Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)

Studies - Lenke Németh: David Mamet's Women Characters: Conceptions and Misconceptions

LENKE NÉMETH DAVID MAMET'S WOMEN CHARACTERS: CONCEPTIONS AND MISCONCEPTIONS In an interview over a decade ago David Mamet observed: "[wjhat's missing from modern life is spirituality

—the connection to the greater truths of the universe. What is missing is the feeling of knowing our place and a sense of belonging" (qtd. in Nuwer 10). Indeed, the loss of spirituality seems to pervade the totality of his dramatic output. Surfacing in his plays to varying degrees, the spiritual emptiness is a haunting presence in the characters' conversational dissonance, in their fragmented, disjointed, and incomplete utterances, as well as in the abusive language they use to conceal their innermost feelings. The spiritual void "plaguing" Mamet's plays finds its most blatant manifestation in the "demythicized" way that women are treated and presented in his dramatic works. Typically, Mamet's "women characters are either absent or presented as natural disturbers of the male order" (Radavich 123). When women characters are on stage, it is the "language of contempt, hatred, and dehumanization that is insistently allied to matching attitudes toward women" (Jacobs 167). With reference to women, the male characters invariably use highly abusive words, ranging from slurs such as "bitches," "broads," and "inanimate objects" to "chicks" and "dykes." The stance that critics take of Mamet's female characters is far from being flattering either: Joan in Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974) is "cynical" (Richards 5); Karen in Speed-the-Plow (1987), Dr. Ford in House of Games (1987J, and Carol in Oleanna (1992) are "manipulative, monochromatic 37