In the novel Cannery Row and the play Glengarry Glen Ross, authors John Steinbeck and David Mamet present characters whose approach to existence appears quite dissimilar on the surface. Mack and the boys from Cannery Row place little value on extravagant material possessions. They possess no ambition other than to have very basic shelter and food; they do not compete with each other or town residents to accumulate goods or social status. The real estate salespeople in Glengarry Glen Ross, on the other hand, thrive on workplace competition to acquire possessions that will signify their success. If one accepts Steinbeck’s point of view, then Mack and the boys are morally and emotionally superior to the agents in Glengarry Glen Ross. However, the individuals in both works routinely lie to others. Through their lies, they leech what they need or want from other people. Both groups rely on a language of deception to exploit others and achieve their goals. Ultimately, though, Steinbeck imbues Mack and his cohorts with some moral ambiguity, in contrast to Mamet’s depiction of severely morally compromised and unrepentant characters.
Steinbeck introduces Mack early in Cannery Row, when Mack enters the local grocery to suggest a business proposition to the store owner. Steinbeck describes Mack: “Mack was the elder, leader, mentor, and to a small extent the exploiter of a little group of men who had in common no families, no money, and no ambitions beyond food, drink, and contentment” (9-10). Steinbeck characterizes Mack as being disarmingly straightforward; he states, “Mack laid out his cards with a winning honesty” (10). What follows is honesty, but also threatening. Mack suggests that vandals may break the windows and fires may damage the fish meal building.
However, Steinbeck also provides positive aspects of the conversation. When Chong and Mack dicker over the rent, they both use a language of deception to save face: Mack pretends he and the boys have the money and intention to pay rent, while Chong pretends not to have been intimidated into the deal. Although the rent does not get paid in money, Mack and the boys do provide services to Chong such as assisting with unruly customers, and they shift their outright theft of groceries to another store. With this anecdote, Steinbeck establishes the overall arc of Mack and the boys. They lie. They deceive. They steal. They threaten occasionally, albeit with a pleasant face and tone. They do not, however, engage in any serious harm, nor do they intend to harm anyone else. Their overall sympathetic descriptions in the book serve as a reminder of Steinbeck’s “hatred of middle-class acquisitiveness and ambition, and his warm sympathy for outsiders who form a natural community built on impulse and fellow-feeling” (Dickstein 113).
Steinbeck provides an extended version of their arc when Mack and the boys undertake to throw a surprise party for Doc. Fundamentally, Mack asks Doc to finance his own surprise party by agreeing to purchase frogs the boys plan to capture,. Again, though, Mack is unable to conduct any business deal with complete honesty. When Doc arranges for Mack to get gasoline at Red Williams’ gas station, Mack attempts to get cash instead. Doc had the foresight to anticipate this maneuver, so Williams does not agree to Mack’s request. Doc’s foresight and Williams’ reaction to it signify that Mack has a reputation for dishonesty. While Mack and the boys are waiting to catch the frogs, Jones feels compelled to lie that he likes the taste of beer, wine and whiskey mixed together so that Eddie does not stay offended.
During this interval, an important conversation about lying takes place when Mack finally bursts out, “God damn it. I hate a liar” (80). Mack reveals they have all been lying to themselves: “We worked it out that we wanted to give Doc a party. So we come out here and have a hell of a lot of fun. Then we’ll go back and get the dough from Doc. There’s five of us, so we’ll drink five times as much liquor as he will. And I ain’t sure we’re doin’ it for Doc. I ain’t sure we ain’t doin’ it for ourselves” (80-81). Mack then relates he told Doc a lie so blatant that Doc knew it was a lie. Mack gives Doc’s response to his admission of lying, and Doc’s words reflect Steinbeck’s own attitude toward Mack and the boys;, Doc sats, “I figure a guy that needs it bad enough to make up a lie to get it, really needs it” (81). By this time, it seems apparent that Mack’s default conversational technique is lying.
The language of deception that Mack and the boys use plays a definite role in establishing their characters. They lie, but do so primarily out of good intentions. They lie to obtain small things they need or want. They like to prevent hurting someone’s feelings. They lie to mask that they want to do something good for someone else. For the most part, their lies do not cause significant financial or emotional damage. Steinbeck addresses their moral challenges as he does in his other works; as Li remarks about Steinbeck, “The majority of his writings, fictional and non-fictional, directly address the moral contortions of individual Americans, their social groups, and the nation as a whole (63).
In much the same way that Steinbeck does in Cannery Row, Mamet establishes his characters in Glengarry Glen Ross very early as constantly using a language of deception to achieve their goals. In the first scene, when Levene attempts to explain why his last few attempted sales have not worked out, Williamson questions his truthfulness by saying, “Four. You had four leads. One kicked out, one the judge, you say” (1.1.2). As their conversation continues, Levene and Williamson haggle over leads, and again, lies are apparent. Levene asks for two leads, and Williamson claims, “I'm not sure I have two,” followed by Levene contradicting him, “I saw the board. You've got four” (1.1.10). The first scene concludes with Levene lying to save face.
Having established that each of these first two characters lies and cannot be trusted, Mamet reinforces the theme of the language of deception being the standard mode of discourse among these men and their customers. In the second scene, the agent Moss uses subjunctive mood to suggest breaking into the office; he states, “We were, if we were that kind of guys [italics mine], to knock it off, and trash the joint, it looks like robbery, and take the fuckin' leads out of the filesgo to Jerry Graff” (1.2.23). Aaronow tries to confirm that their discussion is purely hypothetical in this exchange:
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.
AARONOW: As an idea.
