The plays "Glengarry Glen Ross" by David Mamet and "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller have many similarities. Mamet seems to have originated his story based on Willy Loman, the main character of Miller's play "Death of a Salesman". Although the plays have their similarities, the end of each of them is completely different but not less dramatic than the other one. .
In both plays the main character is a salesman who has a professional and a personal life and neither one of them is going well. Regarding the professional life, Willy and Shaelly are both old men, they are tired and the companies that they are working for don't really need their services anymore, not only because they are old but also because they are not as successful in sales as they use to be. Willy can't sell his products and Shaelly can't sell the properties. Both characters repeatedly make reference to the past and how good they use to be in their job, sometimes even exaggerating about the accomplishments that they had. It is interesting to see the similarities in the scenes when each character, Willy as well as Shaelly, are talking about all the success they had in the past with sales. In both plays each character is talking to his boss, in Willy's case, and to his office manager, in Shaelly case, and they are both full of anger and frustration, they both raise their voice and have hand gestures. One would think that Mamet could make the scene a little bit different and have Shaelly talking to his wife or a friend, and being in a different mood, such as sadness.
Furthermore the each play present us two men whom manhood has been insulted. At this point of their life these they are still struggling to stay on the top and make enough money to support their families. Willy has debts to pay, two sons that haven't done anything in life and he is still borrowing money from his friend Charley. On the other hand Shaelly has a daughter who is sick and who he hasn't been able to see because he is trying to make a sale so he doesn't get fired.
