such activities are under intense scrutiny. Mamet indicates in these essays that men are concerned with what women think of them, and are confused about what women expect of them. This confusion is expressed quite openly in his essay entitled "Women"which was written on a dare from his wife in response to her affirmation that he did not know much about the opposite sex.2 In this essay, Mamet attempts to advise young men how to relate to women now that feminism has made it clear that women "are people too" (22). He presents himself as a well-meaning, sympathetic guy who would like to figure out how to negotiate easily with women since "our society has fallen apart and nobodyknows what he or she should be doing" (23). The idea that society is falling apart is one shared by many of Mamet's male characters, and, like him, they seem to connect this apocalyptic view to women's changing positions in society. However, the essay also champions women as basically smarter, more focused and dependable than men, while men are described as "the puppydogs of the universe" who have "a lot to learn from women" if they can just figure out who these people are (22). In the later essay "In the Company of Men," Mamet again focuses on men and their activities as viewed in a feminist age. Written in a somewhat defensive tone,

Carla McDonoughis completingher Ph.D. in English at the Universityof Tennessee.She is currently working on a study of masculinityin contemporaryAmerican drama.

1 David Mamet, GoldbergStreet: Short Plays and Monologues (New York: Grove, 1985), 186. 2 David Mamet, Some Freaks(New York: Viking, 1989), 21. Subsequent page references are to this edition.

TheatreJournal 44 (1992) 195-205 ? 1992 by The Johns Hopkins University Press 196 / CarlaJ. McDonough

Mamet celebrates the camaraderie of male activities which has "been given the unhappy tag 'male bonding'" (87). He emphasizes acceptance and understanding among men and sums up:

For the true nature of the world, as between men and women, is sex, and any other relationship between us is either an elaboration, or an avoidance. And the true nature of the world, as between men, is, I think, community of effort directed towards the outside world, directed to subdue, to understand, or to wonder or to withstand together, the truth of the world. [90-91]

This community between men Mamet defines as a "community" unique to men, something that women do not have together because "women do not, on the whole, get along with women" and when they are together they tend "to indulge in the . . intrafemale activities of invidious comparison, secrecy, and stealth" (86). Both essays set up ideas of masculinity in contrast to or defiance of women. Women are the objects against which male identity positions itself. Men's confusion and skepticism about women, which often borders on the misogynistic in Mamet's plays, stems from the fear that in losing the definition of women on which patriarchal market society is based, men have lost themselves. Mamet's drama addresses the confusion felt by men such as himself who no longer know where they stand in a patriarchythat is under revision; it also reveals that this ideal male community which offers acceptance, fun, and a sense of belonging is not readily available to his male characters.

Since the beginning of his playwriting career, David Mamet's work has demon- strated an overriding interest in male characters, their fears and desires, loyalties and rivalries. His emphasis on male issues is made clear by his favoring of male-cast plays and by the care he takes in creating vivid, masculine characters and putting them into traditionally masculine words, particularly the world of work. Although many of his men-at-work plays have been read as critique and exposure of the dirty side of business, of the failure of the American dream, and of the cutthroat nature of capitalism, all of these issues ultimately explore certain expectations about man- hood.3 More than anything else, characters such as Teach, Edmond, and Levene are concerned with their identities as men. They are driven by a sense of powerlessness for which they seek to overcompensate, and they labor under a need to establish their identities in the face of real or imagined challenges to their manhood. Although his plays show that this crisis of male identity is intricately linked with the position of women, they ultimately demonstrate that the identity crisis has less to do with women than with problems inherent in our society's expectations concerning mas- culinity. This essay explores the frustration with traditional masculine identity and

