"Glengarry Glen Ross" by David Mamet

I believe one of the major themes in this play is the fact that so much of the world around us has no value or meaning except that which we as human beings assign to it extrinsically. The title itself, "Glengarry Glen Ross" is a juxtaposition of two properties whose perceived values are on opposite ends of the spectrum, yet are both intrinsically worthless. The play explores the phrase "perception is reality".

In Act One, Scene Two, Moss talks to Aaronow about what starts out as a presumably hypothetical plan to steal the promising leads from their company and sell them to Jerry Graff's rival company. Aaronow attempts to determine the nature of this talk:

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.

Aaronow: We're not actually talking about it.

Moss: No.

To Moss, and especially to Aaronow, there is a fundamental and substantial difference between "talking" hypothetically and "talking" with the sincere intent to act. This difference exists only in the minds of the two men. Extrinsically. The act of "talking" in and of itself bears no intrinsic meaning.

Levene makes a similar distinction between "talk" and meaningful "talk" in Act One, Scene One:


Levene: That's 'talk,' my friend, that's 'talk.' Our job is to sell.


He insists to Williamson that there is a difference between "talking" and "selling". That one is meaningful while the other is not. But the only real difference between the two is in the way people perceive them. Intrinsically, neither carries more meaning or value than the other. They are the same action.

In Act 1, Scene 3, Roma goes on a rambling philosophical tangent that questions whether anything has meaning at all. This is ironic, because we know that he is just bullshitting Lingk in order to trick him into buying property, but one of the major themes of the play appears to mirror some of his sentiments.

This play, on a deeper level, is highly philosophical. It questions the nature of reality. One could argue that it is, in fact, existential.

"River of Names" by Dorothy Allison

This was a pretty tough short story to read... It's hard to believe so many awful things and awful people are connected to this one girl. The environment in which you grow up really makes you who you are. The narrator has been emotionally scarred time and time again, and it's causing her relationship with her lover to fail. Her lover has never experienced anything close to the horror that the narrator has experienced. She doesn't understand just how awful the narrator's early life was. And it's ongoing. She can't forget what she's seen, though she wishes she could.

The story made me reflect on how fortunate I am to come from a loving family. It also made me reflect on the hatred I feel for people who treat their children the way the narrator's relatives treated theirs.

The narrator's sister was transformed into what she hated by what she hated. It's a sad cycle that's been perpetuating down the generations of the narrator's family. And it's sickening. This family is almost sub-human.

"Emergency" by Denis Johnson

This whole story has a strange feel to it. It feels like you can't believe everything you read, everything the narrator tells you. It's like he's describing a trip he's having. He probably is! Some of the events he relates are pretty extraordinary. Like how Georgie was able to successfully remove the knife from Terrence Weber's eye, or even the story of how he was injured in the first place. His wife stabbed him in his one good eye for ogling their neighbor, at 3 in the morning... This seems like an extremely odd and, frankly, effed up circumstance. Then the narrator and Georgie run over a rabbit and Georgie tries to save the baby rabbits, and the narrator accidentally kills them, then they pick up a hitchhiker who is AWOL and Georgie promises to take him to Canada. Doesn't this account resemble that of someone describing a dream they had last night?

I think it sounds like someone recounting a drug trip. It's not a stretch.