Summary Of The Company Man By Ellen Goodman

“The Company Man”:
An American Dream or Nightmare?
In the satirical essay “The Company Man,” Ellen Goodman criticizes the lifestyle of Phil, dehumanizing the “American Dream” through the use of contradictory repetition, pathetic persuasive techniques, and sterile diction.
Using repetition Goodman emphasizes the importance of Phil dying on a Sunday at three in the morning because he was still worrying about work, even on the one time and day he was off. This is where she points out that work killed him. This highlights that he died striving for the “American Dream.” He was so focused on gaining everything that he thought would make him happy; he never got to experience his own life. Goodman stresses this point because it accentuates that the “American Dream” might be an “American Nightmare.”
She goes on to emphasize this through describing his family, a typical suburbia family. The oldest was just like him, a workaholic Type A person, the middle child was a girl and just like her mother, finally the youngest child was a troublemaker and was always trying to gain dad’s attention. At this point she puts an emphasis on how after he died the oldest had nothing to say about his father, so he went around asking neighbors about him, at this point she shows that he had no relation with them either. This draws attention to the fact that he was close to nobody and the cause was him striving for an “American Dream” that might not be as appealing as what it is cracked up to