3These themes are pervasivein Mametcriticism. For a few examples see JackV. Barbera,"Ethical Perversityin America:Some Observationson David Mamet's AmericanBuffalo," Modern Drama 24 (1981):270-75; Matthew C. Roudane, "PublicIssues, Private Tensions: David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross," South CarolinaReview 19:1 (1986): 35-47; June Schlueter and Elizabeth Forsyth, "America as Junkshop: The Business Ethic in David Mamet's American Buffalo," Modern Drama 26 (1983): 492- 500; and Mamet's own comments in David Savran, In Their Own Words: ContemporaryAmerican Playwrights(New York:Theatre Communications Group, 1988),132-44, and in MatthewC. Roudane, "An Interview with David Mamet," Studies in American Drama, 1945-Present 1 (1986): 73-81. MASCULINITYIN MAMET'SDRAMA / 197 the search for a new identity which Mamet's male characters from Edmondand GlengarryGlen Ross to Speed-the-Plowoften undertake and usually fail to complete. Edmond,in particular, merits close study because it forcefully recounts the story of one man's quest for identity and of his failure to find it through traditional means. Edmondis, in fact, something of a fable of identity lost and found, in that it presents the story of an Everyman figure.4 Mamet's comments about Edmondoffered in an interview for the Profileof a Writerseries for British television5 set up a clear connection between the world of Edmondand the socio-economic state of American society, in which women have begun performing a variety of new roles-a change that seems to be bringing about something of an apocalypse, in Mamet's view, for both men and women. In this interview, Mamet bemoans how American society is "falling apart," and he discusses the problems that face women now that the security of marriageis no longer primary for them. Mamet states "that which would give Woman a place in the male mythology, which is as a partner in marriage" is disappearing. His vision of possibilities for women expressed here is, of course, extremely limited, and his concept of marriage has much in common with the usual position (that of subjugation) of women in patriarchal society, but his real concern is not for women in this situation but for men. Mamet explains that marriage for a man now means being "encumbered with a partner who is going to both increase your debts and witness your shame." Although this shame is never explained, Mamet describes how the continuity of relations between men and women has always been upheld "by the possession of woman" so that having women in the market place vying for equal positions in a "man's world" seems the reason that the old value system in this country is breaking down. Edmond is certainly confused about his relationships with women. When we first meet Edmond, he is already experiencing an identity crisis which has led him to seek counsel from a fortune-teller. This woman tells him:

You are not where you belong. [. . .] The world seems to be crumblingaround us. You look and you wonder if what you perceiveis accurate.And you are unsure what your place is. To what extent you are cause and to what an effect.. 6

Edmond believes himself to be in a world that has fallen apart, where old roles and interactions do not work for him anymore, if they ever did. He is unsure where he stands now and seeks to redefine himself or, at least, to "find" himself. But this search for identity is complicated by theories of biological determinacy, the notion that, as the man in scene three says to Edmond, "we're bredto do the things that we do" (226). Edmond is caught between the belief that actions are pre-determined, that we are programmed to behave a certain way and there is a certain position to stand in, and the reality that the environment for which he was "bred"has changed.

4 Edmond has been read as an Everymanfigure by Dennis Carroll,who connects him to Joseph Campbell'shero with a thousand faces, in DavidMamet (London: Macmillan,1987), 98. See also David Savran, who refers to Edmond as "an Americanurban, white, middle-classEveryman" (In TheirOwn Words,133). 5 Profileof a Writer:Mamet, prod. and dir. Alan Benson, London Weekend Television Co., 1985, 55 min. 6David Mamet, Edmond,in The Woods,Lakeboat, Edmond: Three Plays by DavidMamet (New York: Grove, 1987), 221. Subsequent page referencesare to this edition. 198 / Carla J. McDonough

The implied question throughout Edmond's journey is what are his options in this new set of circumstances. What choices or what tools for survival does Edmond have? The choices are quickly narrowed by Edmond's conversation in scene 3 with an older man in a bar, a total stranger with whom Edmond discovers a common bond in, as much as anything, his gender and race.7 Edmond is soon involved in sym- pathetic dialogue with this stranger, and each expresses the discomfort that has driven him to this bar in the late afternoon:

Man: A man's got to get away from himself.... Edmond: . . . that's true ... Man: . . . because the pressure is too much. Edmond: What do you do? Man: What do you mean? Edmond: What do you do to get out? Man: What do I do? Edmond: Yes. Man: What are the things to do? What are the things anyonedoes? . .. (Pause) Pussy . . I don't know. .. Pussy ... Power ... Money ... uh ... adventure... (Pause) I think that's it ... uh, self-destruction. . . I think that that's it ... don't you? ... Edmond: Yes. [227]

