What makes Sammy run? Sam Bicke is caught up in that most pernicious of all dreams of the industrial era--the petit-bourgeois dream of being your own boss by owning your own business and then living an honourable life with your wife kids and dog in the "middle class" suburbs of "your" nation. Like MacDonald's hamburgers, this dream has sold billions. But the seller must pay the price of the sale and the death of this salesman has a lot to do with his populist Idealism, based on common schoolboy sense of the times: honest hard work will be rewarded; right thinking (in the sense of learning your ideologically based morals from TV and Hollywood and from those influenced by same) will be rewarded and that a strong, individual cowpoke can, with enough courage and determination, blow into town and clean up corruption.
Ah and there's the rub: corruption. What is it that makes Sammy's Ideals run into his material aspirations? The actually existing society Sam lives within has a President who is corrupt, who lies when he says, "I am not a crook." Sam sees this and the corruption all around him. The perfection of the "American Dream" is being undermined by the racism, lying, cheating, dishonest crum bums who seem to be running everything and getting all the good things in life. A good guy, like Sam is shunned by his boss, his friends, his relatives and even by his wife.
Sam's solution is to the purge the world of corruption, or at least to make a very good start at sparking same. His will be done, through a "propaganda of the deed". Sam won't roll over and even try to play "Mr. Nice Guy" anymore. He's been there and done that. He's not been successful at wearing that mask. His wife has. His friends have. His brother has. But not Sam. He will not tolerate the corruption of his Ideals anymore. He will act.
"The Assassination of Richard Nixon" is the modern tragedy, for in the end nobody's right, if everybody's wrong.
Ah and there's the rub: corruption. What is it that makes Sammy's Ideals run into his material aspirations? The actually existing society Sam lives within has a President who is corrupt, who lies when he says, "I am not a crook." Sam sees this and the corruption all around him. The perfection of the "American Dream" is being undermined by the racism, lying, cheating, dishonest crum bums who seem to be running everything and getting all the good things in life. A good guy, like Sam is shunned by his boss, his friends, his relatives and even by his wife.
Sam's solution is to the purge the world of corruption, or at least to make a very good start at sparking same. His will be done, through a "propaganda of the deed". Sam won't roll over and even try to play "Mr. Nice Guy" anymore. He's been there and done that. He's not been successful at wearing that mask. His wife has. His friends have. His brother has. But not Sam. He will not tolerate the corruption of his Ideals anymore. He will act.
"The Assassination of Richard Nixon" is the modern tragedy, for in the end nobody's right, if everybody's wrong.