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.