While aware that something is uncomfortable about the position which these men take, the two cannot think of any way "out" except, ironically, through the same values that have positioned them in the "pressure[d]" situation they wish to escape. How can they escape what they are bred to do? Disillusioned, they are nonetheless controlled by the construct of self which they continue to enact, the construct of self based upon gender or, more specifically, upon sex. After Edmond confesses, apol- ogetically, that he has broken up with his wife, and the man responds sympathetically, Edmond continues:

... I feel. . . Man: I know. Like your balls were cut off. Edmond: Yes. A long, long time ago. Man: Mm-hm. Edmond: And I don't feel like a man. Man: Do you know what you need? Edmond: No. Man: You need to get laid. Edmond: I do. I know I do. [228]

Having lost his place in regard to his wife, Edmond feels emasculated. Evidently, the construction of his identity has relied on sex with a woman. Although Edmond seems to derive initial comfort from his conversation with this man, he has also been

7Racial issues are of great import in this play, as Edmond sets himself up against blacks as well as women and homosexuals. However, since racialissues bring up concepts not unsympatheticto yet also quite different from gender issues, I felt unable to address both in this study. The racial issue which Edmondraises deserves a study of its own. MASCULINITYIN MAMET'SDRAMA / 199

further trapped into limited definitions of manly behavior. He has accepted the traditional version of the "man's" way out-pussy, power, money, adventure-that leads to self-destruction and to destruction of others. Following this limited definition, Edmond accepts that the traffic in women is crucial to his identity as a man. To prove himself as a man, Edmond must possess a woman: he must get laid. The longest section of the play details Edmond's unsuccessful attempts to buy a woman. However, it is only after winning a rather desperate street fight with a pimp that Edmond feels powerful enough to attracta woman's attention. Glenna, a waitress in a diner, sleeps with Edmond voluntarily, but when Edmond seeks to exert control over her - to redefine her by his own definitions - she rebels, causing the delicate position which he had set up for himself, based on his image of her, to collapse. Glenna draws a clear distinction between the sex act, with its subtext of female objectification, and their actual subject positions: she tells him, "WHATDID I DO, PLEDGEMY LIFETO YOU? I LET YOU FUCK ME. GO AWAY"(271). Her refusal to be controlled or renamed8 so unsettles Edmond's tentative position for himself that he strikes out against her, calling her "insane" and killing her with the "survival knife" he had bought earlier in a pawn shop. This murder, unlike the confrontation with the pimp, further confuses Edmond. Even in murdering Glenna, in fixing her position in death, he feels slippage in his control, in his ability to name/define himself and others. This murder has started him on the path to jail, and it is only in jail, where he can no longer run away from his situation and where he thinks he will meet no more challenges to his identity, that he begins to find some sort of resolution. In jail he resigns himself to his position as being part of the natural course of things. As he tells his cellmate, "I always knew that I would end up here. Every fear hides a wish. I think I'm going to like it here" (284). At this point, however, Edmond is not aware of the realities of prison life. In the penal institution, totally run and inhabited by men, where the male is supposedly the absolute master, femininity must be constructed out of masculinity, which is exactly what Edmond's cellmate does to Edmond. By forcing Edmond to perform sex with (on) him, the prisoner erases Edmond's concept of himself and re- engenders him. At first horrified by this turn of events, Edmond comes to terms with his situation, with his own vulnerability, and discovers peace. The last scene finds Edmond chatting amiably with the prisoner about the reason for their life on earth, and in the closing action Edmond kisses him goodnight. It is difficult to follow this story of Edmond and not recall the writings of Luce Irigaray who also views patriarchal society as founded upon the commerce of the woman's body, commerce which is actually a displacement of desire. As Irigaray describes the patriarchal system:

The use of and trafficin women subtendand uphold the reign of masculinehom(m)o- sexuality,even while they maintainthat hom(m)o-sexuality in speculations,mirror games, . . . which defer its real practice.Reigning everywhere, although prohibited in practice, hom(m)o-sexualityis played out through the bodies of women, matter, or sign, and

8Glenna is the only characterbesides Edmond who is given a name in the play, indicating that her identity has been personalizedfor Edmondas well as for herselffar beyond that of other characters such as "Wife,""Man," and "Prisoner." 200 / CarlaJ. McDonough

heterosexualityhas been up to now justan alibifor the smoothworking of man'srelations with himself, of relationsamong men.9

These connections between the traffic in women's bodies and the displacement of male hom(m)o-sexual desire which Irigaray describes provide possible explanations for the root of Edmond's confusion and for his resolution. As the system breaks down, the mirror game and its symbols and signs become increasingly difficult to maintain and control. However, another reading would argue that Edmond has discovered the inadequacy of using women to define and structure male identity and relationships. Edmond finds resolution only after breaking through his fear of anger and coming to terms with his own need for emotional sharing between himself and others. Although the last scene finds him still struggling with the idea that actions are predetermined and that we are somehow trapped into the lives we lead, and the roles we play, his last conversation suggests he has found a comfortable place for himself at last.

