Glengarry Glen Ross

“Marshal the leads…marshal the leads? What the fuck, what bus did you get off of, we’re here to fucking sell. Fuck marshaling the leads. What the fuck talk is that? What the fuck talk is that? Where did you learn that? In school? (Pause.) That’s ‘talk,’ my friend, that’s ‘talk.’ Our job is to sell. I’m the man to sell. I’m getting garbage. (Pause.) You’re giving it to me, and what I’m saying is it’s fucked.”

Levene’s quip about school suggests that he didn’t go to school himself, so he’s devaluing Williamson’s presumed education in comparison to his own years of experience. Talking down to Williamson for being younger and newer in the field is a way to sell his own wisdom and experience in hopes of influencing Williamson to give him what he wants. Levene underestimates Williamson throughout the play, and Williamson strikes back easily at the end of the play, when Levene trips over his own lie about the robbery.

“Fuck him. Fuck Murray. John? You know? You tell him I said so. What does he fucking know? He’s going to have a ‘sales’ contest…you know what our sales contest used to be? Money. A fortune. Money lying on the ground. Murray? When was the last time he went out on a sit? Sales contest? It’s laughable. It’s cold out there now, John. It’s tight. Money is tight. This ain’t sixty-five.”

Levene is pointing out that the contest is an ineffectual attempt to squeeze blood from stones. The salesmen don’t need Cadillacs to motivate them because they’re already motivated by the commission. The logic behind the sales contest is flawed, because when the market is rough, the salesmen’s diligence and skill only go so far.

“I’ll tell you, you got, you know, you got…what did I learn as a kid on Western? Don’t sell a guy one car. Sell him five cars over fifteen years.”

Moss’s statement to Aaronow about how they treat their clients rings true in the second act when the audience sees the ugly side of their sales tactics. Roma is the top salesman, and even he can’t land a sale that sticks without deception. None of the clients they work with would ever agree to come back for a second sale, and they probably wouldn’t recommend them to friends. The idea of closing at all costs whether the client wants it or not is unsustainable.

“Somebody told me, you know what he’s clearing himself? Fourteen, fifteen grand a week. […] Why? The leads. He’s got the good leads…what are we, we’re sitting in the shit here. Why? We have to go to them to get them. Huh. Ninety percent our sale, we’re paying to the office for the leads.”

Moss is trying to prime Aaronow before bringing up the robbery idea, but stealing the leads won’t do anything to alleviate this situation. Leads are just writing on paper, and they aren’t worth much on their own until a salesman follows them. The theft will provide Graff with a supply of good leads, but any one of those thousands of leads has the potential to earn more than the illicit sale of the leads in bulk. And if Graff follows through with hiring them, there’s no reason to believe that their percentage will be any better than their current one or even as good.

“The hard part is…you know what it is? […] To say ‘I’m going on my own.’ ’Cause what you do, George, let me tell you what you do: you find yourself in thrall to someone else. And we enslave ourselves. To please. To win some fucking toaster…to…to…and the guy who got there first made up those… […] He made up those rules, and we’re working for him.”

Moss’s sales pitch about the burglary would be more effective if he was suggesting that he and Aaronow break off and start their own firm. Graff went out on his own and is supposedly (according to Moss) wildly successful, but he also took on all the risk. Moss won’t even assume the risk of the robbery, which is central to his plan. Ultimately, they can only choose to either work for someone else and be “in thrall” to them and their rules, or they can strike out on their own and risk complete failure.

“MOSS: No. What do you mean? Have I talked to him about this? (Pause.)

AARONOW: Yes. I mean are you actually talking about this, or are we just…

MOSS: No, we’re just…

AARONOW: We’re just ‘talking’ about it.

MOSS: We’re just speaking about it. (Pause.) As an idea.”

This is an example of David Mamet’s rhythmic use of language and the way he plays with words. Talking and speaking are synonyms, but the wealth of subtext in this exchange makes them antonyms. Speaking is noncommittal, just imagining and daydreaming, but talking is serious. Yet Moss doesn’t uphold that distinction because he is seriously talking and speaking about it. Notably, this is a pointed difference given that their entire profession revolves around speaking and/or talking.

“MOSS: I lied. (Pause.) Alright? My end is my business. Your end’s twenty-five. In or out. You tell me, you’re out you take the consequences.

AARONOW: I do?

MOSS: Yes. (Pause.)

AARONOW: And why is that?

MOSS: Because you listened.”

It isn’t clear how it happens, but at some point after the scene ends, Aaronow refuses to take part in the robbery. The lie Moss references is about his cut of the take from the robbery, which Aaronson discovers is twice what he would get despite Moss pushing the risk of the robbery onto Aaronow. Moss is showing himself to be untrustworthy, which makes him a particularly poor choice as an accomplice. He’s manipulating Aaronow by roping him in against his will, as if listening is a crime. It apparently doesn’t dawn on Aaronow that he could escape any culpability by turning Moss in.

