In Requiem for a Heavyweight Serling's gross intention is to write a television play in something of a celebratory mode: to represent a good if witless man—submerged in the stereotype of the prize fighter and treated as an object—who becomes the victim of the prize-fighting racket and the soft-hard mindedness of those who run it, especially Maish and the mob behind him. (p. 36)

In Requiem for a Heavyweight … the question is: Can Mountain be saved from the stereotype that already has all but consumed him? Or: Can Mountain be saved from Maish, the father-figure who has all but unsexed him? The answer the television play gives is somewhat evasive, since although Mountain cannot quite be saved from Maish, the hope is that he might come to save himself by administering something of his sheer animal goodness to deprived children.

The major virtue of the television play...