Play summary
Prologue
The way they mentioned the company made it a moment of suspense because they went from the country to the city to Houston where Enron was based
The blind news - were accused of plotting against queen Mary / Prebbles satirical (sarcastic) techniques - the blind mice could be the investors because they didn’t know what was actually happening of Enron - The blind mice could have been Enron employees cause they didn’t know about the fraud - the blind mice could have been the higher status people who ignored Enrons evident scandal
Act scene 1
“There are people at this party who don’t understood” (skilling)
- looks down at people
- he thinks too much of himself
- he is trying to show of his intelligence
“It doesn’t kill you? Everyone standing around celebrating their ignorance” (skilling)
- he has ignorance himself but is calling the rest ignorant
- he clinks his gloss and gets everyone attention even though its meant to be Lay’s job
- he is trying to take over
Act 1 scene 2
Feminist reading of Claudia Row
- she is presented as a not very good person and not professional, she is shown as greedy and may want a promotion and is seen as dumb
- her personality is shocking to the audience because it’s a company and meant to be professional place however, in scene 1 they hint at her behaviour (she sticks to Ken lay)
Act 1 scene 3
- Lay is shown more powerful than Skilling in this scene compared to scene 1 where skilling was giving speech and wanted all the knowledge and wanted to be seen as most intelligence instead of Lay
- end of the scene - metaphorical ‘clearing of clutter’ proves the way for skilling’s revival and change - Enron was cluttered and skilling came to help sort the company out but they failed and rather clearing the clutter of the mess they made it worse and eventually the company went bankrupt
- Lays end speech - he is talking about benefits for the public in General and not just the rich / he is saying Henry Ford would only sell his cars to the rich not the Poor and he disagreed with this - this is why he appointed jeffery skilling as the new president
Act 1 scene 4
- vaudeville opening
- chaos , singing
- skulking is only thinking about money in his mind during trade
- fast pace - everyone is trading and overlapping each other
- swearing / abusing / aggressive (immature)
- Fastow is shown as ignorant ‘fastow enters, all smooth self importance’
- fastow squares right up to trade 2 fearless - man has power
- he is more important (rich)
- he is arrogant ‘don’t tell me what I got to do’
- fastow is pleased as he watches trader 2 reaches into his pockets and gets a whole heaps of bills on the floor - shows his greed and selfishness
- opposes religious beliefs
- he’s got self importance but it is insecure (too much pride)
Act 1 scene 5
- relation between Fastow and skilling
- Andy fastow - Enron chief financial offer
- Jeff Skilling - Enron president
- Skilling is in charge and Fastow has no say in front of him
- unprofessional cause they have a meeting at the gym ‘this is the meeting get on’
- Fastow is slightly scared of Skilling and listens to him ‘you want me to go wait somewhere’
- Skilling things he is superior to him and doesn’t let Fastow finish his sentence ‘yeah I’m …’
- Skilling controls Faustus because he increases/ decreases the speed of Fastow’s treadmill ‘he ups Fastows speed’
- Skilling likes to show his power
- juxtaposition between Skillings action and Fastows speech
Act 1 scene 6
- Symbolic of Skillings greed
- his priorities are making money not being a parent
- his money is more important to him
- he’s setting a bad example for his daughter
- time motif - he wants to know how long it would take him to make a billion dollars
Act 1 scene 7
How is this scene different to the way Roe and Skilling have behaved before?
- less sexual - more distancing
- a more dismissive Skilling
- he’s got more power now - he maybe sees her as inferior in this relationship
Act 1 scene 8
- everything Fastow does is immoral
- Fastows lair is described as ‘a dingy place at the bottom of Enron’
- Red match box - danger
Act 1 scene 9
- Skillings characterisation - ‘God like’
- comparing Skilling to God means he is at the top - there’s no one better than him
- inhuman trait
- ironic because God knows everything and doesn’t make mistakes but skulking knew what he is doing is wrong but still did it and made a mistake
Act 2 scene 1
- the important people are in the top floor
- heaven/hell - all the dirty work is down below
- layer - tempting Skilling to come to see him - hellish
- raptors - Jurassic park - deliberately linking with the movie - symbol / image
- Jurassic park imagery - they end up killing the people who created them
- raptors live in the shadows - ‘everyone wants to invest in our shadows’
- ‘why’ there’s a suggested link between the shadows and Enron
- ‘why’ is used as a motif
- Lehman brothers are conjoined twins
- LJM was made by Fastow to buy Enrons debt
- Claudia will fail and be unsuccessful because she’s a women
- they want to get rid of her
Act 2 scene 2
- Claudia is being used as the chorus
- inner chorus she exposes LJM
- she gets chased by a raptor
- ‘a deceit is a deceit’ (Lay)
- “you wanna pray with me jeffery” (Lay)
- “All that dead industry. That grey sky” (Claudia) - hellish
- ‘why’ motif through the play
- the news reported exposes Enron and reveal the reality of California and people dying because of Enron - tragedy - wrong decisions of this in power