“What I’m saying, what is our life? (Pause.) It’s looking forward or it’s looking back. And that’s our life. That’s it. Where is the moment?”

At this point in the scene, audiences don’t know that the person speaking is Roma or why he’s giving a monologue about—to paraphrase—living in the moment. This is the same perspective that Lingk brings to the conversation, which is curiosity about a stranger’s engaging thoughts on life. Ultimately, the idea of living in the moment and not being afraid to take risks will turn out to mean buying expensive real estate.

“ROMA: How are you?

AARONOW: I’m fine. You mean the board? You mean the board…?”

Aaronow seems to be the only character who believes that the relationships between the men in the office are legitimate friendships. In actuality, they are often friendly to each other, but there is always an underlying ulterior motive. Roma acts like an older brother, offering kind words and encouragement to the others, but he is always ready to jump on a weakness and take advantage. Roma doesn’t care how Aaronow is doing personally. He wants to know how his sales are measuring up.

“AARONOW: I’m no fucking good.

ROMA: That’s…

AARONOW: Everything I…you know…

ROMA: That’s not…Fuck that shit, George. You’re a, hey, you had a bad month. You’re a good man, George.

AARONOW: I am?”

Roma does know about conflating sales success with worth as a person. Since his sincerity is always in question, it isn’t clear whether he is genuine in comforting Aaronow or not. One potential reading of the exchange is that Roma realizes how much Aaronow is internalizing his professional failures, and he has enough empathy toward his fellow salesman to recognize that he is taking it too personally.

“When I talk to the police, I get nervous.”

Aaronow seems anxious throughout the act, which is a red herring since it turns out that Aaronow didn’t go through with the robbery. Roma tells him that the only people who don’t get nervous are thieves, since they’re used to dealing with the police. This seems like a questionable claim, but it turns out to be true that Aaronow is nervous and not a thief, while Levene is the thief but isn’t nervous.

“AARONOW: But what should I tell them?

ROMA: The truth, George. Always tell the truth. It’s the easiest thing to remember.”

Roma’s advice seems deliberately pithy and even trite, but perhaps it suggests that he isn’t putting on an act when showing kindness to Aaronow. And furthermore, maybe the secret to his success in sales is that he tells the truth as he sees it. When Roma tries to deceive Lingk to avoid the sale falling through, his tactics are much less convincing. This also foreshadows the revelation of the real thief, since Levene is caught for tripping on a lie.

“ROMA: It means, Dave, you haven’t closed a good one in a month, none of my business, you want to push me to answer you. (Pause.) And so you haven’t got a contract to get stolen or so forth.

MOSS: You have a mean streak in you, Ricky, you know that…?”

Roma brings up Moss’s lagging sales after Moss has been nasty to Levene, and despite the rough language and insults they use routinely, this revelation hurts Moss enough that he accuses Roma of having a mean streak more than once. Being a bad salesman equals being worthless as a man. Moss has internalized this idea, and Roma uses it to strike him down, even moments after he told a distraught Aaronow the opposite.

“Rick—are you fucking nuts? You’re hot, so you think you’re the ruler of this place…?!”

Moss recognizes that Roma’s paternalistic friendliness and defense of Aaronow and Levene—the two lesser salesmen—is smug and comes from a place of perceived authority. In actuality, his place at the top is always tenuous, as demonstrated by Roma’s panic over the loss of his sale to Lingk and the stolen leads. Any one of them could suddenly close a big sale and eclipse him.

“They signed, Ricky. It was great. It was fucking great. It was like they wilted all at once. No gesture…nothing. Like together. They, I swear to God, they both kind of imperceptibly slumped. And he reaches and takes the pen and signs, he passes it to her, she signs. It was so fucking solemn.”

Levene’s description of closing his big sale is strange, as if he’s talking about defeating an opponent instead of selling real estate that his clients wanted but needed some persuasion to buy. Their sales seem to always involve a level of force, as if signing on the dotted line is the only end goal, no matter how they get there or whether the clients feel scammed.

“LEVENE: All that I’m telling you: that one thing you can tell them it’s a remarkable sale.

WILLIAMSON: The only remarkable thing is who you made it to.”

Levene’s sale seems like a major coup, selling multiple properties to a couple that is well known for listening to the sales pitch and deciding not to close. But Williamson knows that this couple doesn’t have the money for such a large sale, and as much as Levene crows about what he thinks is a success, the aftermath will be a letdown when the check doesn’t clear. Williamson throws out this dig at Levene, prompting a show of indignant vitriol, but he doesn’t drop the bomb that the sale won’t go through until he catches Levene in a lie that proves he robbed the office and wants to add insult to injury.