Edmond attempts, in other words, to prove himself a man by seeking sexual domination over women yet is able to resolve his crisis of self only in sexual relations with another man. If we view the masculine and the feminine, as Edmond seems to, as synonymous with domination and submission, then it is only through becoming feminized-something which Edmond had feared in previous scenes-that Edmond finds peace. Ending up in prison, in an all-male penal institution, he has all power taken away from him and becomes feminized, sexually dominated by his cellmate.10 But, it is here, after having all previous concepts of himself erased, that he at last is able to struggle toward a new sense of himself and of his position in society, to come to terms with what he accepts as inevitable. The last images we have of Edmond demonstrate the difficulty of defining an individual solely according to gender or sex. What is masculine and what is feminine, what is valued or desired, what is devalued or feared becomes increasingly hard to pin down as the positions within this play shift, as they do within Mamet's essays. The greatest desire seems to be to define and to differentiate masculine from feminine in order to establish a clear identity for the masculine self. The fear seems to be that that differentiation is too difficult to control or maintain, and this difficulty is attributed to the fact that society is "falling apart." Yet, it also seems clear that society is "falling apart" precisely because these limited definitions do not work. If, as Edmond says, every fear hides a wish, perhaps the real paranoia and pressure are due to the system's limitations, and the real desire is to escape from or to erase these limitations, a desire that is never allowed to be voiced fully, intentionally, or consciously by Mamet's characters. The desire to differentiate masculinity from femininity is evident in the essay "In the Company of Men," where Mamet describes male relationships as more com-

9Luce Irigaray,This Sex WhichIs Not One, trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1985), 172. 10Women and the female in Mamet'splays are always allotted a negative position. They are what is most fearedand most confusingfor his men, and they appear,when they appear,only in caricature or as stereotype of both male fear and fantasy. They are basically men without power, castrated men, failed men, failed salesmen. MASCULINITYIN MAMET'SDRAMA / 201

fortable than those among women. Here, Mamet refers to the "intrafemaleactivities of invidious comparison, secrecy, and stealth," implying that fierce competition, backbiting and betrayal are female activities in which men do not "indulge." His celebration of the "community" among men, in sharp contrast, posits that men create "an environment where one is understood, where one is not judged, where one is not expected to perform-because there is room in Male Society for the novice and the expert."11Yet, we have only to look at Roma or at the way Williamson is treated by the other salesman of GlengarryGlen Ross or at Teach of AmericanBuffalo in order to see that acceptance and understanding is not common among Mamet's male charactersexcept when it is feigned for a self-serving purpose, as in Roma's supposed concern for Lingk. Of course, in his essay Mamet is describing leisure activities among men, activities such as card games, sporting events, and hunting, and he differentiates these activities from "the competition of business" (90) wherein the roles a man plays are quite different. However, within the worlds of AmericanBuffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Speed-the-Plow,for example, distinctions between business and personal or leisure activity become blurred. Teach "hangs out" at the junk shop long before he gets involved in a business deal with Don. GlengarryGlen Ross begins in a Chinese restaurant where the socializing of the cocktail hour is never far removed from business; it is, in fact, merely an extension of business for the salesman. Fox and Gould of Speed-the-Plowimply that they have a friendship that goes beyond the business of making movies, yet they also know that their friendship is contingent upon the deals they make together and so they must constantly remind each other of that friendship in order for it to exist.12 The men of these plays, then, seem to have connections beyond business, yet they cannot ever quit doing business. They are locked into the competition of their jobs in part because the limited construction of identity they try to enact relies on their work as much as it relies on the positioning of women or, more precisely, of the feminine. As each character encounters the crisis of identity so clearly displayed by Edmond, he turns to the system of business to alleviate that crisis, but business is also set up along gender lines that continue to shift and slip. A prime example of this shifting is the male-cast play GlengarryGlen Ross which establishes only the top salesman's position as truly masculine. This position is one which few of the characters are able to reach, much less to maintain, and thus the competition ensures failure for the majority to achieve an identity defined as masculine. Although the surface of the play's action seems to have little to do explicitly with gender issues, the crisis of identity in this play is translated from the literal sexual relations enacted in Edmond to the m'etaphorical sexual positions implied by business transactions. As Levene tells Williamson, "a man's his job."13The clearly developed implication is that doing a job is what makes a man, what gives a person identity as a man. Levene goes on to say that if "you don't have the balls" to do the job then "you're a secretary"(76,