MOSS: Yes. (1.2.24)
Then Moss essentially blackmails Aaronow into participating in a real plan to steal the leads by threatening to turn him in as an accessory to the crime, simply for having listened to Moss’s plans. Aaronow listens in shock as Moss says, “Well, to the law, you're an accessory. Before the fact” (1.2.31). Throughout this entire conversation, Moss has used deliberate deception to put Aaronow in a position where he must commit a crime or face going to jail. Moss reveals himself to be someone who has no scruples in lying to customers or colleagues.
Mamet constructs a tour de force of deception in the second act of the play, when a customer shows up at the office to cancel the contract he had signed the previous day. The agent Roma arranges for Levene to pretend to be an important customer so that Roma can avoid any prolonged discussion with the customer, Lingk. Following that deception, Roma attempts to trick Lingk into thinking he has longer than three days to change his mind. Roma also reassures Lingk that the real estate company has not cashed his check, but Williamson interrupts them to reassure Lingk; he says, “Your check was cashed yesterday afternoon” (2.1.80). When Levene admonishes Williamson never to make something up, such as the check being cashed, unless he knows it will help, Williamson uses that comment to trap Levene. Obviously Levene knew Williams’ statement about the check was a lie, and could only have known it was a lie by having seen the check on Williamson’s desk the preceding night while burglarizing the office. Mamet concludes the play with Roma’s revelation that although he agreed to be partners with Levene, he is not splitting his leads with him but will take 50% of Levene’s commission. Thus, Roma also reveals himself to be like Moss, willing to deceive both strangers and colleagues.
Unlike the lies in Cannery Row, the deception that the real estate agents practice in Glengarry Glen Ross is purely for reasons of self-interest. Their intent in using a language of deception is purely to make money. Their lies cause significant financial harm to others, as well as emotional damage. Although Mamet only includes one customer/victim in the play, the dialogue makes it clear that these men have sold worthless real estate to hundreds of people.
Steinbeck and Mamet employ a language of deceit in their respective works that differs in tone, level of sophistication, and the effect on the reader’s response to the characters. In Cannery Row, Mack and his group use a very informal tone that on the surface appears to be straightforward, almost folksy, when they lie. Their language is not particularly sophisticated, and neither is their deception. To many readers, Mack’s lying and that of his group would seem at best undesirable behavior and at worst a fatal character flaw. However, Steinbeck also gives Mack and the boys a redemption arc, allowing them to arrange a party that almost everyone enjoys. This apparent contrast between Steinbeck’s characterization of Mack and the boys as morally superior while still showing them engaging in some morally questionable activities may be partly responsible for the lukewarm critical reception Cannery Row received when first published; as Simmonds notes that “critics as a whole were not impressed” (29). However, while readers might strenuously disagree with Doc’s assessment of Mack and the boys as “true philosophers” (141), readers would also likely dismiss the group as relatively harmless.
Not so with Mamet’s characters. The real estate agents consistently use a very earnest tone when deceiving each other or customers; that tone is intended to convince the listener that the agent is in fact being quite honest. The level of sophistication is higher than that of Mack and the boys; the agents tell complicated lies about property, about leads, and about legal issues. These are not men who lie because they do not know any better or cannot do anything else; they lie because deception is a critical part of their job. In terms of reader response to their deception, again the response differs a great deal from the response to Steinbeck’s characters. Mamet gives his agents virtually no good qualities. Readers will respond to these characters by loathing them.
In considering these two texts, one can also assess to what extent the author achieved his intended purpose. Steinbeck’s authorial intent is made manifest throughout Cannery Row by the comments of Doc and other characters. He regards Mack and the boys as uncontaminated by 20th century materialism. Steinbeck refers to the group as the virtues, the beauties, and the graces, implying that their refusal to become caught up in the 20th century rat race makes them more pure than the other residents of an entire world that corrupts humans into always wanting more. However, Steinbeck injects enough moral ambiguity into his characters that one cannot regard them as heroic. On the other hand, Mamet made a narrative choice not to give his characters any redeeming characteristics. Their continuous use of deception defines who they are and how they live; they have been completely corrupted by the desire for material goods, and this depiction reflects Mamet’s intent. Glengarry Glen Ross, in addition to other works of Mamet’s, has been described as a “scathing critique of how capitalism erodes our ability to act ethically and treat each other humanely” (Ethics 174). Where Steinbeck gave his characters moral ambiguity, Mamet paints his with a moral certainty, and that moral certainty is that their wants and needs for material possessions completely trump ethical behavior. As Collard remarked about the play, “[W]hile Levene’s theft of the company’s files is considered criminal, deceiving clients by selling them worthless Florida swampland makes for good business. The play takes no hostages en route to depicting a ruthless world where winners drive Cadillacs and losers get steak knives” (90). Mamet’s characters exemplify the very corruption of the world to which Steinbeck deemed Mack and the boys immune.
Works Cited
Collard, Christophe. "Adaptive Collaboration, Collaborative Adaptation: Filming The Mamet Canon." Adaptation 3.2 (2010): 82. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
Dickstein, Morris. "Steinbeck And The Great Depression." South Atlantic Quarterly 103.1 (2004): 111-131. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
"Ethics And Capitalism In The Screenplays Of David Mamet." Literature Film Quarterly 39.3 (2011): 174-189. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
Li, Luchen. "Steinbeck's Ethical Dimensions." Steinbeck Review 6.1 (2009): 63. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
Mamet, David. Glengarry Glen Ross: A Play by David Mamet. New York: Grove Press, 1984.
Simmonds, Roy. "Chapter One: The Wandering Years (1940-1945)." Steinbeck Review 7.2 (2010): 23. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
Steinbeck, John. Cannery Row. New York: Penguin, 1992. Kindle Edition.
