Moran is an educator specializing in literature and drama. In this essay, he examines the ways in which Mamet's play explores the characters' beliefs in "The God of Business."

William Butler Yeats's "The Circus Animals' Desertion" ends with the speaker stating that, since he cannot find a theme for his art, he must delve more deeply into his own experience to seek one: "Now that my ladder's gone,/I must lie down where all the ladders start,/In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart." Like the speaker of Yeats's poem, the characters in David Mamet's American Buffalo are searching for satisfaction which they are sure will bring meaning to their lives in the form of financial success. And, again like the speaker of "The Circus Animals' Desertion," the three men all lose hope that they will ever find it: their "ladders " of friendship and their shared...