" Mamet, Some Freaks, 88. 12 For furtherdiscussion of this blurringof working relationshipsand friendships, see Roudane, "PrivateIssues, Public Tensions,"passim; and Schlueterand Forsyth, "Americaas Junkshop,"497, 499. 13David Mamet, GlengarryGlen Ross (New York:Grove Weidenfeld, 1984), 75. Subsequent page referencesare to this edition. 202 / CarlaJ. McDonough

77), a job traditionally held by women. Or, as Roma exclaims to Williamson when the latter messes up a deal:

Wheredid you learnyour trade.You stupid fuckingcunt. You idiot.Whoever told you you could work with men? [96]

If a job is what defines a man, then failure in business is what defines the not-man, the woman. It is precisely the differentiation of these two positions that offers any sense of identity. As in Edmond,the feminine is allotted a negative position; it is set up as the failure and lack that a man must overcome in order to establish and to maintain his identity. But, this male identity is extremely tenuous and is constantly threatened by the competition men enact. The pressure to perform at work in order to maintain an identity is so great, in fact, that the charactersin GlengarryGlen Ross continue to participate even when they most desire to escape. Edmond journeys to a greater awareness of himself and to peace through embracing what he most fears, but the characters in GlengarryGlen Ross cannot break away from the system that defines them long enough to seek new identities. When Levene is at last revealed as the culprit of the robbery, an act which threatened to break down the structure of the business, he explains his thoughts at the time of the break-in: "I'm halfway hoping to get caught. To put me out of my . . . (Pause)" (101). The desire to be put out of his misery, to escape the pressure of competition, is great enough to drive him to act, yet Levene cannot actually give voice to this desire to escape precisely because this desire is also his greatest fear. If Levene's identity is based on his job, then escaping that job means negating the self. Here, too, we see that every fear hides a wish, yet that wish cannot be named. Levene immediately follows the confession of his desire to escape with a rejection of that desire. He explains:

Butit taughtme something.What it taughtme, thatyou've got to get outthere. Big deal. So I wasn't cut out to be a thief. I was cut out to be a salesman. [101-02]

This assertion, of course, is belied by Levene's position at the end of the play. As Shelly Levene demonstrates quite clearly, the definition of masculinity within GlengarryGlen Ross is too limited for the majority of the charactersto maintain, leaving them perpetually unsure of their identities. As in Edmond,it is the limited structure of their definitions which fails these men; the system of patriarchal capitalism that promises to define them, to position them in a place of power, is precisely what dis- empowers them by setting up a competition which always positions the majority of players as losers and, therefore, as not-men. Any comfort they might take from each other, any support or friendship, is constantly undercut by competition.14

14Mamet's comments in Roudane"An Interview with David Mamet," support this reading when he says that"one can only succeedat the cost of, the failureof another,which is whata lot of my plays-AmericanBuffalo and Glengarry Ross-are about" (74). Although Mamet does not connectthis competitionwith masculineidentity, Ray Raphael'sstudy of male rites of passagein America emphasizesthe competitionamong men as partof the makingof maleidentity, and his comments seemto suitMamet's plays perfectly: MASCULINITYIN MAMET'SDRAMA 203

