Character Analysis: Factory Man

A character from Factory Man that truly peaked my interest was Jane (Bassett) Spilman. Jane is the sister of John Bassett III and more importantly to the story, a daddy’s girl to John D. Bassett Junior. Jane was smart – in and out of the business world, cunning, brave, and strong willed; however, Jane was also sly, willing to get ahead at any cost, and was seen as an unenlightened and autocratic leader. Jane is prominent in the beginning of the book as being considered as having a savvy business mind, but the issue is that she was a woman. She was smart enough to run the family business, but not given the opportunity to do so because of her gender. She is cunning, brave, and strong-willed as she took on leadership roles in the community and established her husband in the business world even going against her own family. Some of these leadership roles included having “a new clubhouse built for the Bassett Country Club and appointed herself head of town beautification” and becoming “the first woman to chair the board of her alma mater, Hollings College” (Macy, 2014). Her willingness to go against her family is what made her sly and willing to get ahead at any cost – she put herself and her husband above everyone
I felt that the movies that were shown were educational but also created the most class discussion. One thing that our class and groups struggled with was participating in discussion in class and online, but once we watched the movies, I felt that people were much more willing to share their opinions and participate. I like the idea of group discussion boards, but I feel that there should be a way to hold those who are not participating the group posts accountable by making the posts have a deadline and giving a certain amount of gradebook points for participating. If points were awarded for participating, I feel that more people would