“It’s a common reaction, Jim. I’ll tell you what it is, and I know that’s why you married her. One of the reasons is prudence. It’s a sizeable investment. One thinks twice…it’s also something women have. It’s just a reaction to the size of the investment. Monday, if you’d invite me for dinner again… (To Levene:) This woman can cook.”

When Lingk shows up to cancel his sale, Roma tries to do damage control and sell Lingk on at least waiting until Monday when the sale will be final anyway. His antagonist in this moment is Lingk’s wife, who is absent and unavailable for his charming coercion tactics. Roma both validates her as a woman (she has a woman’s prudence and can cook) while undermining her ability to judge such a large investment.

“I work here, I don’t come in here to be mistreated.”

Aaronow has just been interrogated by Baylen, and his angry indignation clearly echoes that of Moss from earlier in the act after his own interrogation. There’s no indication of what Baylen said or whether he truly mistreated or spoke harshly to anyone, although Levene and Roma don’t take such offense. It seems as if Aaronow is mimicking Moss, another red herring that reinforces the understanding from Act I that Aaronow must be the burglar.

“ROMA: What…? Say the words.

LINGK: I don’t have the power. (Pause.) I said it.

ROMA: What power?

LINGK: The power to negotiate.”

Roma is using the same fear that permeates all aspects of the salesmen’s actions and desperation to sell, which is the fear of emasculation. Without directly insulting Lingk’s wife or their marriage, he’s pushing him to believe that he has been disempowered as a man. Roma is being manipulative by acting as if he only has friendly concern for another man, but his only objective is to make sure the sale closes.

“I want to tell you something. Your life is your own. You have a contract with your wife. You have certain things you do jointly, you have a bond there…and there are other things. Those things are yours. You needn’t feel ashamed, you needn’t feel that you’re being untrue…or that she would abandon you if she knew. This is your life.”

Roma’s statement isn’t untrue, as even a married man is in charge of his own life and has things that are only his and not theirs, but he’s minimizing the sale of real estate as if such an enormous investment can be only his. Both spouses obviously have a vested interest in their household finances, and Lingk’s wife could certainly decide to leave him if he disregards her input and spends a large amount of money against her wishes.

“What you’re hired for is to help us—does that seem clear to you? To help us. Not to fuck us up…to help men who are going out there to try to earn a living. You fairy. […] You want to learn the first rule you’d know if you ever spent a day in your life…you never open your mouth till you know what the shot is. (Pause.) You fucking child.”

After Williamson causes Lingk to walk out, Roma verbally attacks him. He frames Williamson’s role in the office as almost a collective housewife, even calling him a “fairy” to suggest that he is gay, which he intends as an insult. Roma connects the ability to sell with masculinity and implies that Williamson is not a “true man” if he can’t go out and sell. Roma sees him as existing to support the salesmen, although the company would likely disagree and say that Williamson is there to manage the salesmen. 

“[E]xcuse you, nothing, you be as cold as you want, but you just fucked a good man out of six thousand dollars and his goddamn bonus ’cause you didn’t know the shot, if you can do that and you aren’t man enough that it gets you, then I don’t know what, if you can’t take some thing from that… (Blocking his way.) you’re scum, you’re fucking white-bread. You be as cold as you want. A child would know it, he’s right.”

Williamson takes the abuse from Roma, but when Roma leaves, Levene is emboldened by Roma’s angry outburst to pick it up and continue the attack. But Roma says his piece and walks away, while Levene becomes more enraged by Williamson’s lack of response and tries to goad him further, even physically stopping him from leaving the room. Williamson doesn’t take the bait, as usual, but he does catch Levene when he incriminates himself, and he takes pleasure in handing him over to the police.

“I’m going to tell you, I was ready to Do the Dutch. Moss gets me, ‘Do this, we’ll get well…’ Why not. Big fuckin’ deal. I’m halfway hoping to get caught. To put me out of my… (Pause.) But it taught me something. What it taught me, that you’ve got to get out there. Big deal. So I wasn’t cut out to be a thief. I was cut out to be a salesman. And now I’m back, and I’ve got my balls back…and, you know, John, you have the advantage on me right now. Whatever it takes to make it right, we’ll make it right.”

Once he has been caught, Levene confesses to Williamson that he was ready to kill himself, and Moss’s proposition seemed like a good idea because he didn’t feel that he had anything to lose. But making a big sale has made him feel like a man again, and now he has done something that puts him in a corner and will ruin his life. Levene doesn’t fully recognize the seriousness of his actions, and he’s trying to negotiate with Williamson.