For example, the camaraderie of man-to-man talk, which is vividly developed between Roma and Lingk in scene three, is undercut by the realization that all of Roma's shared confidence has been simply a lead-in to a sales pitch aimed at the unsuspecting Lingk. Lingk's desire to believe in Roma's friendship, in their under- standing and acceptance of each other as men, continues even as Roma's con-game is revealed. Lingk shows up the next day to reclaim his check, but he makes it clear that he has been sent by his wife, that she is what has come between Roma and Lingk. He tells Roma that "It's not me, it's my wife" who has driven him to ask for his money back, and this wife has taken away from him "the power to negotiate" (89, 92). Lingk, whose relationship with his wife evidently does not reflect the mas- culine dominance/feminine submission dichotomy, is perhaps drawn to Roma pre- cisely because Roma has power: Roma's identity as top salesman is secure. Even when Lingk discovers that his check has already been cashed, that Roma has evidently been lying to him, he still feels that he, not Roma, has failed in some way. He apologizes to Roma in lines reminiscent of Bobby's at the end of AmericanBuffalo: "I know I've let you down. I'm sorry" (95). Although Levene and Roma, in conning Lingk, quickly forge a partnership of lies, ultimately these men are separated by competition as well, and Roma, the most successful salesman, realizes this. Levene insists that "a man who's your 'partner' dependson you . . . you have to go with him and for him ... or you're shit, you're shit, you can't exist alone" (98). Yet Roma, the partner to whom Levene refers in this speech, is already planning to betray Levene. Roma tells Williamson in the closing moments of the play, "I GET HIS [Levene's] ACTION. My stuff is mine, whatever he gets for himself, I'm taking half. You put me in with him" (107). The "partnership" which Roma is setting up is actually completely exploitative. Levene has become merely another mark for Roma, just as Lingk had been in the earlier scene. Ironically, the "intrafemale activities of invidious comparison, secrecy and stealth" are rampant among the men in this play as they seek to enact their concept of what it means to be men.

The gender confusion of the men in GlengarryGlen Ross, their difficulty in finding and maintaining identity as men, is further complicated by the sexual-coding of their language. Guido Almansi's analysis of Mamet, inspired by his viewing of Glengarry Glen Ross, serves to spell out the desire to privilege male activity over female activity even, or perhaps especially, as the former faces failure. Almansi clearly attributes to Mamet's drama a privileging of male activity over female activity (viewing the two as distinct from each other). As he puts it, "[Mamet's] best plays are immune from any female contamination; the existence of women only filters on the stage through the preconceived ideas of the opposite sex."'5 Woman as contamination, woman as

Whether purposely or inadvertently, we create a polarized tension between winning and losing in which the success of some is dependent upon the failure of others. Our male rites of passage therefore tend to become dysfunctional and counter-productive. The self-concepts of young men, when based upon these competitive programs, are bound to suffer if they fail to emerge as winners. See The Men from the Boys: Rites of Passage in Male America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), 184. " Guido Almansi, "David Mamet, A Virtuoso of Invective," Critical Angles: European Views of ContemporaryAmerican Literature, ed. Marc Chenetier (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986), 191. 204 / CarlaJ. McDonough

threat is the basis of much of the paranoia common to Mamet's male characters because it is the idea of the feminine perceived as lack or failure which they fight against. Teach enters the stage of AmericanBuffalo exclaiming about those "fucking bitches" Grace and Ruthie whose treatment of him has somehow disgraced him, thereby motivating Teach to try to prove himself through the robbery he plans with Don. Fox and Gould of Speed-the-Plowclearly view Karen as a threat contaminating their relationship as soon as she moves from being sex object to being an acting, influential subject.16Almansi states that "the subject of their [Mamet's male char- acters'] complaints is often a woman, or that more forward, buxom, and aggressive woman, America, who has bestowed upon them a dream, the GreatAmerican Dream, only to prove a prick-teaser."17Suddenly, now that it has proven to be impossible to grasp or to maintain, has proven to be a failure, the American Dream has been genderized-now it is woman. The feminine, which patriarchal market society had attempted to subjugate in order to support its system of exchange, has become the force of the system itself as well as the cause of that system's failure. These men want to believe, to quote Mamet again, that it is precisely because of having "women in the market place" competing with men that men are suffering failure and confusion in the jobs that otherwise would be giving them identity and success. And yet, even when women are completely written off the stage, the identity crisis remains acute because the system itself occasions the sense of failure under which the characters labor.

