Rear Window

At the beginning of the movie Jeffries is having a hard time seeing a future with Lisa because he has pretty much decided that he could never marry her. Her life is too extravagant for him and he wants someone to be his equal, but without asking her, he just assumes she will never change. During this time, the Composer is playing a lone melody in his apartment by himself. Lisa tells Jeffries that the song is about them and it is after that that they both talk about what their future together may hold. Miss Torso shows Jeffries the pros of the single life and he even tells Lisa that her apartment is probably like that much to her dismay. To counteract Miss Torso, Miss Lonelyhearts is always depressed because she cannot find the man of her dreams. Just by watching her, the viewer quickly determines that she hates being single and genuinely feels bad for her. At the beginning the Newlyweds are, as expected, so in love and experiencing marital bliss to the full extent. Lastly the Thorwalds show what an unhappy marriage to the wrong person can look like.

Through piecing the murder together, Jeffries realizes that Lisa would do anything for him and that her career and current life does not matter as much as he does to her. During the movie, the Composer gradually starts having more people over and even some parties where livelier music is played which parallels Jeffries’ and Lisa’s relationship becoming stronger and much happier. Also Miss Torso has had many men over and flirted with quite a few so it is a surprise when her military boyfriend shows up. He obviously has no idea what has been going on and it proves that what you do not see really matters because even Jeffries had been under the impression that she was single. The Newlyweds fall out of marital bliss and the married life sets in with subjects like finances becoming more prominent.

Jeffries and Lisa become so involved in figuring out the Thorwald murder that they do not seem to realize how it is surprisingly bringing them together and displaying how well they work as a team. The viewer can plainly see that they have more in common than they believe and that they can make it work. Hitchcock’s use of the other tenants shows how easily a person can become involved in other peoples’ lives without even realizing what is happening within their own. Jeffries’ and Lisa’s relationship could have quickly deteriorated more if Lisa had not chosen to believe Jeffries. The fact that they worked so well together as a team proved that they belonged together. Lisa’s decision to dig up the bones in the garden and to even break into Thorwald’s apartment is a kind of metaphor for marriage showing that she is in it for the long haul with Jeffries. She proves to him that they are a team now and she will always be there to support him.

Glengarry Glen Ross

I do not think women were unintentionally left out of Glengarry Glen Ross because they are so influential to the decisions the men make concerning their jobs and money. I think the play makes the women seem like the head of their households. The physically absent women are depicted as the dominant sex, even though the men talk and act like they are the ones who wear the pants. Not having the women there adds to the symbolism of what they represent. The men appear hard-headed and ruthless with their jobs and one another, while the women serve to rein them back in when they get too out of hand.

Early on in the play, Levene brings up his daughter, but does not elaborate on what it is about his daughter that is so important. We soon realize that she is quite ill and this serves as Levene’s sole motivation in trying to get the best leads to make the most money possible. Her ever rising medical bills cause quite a strain on his finances and even though she is very important to him, he cannot seem to get anyone to understand how serious her health really is. Since the reader is never given the specifics of the daughter’s illness, it can be questioned whether or not Levene’s boss and coworkers know the entire truth about his daughter. If they do not, then that would explain why their sympathy is minimal or lacking with him. With Mrs. Lingk, she blatantly tells her husband to get the money back and Mr. Lingk, acting like he is the child to his wife’s parental role, tries his hardest to do this despite Roma’s efforts to deter him. Mr. Lingk is portrayed as having more feminine qualities than his wife, in the sense that he tries unsuccessfully to retract what has happened with Roma, but continues to allow Roma to walk all over him, probably just like his own wife does.

If the women had been present in this play, I feel Mrs. Lingk would be the stereotypical nagging wife and Levene would be shown more sympathy because you would actually get to see the interaction between him and his daughter, instead of making inferences about what is going on. Mrs. Lingk clearly has her husband on a short leash or she is angry because she was not even consulted about what was going on until after the fact and honestly you cannot blame her for feeling that way. Levene’s daughter’s unspoken presence in the play shows where Levene’s motivation and even desperation comes from when he robs his own company. It really shows that in desperate times that people may not be in their right mind. It also shows that getting the good leads was not about getting the big money for Levene, it was about making sure his daughter could be taken care of. He did go about it in a very wrong way, but it made it obvious to the reader where Levene’s priorities were even in the aggressive and stressful business that he worked in.