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Roma: I swear it's not a world of men it's not a world of men, Machine it's a world of clock watchers, bureaucrats, officeholders what it is, it's a fucked up world there's no adventure to it. (Pause.) Dying breed. Yes it is. (Pause.) We are the members of a dying breed.

Throughout the play, the salesmen describe themselves as "men," as if salesmen were a select order of people—or, as Roma describes it here, near the end of the play, a "dying breed." They are speaking not just of gender, of course, though that is relevant; there are no women onstage in the play, and the only woman who has any bearing on the action is Mrs. Lingk, whose feminine power to control her husband makes her an adversary for Roma. Self-determination seems to be the primary definition of manhood. The "clock watchers, bureaucrats, officeholders" that Roma describes are not true men: they take orders and their personality has little bearing on their work. Like Williamson, non-salesmen are despicable "company men," mere cogs in a corporate machine. There is, of course, an irony in complaining of the disappearance of true men to someone who is nicknamed "Machine": Levene's former success is equated with inhumanity. Mamet implies that Levene, at the height of his success, determined his own destiny but did so mechanically. If a "Machine" can be a true "man," then the definition of manhood in this world has less to do with compassion or dignity or integrity than it does with the ability to succeed.

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