The gender confusion of the men in GlengarryGlen Ross, while not complicated by the physical presence of women, is constantly evoked in language. Men who do not perform well are "secretaries" or "cunts." The dialogue of this play, even more so than in Mamet's other plays, seems to begin and end with the word "fuck,"a sexually violent term which implies dominance and submission and is used metaphorically to describe all manner of interactions between people. Mamet has said of his language in this play that it "is not realistic but poetic," a "poetic impression" of the way his charactersrelate to each other. 18 What impression of these salesmen, then, is intended by their excessive use of the term "fuck?"The term seems to stand as the overriding metaphor for the salesmen's fears and desires. They want to fuck the competition or fuck their leads, but they do not want to be the ones who get fucked. The dominant, masculine position is the one which acts while the submissive, feminine position is one which is acted upon. Yet the constant repetition of this word ironically represents the ultimate powerlessness or impotence, the emasculation of these characters who can think only in terms of violence and betrayal toward the world around them. "Fucking," violently subjugating another to one's desires, is often what these char- acters want to but cannot do, either metaphorically or literally. This phenomenon is present in other plays as well. Edmond, for example, spends most of his time trying to buy someone to fuck. In Lakeboat,another early male-cast play, the sailors talk about and long for the fucking they can do once they get off the boat. One of the

16 Karen is not only a secretary but a temporarysecretary. Recalling Levene's words that if "you don't have balls" then "you're a secretary," what are we to make of the obviously tenuous position of Karen who is sub-sub-business man yet who is also interpreted by Fox and later by Gould as the greatest threat to their business? The paranoia of this play runs deep and is clearly gender-coded. 17 Almansi, "David Mamet," 193. 18Roudane, "An Interview," 76. MASCULINITYIN MAMET'SDRAMA / 205

older sailors even tells a younger one that the men on the boat "say 'fuck' in direct proportion to how bored they are."19At the moments of his greatest sense of pow- erlessness or betrayal, Teach resorts to almost mindless repetition of this word. His first lines reflect the trauma he has just experienced in his encounter with Ruthie: "Fuckin' Ruthie, fuckin' Ruthie, fuckin' Ruthie, fuckin' Ruthie, fuckin' Ruthie."20 Ultimately, then, all fears and desires for these characters can be collapsed into this one word, a word that is burdened with too many signifieds and thus itself collapses into non-meaning. The possibilities, the positions available to Mamet's male char- acters are as reductive as is their language. It is in part because they can think only in these limited terms that they continue failing to achieve their ideals of manhood. In other words, Mamet's characters ultimately seem to be suffering under an identity crisis which they cannot name. They are supposed to be the empowered few in a system that oppresses others, yet they, too, find themselves oppressed. Betty Friedan's The FeminineMystique, an early feminist text, discusses the malaise and entrapment inherent in the seemingly fulfilling life of suburban housewives of the 1950s and refers to this malaise as "the problem that has no name."21Mamet's drama, in turn, seems to be seeking to voice the current "problem that has no name" for men of the 70s and 80s. Although his characters struggle to negate the feminine and to glorify the masculine in all of their interactions, and to blame the feminine for their dis-ease, the real problems seems to be the limited and debilitating concept of masculinity which the system does not allow them to view as damaged or damaging to itself. Because they have no vocabulary with which to express fully their dis-ease, Mamet's characters end up voicing their confusion in broken syntax and hysterical invectives. They long to displace or divert the identity crisis away from the self and onto women or the feminine. They seek displacement of the unease rather than discovery of new identities that would release them from a stance which is antagonist to the female without as well as to the feminine within them. At the close of Speed-the-Plow,new ways of thinking, new ways of doing business, have effectively been dismissed as Fox shuts the door after Karen's exit. Having discredited Karen as another whore like themselves, Fox and Gould are left not to understand or to wonder at but only to withstand together any hope that the system of mutual exploitation can be broken. They are left, like so many of Mamet's other characters, right back where they started, having learned or grown little, desperately clinging to each other for some sense of identity no matter how bankrupt that identity might have proven to be. Perhaps it is Mamet's deconstruction and not his celebration of masculine identity that speaks so forcefully to his audiences, an elaboration that heretofore has seemed almost unspeakable.

19 David Mamet, Lakeboat(New York: Grove, 1981), 52. 20 David Mamet, American Buffalo (New York: Grove, 1978), 9. 21 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963; New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), chapter 1.