Characters Flashcards
What is the character of Fastow like?
-Tries to ‘ingratiate himself’. -Much like he way that he behaves sycophantically with Skilling: tries to give him his shoes,’ what size are you? You want mine?’, Names his baby after Skilling, when Skilling asks him if he’s with him, he replies ‘always’.
-In stage directions, he is described as a ‘nervy, lupine guy…with an unsettling grin’. This makes him seem predatory + lacking social graces.
However, he is clever + intellectual. Good with figures + knows about mark-to-market when the other employees don’t.
He is socially awkward- doesn’t understand physical boundaries. He touches trader 2. In the stage directions: ‘he dives in to hold the perception hand up’.
-He begins to imitate Skilling S: ‘those Washington fucks’, F: ‘fuck it’.
-He can never quite keep up? Running machine analogy.
-His lair is right ‘at the bottom of Enron’- he controls the business from the bottom up. The whole business is reliant on him: ‘I leave my office, the whole world falls apart’.
-He is not only antisocial but takes joy from unusual things: ‘he flits happily between complex files of paperwork’. Like Skilling, he confuses work with pleasure, Skilling: ‘I know about your planes and cars thing Andy, I’ve heard you at parties’.
-When he names his child after his boss, and similarly names the shadow company LJM after his family members, he becomes like Skilling, blurring the lines between his work and social life.
-Through the play, becomes more physically isolated: ‘sure, we’re having a party’, he says when he’s on his own with the ‘raptors’.
-At the mercy of Skilling: ‘please don’t let me go’
-Ultimately recognises his mistakes, though rather cold heartedly: ‘I was a hero’ - notice the past tense. Skilling nether adjusts to this in the same way..
How do other characters treat/ refer to Fastow?
-He is often either emasculated or dehumanised- ‘you go girl’, ‘oh jeez, here it is’.
-Skilling takes advantage of him + exploits him: Fastow believes that he ‘won’t be mocked’ as Skilling continuously ‘ups Fastow’s speed’. Fastow doesn’t recognise Skilling’s domination of him.
Lay doesn’t recognise Fastow’s key position in Enron. He still sees him as Skilling’s ‘minion’ despite the fact that he control Enron’s finance.
-Skilling recognises his lack of social skills: ‘let’s get you down in finance. Where you can keep away from people’.
What is the character of Skilling like?
- ‘We’re trying to change the world’.This concept is echoed throughout the play continuously.
- When he firsts enters the play he is nervous. Stage directions: ‘takes a deep breath …enters the party and finds himself a drink for confidence’. He also appears as a ‘balding accountant’. Perhaps this may be a reason that some undermine his power? Is this maybe on a very small level responsible for Enron’s collapse?
- He undermines people in order to make himself look better e.g. to Roe ‘I may have seen her in Vogue’. he plays on the fact that she sticks out in a male dominated environment.
- Skilling, similarly to Fastow, lacks the social skills one would expect from his working environment. greets his boss ‘hi, how are you’.
- He sees himself as more intelligent than others: ‘everyone standing around celebrating their ignorance’, Roe recognises it: ‘you thought you were special’, ‘every extraordinary thing thing that’s ever happened was conceived by a man alone in a room at four in the morning’.
- He blurs work with personal life- counts money with his daughter. Sex is a tool to be used, Roe: ‘I like how you bring it up after you screwed me’. Roe and Skilling childishly debate how often they have had sex. Skilling always like to come out of a situation as a winner: ‘I left, she left, but I left’.
How do other characters treat/ refer to Skilling?
- Lawyer: ‘The guy I know tried to change the world. The lawyer acts like a chorus here and similarly to Dr F, the chorus provides an insight into the failures of the protagonist (cf ‘the form of Faustus’ fortunes, good or bad’).
- We know that Skilling’s story is doomed form the outset as the Lawyer’s language directly echoes the voice-over in which Skilling states ‘we’re trying to change the world’.
