Ethical Dilemma Of American Jewish Immigrants In David Mamet's Plays

David Mamet published nearly thirty plays since 1975 and received many awards. He had become one of the most successful playwrights in modern American drama history since Eugene O'Neil, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, and Sam Shepard. As an East European Jewish immigrant, David Mamet, with his acute insight and his unique "Mamet speak", portrays the American Jewish immigrant"s ethical dilemma vividly in his plays. However, few people noticed the American Jewish immigrant's ethical dilemma showed in his plays. Choosing two of his typical work that show the ethical dilemma of Jewish immigrant, American Buffalo and Speed-the-Plow which are written in the 70s and 80s of 20th century, this thesis analyzes the ethical dilemma of the Jewish immigrants who first come to American and who had integrated into the American society separately and explores reasons for ethical dilemma of American Jewish Immigrants. This thesis uses the ethical principles defined in the Talmud-the authoritative body of Jewish law-to measure the ethical behavior of the characters in the two plays. After the analysis, the thesis points out that when the Jewish immigrants first came to American, because of life threat and material seduction, they usually choose to violate the Jewish ethical principles they used to obey; but when they get used to the totally new culture after many difficulties, they finally found that they could not get rid of the Jewish ethics' influence on them. This thesis also states that both American social changes in the late 20th century and American Jewish Immigrants in the 20th century have deeply influence on the theme of ethical dilemma in Mamet's playwriting.