the film, Barton speaks constantly of his desire to write work which centers on and appeals to "the common man." In one speech he declares: "The hopes and dreams of the common man are as noble as those of any king. It's the stuff of life – why shouldn't it be the stuff of theater? God damn it, why should that be a hard pill to swallow? Don't call it new theater, Charlie; call it real theater. Call it our theater." Yet, despite his rhetoric, Barton is totally unable (or unwilling) to appreciate the humanity of the "common man" living next door to him. Later in the film, Charlie explains that he has brought various horrors upon him because "you don't listen!" In his first conversation with Charlie, Barton constantly interrupts Charlie just as he is saying "I could tell you some stories," demonstrating that despite his fine words he really is not interested in Charlie's experiences; in another scene, Barton symbolically demonstrates his deafness to the world by stuffing his ears with cotton to block the sound of his ringing telephone. Barton's position as screenwriter is of particular consequence to his relationship with "the common man." By refusing to listen to his neighbor, Barton cannot validate Charlie's existence in his writing – with disastrous results. Not only is Charlie stuck in a job which demeans him, but he cannot (at least in Barton's case) have his story told. More centrally, the film traces the evolution of Barton's understanding of "the common man": At first he is an abstraction to be lauded from a vague distance. Then he becomes a complex individual with fears and desires. Finally he shows himself to be a powerful individual in his own right, capable of extreme forms of destruction and therefore feared and/or respected. The complexity of "the common man" is also explored through the oft-mentioned "life of the mind." While expounding on his duty as a writer, Barton drones: "I gotta tell you, the life of the mind ... There's no road map for that territory ... and exploring it can be painful. The kind of pain most people don't know anything about." Barton assumes that he is privy to thoughtful creative considerations while Charlie is not. This delusion shares the film's climax, as Charlie runs through the hallway of the Earle, shooting the detectives with a shotgun and screaming: "Look upon me!