Deconstructing Masculinity: A Comparative Analysis of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross and Lynn Nottage’s Sweat

Abstract

This paper analyses the crafting and deconstruction of masculinity in both David Mamet (2014) in Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Jacques Derrida (2014) in Sweat (2015), by means of a dialectic theory of G.W.F. Hegel and deconstruction theory of Jacques Derrida. Based on the three-step form of argument, thesisantithesissynthesis, proposed by Hegel, the paper explores how dichotomies like success and failure, dominance and impotence, and external appearance and internal truth, are harnessed in the ideological and affective conflicts that men characters in each of the two plays engage in. These tensions are the dialectical motors of the story and of the characters. Derrida reflects upon and undermines dualisms such as power/ weakness, solidarity/ isolation, and success/failure. It is shown that hegemonic masculinity is a performative and non-fixed entity in the milieu of late capitalism. Hegel’s model makes redress with a dialectical synthesis (Aufhebung), Derrida’s différance does not close the issue, it reveals that masculine identity is not static, revealing constant postponing and disease of male identity. Through the logic of Hegelian resolution alongside Derridean undecidability, the book shows how the masculine subjectivity of each play is determined by economic instability, the performance of language, and systemic forces that make it inherently unstable. The work raises the following questions: What does the representation of masculinity look like in Glengarry Glen Ross and Sweat through the lenses of Hegelian dialectics and Derridean deconstruction? What inconsistencies between societal notions of maleness and characters' inner lives arise in dialectical conflict? Parallel to the continuation of the Marxist contention that we bear the duality of looking and doing as subjects and workers, we can lead to (2) then: In what way do performative modes of language and ideological fissure the crisis and transformation of masculine masculinity in capitalist labor processes? The study concludes that both plays portray masculinity not as a stable identity, but as a fractured, performative construct shaped by capitalist pressures and social expectations. In Glengarry Glen Ross, masculinity is revealed as a fragile performance of dominance tied to material success, while in Sweat, it emerges as a contested site of racialized and class-based struggle. Through deconstructive analysis, the thesis reveals how masculinity is produced, destabilized, and ultimately undone by the very systems that claim to define it.