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
male counterparts (violence, alienation, enstrangement), both Jolly and Deeny show role models and behavior (courage to face and overcome difficulties, reassurance, ability to build a dialogical relationship) that the male characters surrounding them can draw strength from. In other words, they dare to discard "the masculine garb" that seems to be an essential "outfit" when entering the maledominated world. The brief account of the portrayal of Mamet's female characters testifies that Mamet revises the male-conventional treatment of women in mainstream American drama: first, apart from the few family plays (The Cryptogram , Jolly ) his heroines are located outside their domestic environment; second, by granting the women characters subject positions, Mamet disrupts one of the most powerful tendencies prevalent in American literature: a general disregard for women characters both in fiction and drama. 1 Concurrently, the women characters' parodying double role reveals one of the most disturbing aspects of contemporary American society: the arbitrariness of the demarcation lines between what is personal and commercial, that is, the infiltration of business mentality into the private realms of life. In Roudane's words: "in Mamet's world, art and culture, as with human relationships and the environments in which those tragicomic relationships come into view, are devalued, exchanged, compromised: fiscal capital replaces cultural and spiritual capital" (10). Yet, by no means can it be suggested that Mamet's drama evokes an apocalyptic world suffused with total negation and disruption. On 1 The apparently misogynistic treatment of women in Mamet's works is neither an exclusively Mametian feature, nor is it bound to a specific genre or time. It appears to be an essential element that informs the historically defined "Americanness" of American literature: "American literature, more specifically, was typically a story about a would be autonomous self who revolts against a corrupt or stultifyingly conventional society —a society [...] characteristically associated with the women left behind" (Carton and Graff 8:327). As regards the mode of treating women characters in American drama, feminist critic Gayle Austin observes that the pattern has been set by canonical texts such as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1947): "The overpowering impression the play leaves is that, for men, sex with women is empty, mothers and wives are necessary but ineffectual, and the most important thing is to bond successfully with other men. The problem is that this play has become a paradigm for what the 'serious American play' should be" (50). 44
