26 pages • 52 minutes read
David MametAmerican Buffalo
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1975A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Buffalo
The title of Mamet’s play, American Buffalo, is deliberately ambiguous: It could refer to people, a coin, or the animal. Though the obvious reference is to the buffalo nickel, the title may be a metaphor for the play’s characters. All are figures on society’s fringes, whose existences are threatened by poverty, drug use, crime, or exposure to police.
The American bison—the species that appears on the buffalo nickel featured in the play—once ranged throughout the American West. When European settlers used guns to kill bison—both for their hides and their meat—and Native Americans began hunting bison with horses—the species was threatened with extinction. Stories abound even of cross-country train passengers shooting bison for sport. Though the present-day bison population has rebounded, the buffalo still represents an animal that exists on the margins of society. It is an apt symbol for three men whose existence depends on covert and illegal business.
Junk
Mamet’s stage directions tell us that the setting is “Don’s Resale Shop,” or “junkshop” (30). This venue serves as the backdrop for both the first and second acts. Mamet’s direction permits a fair amount of creative license to directors and producers. Since “junk” is hardly explicit, the director can choose to decorate the stage by whatever means most conducive to the desired ambience. The term “junk” is reserved for things with little or no material value, items that are interchangeable and replaceable. Even the item that Teach uses to hit Bobby with is simply referred to in Mamet’s stage directions as “a nearby object” (146).
The play’s dialogue is as vague as Mamet’s stage directions. For example, when Teach browses Donny’s shop in Act I, he indicates objects on the counter and says: “What’re these?” It is unclear what the “these” are to which Teach refers, what kind of objects they are and whether they’re the result of sales or theft. Mamet’s vagueness suggests that the contents of the junk shop are curiosities. Like the characters in Mamet’s play, the items may be desperate for another opportunity for life and use.
Poker
Though the events at the poker table are never shown onstage, it may be considered a secondary setting of the play. Donny and Bobby discuss the poker game. Donny says that Fletcher is a man of “skill and talent,” and adds that Fletcher “won four hundred bucks last night” (8). The audience knows that Ruthie also won money during the poker game, while Teach did “not too good” (9).
The theme of poker emerges again in Act II when Teach says that Fletcher cheated Donny out of money at the poker table by pretending to spill his drink.
Mamet suggests that the poker table is a microcosmic representation of the lawless world that Teach describes at the play’s conclusion. One will be successful only to the extent that he or she is willing to disregard ethics for personal gain.
Related Titles
By David Mamet
