Content Synopsis

As is typical of David Mamet’s plays, most of the action is in the form of dialogue. In addition, all of “Oleanna’s” action takes place in a single setting. The curtain rises to reveal a student, Carol, who is sitting quietly and patiently waiting in the office of her teacher, John, as he carries on a telephone conversation that is already in progress. Telephone conversations occur throughout the play, and each one interrupts one of the meetings between John and Carol. Furthermore, in every case, only John’s side of the exchange is heard, which imbues their performance with a greater level of realism, as if the audience were witness to an actual telephone conversation. However, this device also places audience members in a position similar to Carol’s. While the intensity of these telephone conversations entices them, like Carol, to eavesdrop, complete access to the content of these conversations is likewise restricted to what they can hear from John’s end. Just like Carol, audience members are forced to piece together the meaning and significance of these conversations from mere fragments.

After John concludes this initial telephone conversation, the first words spoken are Carol’s inquiry regarding the meaning of a phrase she heard John use while on the phone. “What is a ‘term of art’?” (2), she asks. At first, John avoids answering her question and instead attempts to direct the conversation to the reason for Carol’s presence in his office. She has simply come to her teacher’s office during his office hours looking for assistance with the theoretical material he has been presenting in class. Carol also seems to lack some of the skills that would help her succeed academically and hopes to receive some help in this area, as well.

John’s initial demeanor leaves Carol feeling scolded, and she asks if she has done something wrong. John immediately softens his approach. He finally answers Carol’s question about the phrase “term of art,” saying: “It seems to mean a term, which has come, through its use, to mean something more specific than the words would to someone not acquainted with them… indicate. That, I believe, is what a ‘term of art,’ would mean” (3). Noticing the qualifications in John’s definition (e.g., “seems to mean”; “I believe”; “would mean”), Carol then asks, “You don’t know what it means …?” and John must admit, “I’m not sure I know what it means” (3). Mamet here draws attention to two key features regarding the communication that will make up the rest of the play. First, much of the language used by John in the beginning of the play, and much of the language taken up by Carol toward the end of the play, are essentially “terms of art” specific to a particular environment and usage—higher education and law, respectively. Second, much of the language is employed without a strict understanding of its meaning. It does not seem to matter whether the meaning in question is denotative, connotative, contextual, or individualized to a speaker’s delivery. He also changes his persona from that of a busy academician who is reluctant to sacrifice his time for a student struggling with what he considers the “basic” concepts of the course to that of an accessible, patient, and nurturing mentor. In doing so, John will say a variety of things and make a variety of gestures that are inappropriate for a (male) teacher to use with his (female) student or that may be interpreted as such.

The instances of inappropriate behavior serve to foreground the degree of John’s commitment to his chosen profession, his level of regard for the system of higher education of which he is a part, and the nature of his relationship with the specific academic institution that provides his livelihood. For instance, John responds to Carol’s expression of confusion about his book—the text for the course wherein he is her instructor—with the statement: “Well, perhaps, it’s not well written” (11). He then reacts to Carol’s fear that she will fail the course with the flippant remark that “it’s just a course, it’s just a book” (12). Later, John goes so far as to denounce whole facets of education, declaring that to “learn, study, [and] retain” is nothing but “garbage” (16) and that tests are “nonsense” (23). He refers to the committee that is currently reviewing his performance at the university in order to extend him tenure as “a joke,” and of its members, he tells Carol flatly, “I wouldn’t employ [them] to wax my car” (23).

At this point, John’s questionable behavior begins to take a different form. He now becomes too familiar. John offers Carol some “fatherly” advice, but says, “I don’t know how to do it, other than to be personal” (19). Carol asks him, “Why would you want to be personal with me?” (19), but the phone rings, and John answers it before answering Carol. Carol learns that the stream of telephone calls are the result of John’s efforts—based on the expectation that he will soon receive tenure and a corresponding increase in salary—to buy a new house. When Carol asks John why he has stayed in his office with her when he clearly has pressing matters to deal with elsewhere, John says, “Because I like you,” and the assertion also seems to apply to Carol’s previously unanswered question about John’s desire to “be personal” with Carol. John then follows this statement with the suggestion that he and Carol “take off the Artificial Stricture, of ‘Teacher,’ and ‘Student’” (21). John then recklessly proposes a “deal” with Carol—he will change her grade for the term to an “A,” so long as she agrees to “come back and meet with [him]. A few more times” (25). John retains this unfortunate tone by later speaking of his wish to awaken Carol’s interest. To make matters worse, John replies to one of Carol’s questions by way of an off-color and opaque analogy about the frequency with which the rich copulate in comparison to the poor.

The first act ends with John’s attempt to put his arm around Carol, an act he sees as an avuncular gesture of reassurance for an otherwise inconsolable student. However, the gesture comes too soon after Carol’s desperate cry of “what do you want with me?” (36). Carol shouts “no!” and flees to the other side of the room. In fact, during much of the latter part of the first act, John has been trying hard to get Carol to interact with him, as he said, outside the “stricture of teacher and student.” He has been pressuring and cajoling her to share with him some aspect of her personal life or her intimate feelings. Yet, as Carol is on the verge of making just such a difficult and personal confession—presumably about her self-image—the phone rings, and John answers it. Carol’s confession has been thwarted, and before the conversation can resume, John perfunctorily indicates that he must leave—his wife has planned a surprise party in celebration of his imminent tenure and promotion, and his meeting with Carol has delayed his arrival, causing his wife and the guests to wonder whether he is likely to show up at all.

When the second act begins, John appears seated on the edge of his desk lecturing Carol. In this lengthy opening monologue, John attempts to justify his pursuit of tenure in spite of the persona he chooses to present as a kind of “maverick,” to praise the system of tenure he had earlier denigrated, and to urge Carol’s withdrawal of a formal complaint. As the act progresses that audience members are given the information that Carol has reported John’s unprofessional behavior and charged him with sexual harassment. It also becomes increasingly clear that John’s provocative words and actions of the first act represent a mountain of evidence sufficient to demonstrate his unprofessional behavior and to cast doubt on his intentions. The complaint, then, threatens to cost John any chance of receiving tenure and threatens to cost him his job at the university.

In an attempt to salvage his reputation and his promotion, John tries to convince Carol that her claims are ridiculous and that bringing her suit is likely to create more problems for her than for him. He is, after all, a member of the academy, and she is just a student. He argues it would therefore, be in her own best interest to withdraw the complaint. Carol responds with indignation. She underscores the damning nature of the evidence against him and draws John’s attention to the advantage she wields as the result of her newly acquired position of power. Carol also refers, for the first time, to the unnamed “group” lending her moral support. She implies that this unnamed group might be supporting Carol in other ways, as well. For instance, the group may have provided her with the arsenal of terms and phrases that enable her to conduct herself with an assurance and a credibility she did not previously possess. In his anxiety, John grows more and more belligerent until, at the end of the second act, he tries to prevent Carol from leaving his office, physically restraining her as Carol cries out for help.

In the third and final act, John has again asked Carol to come to his office, and Carol has agreed despite the recommendations of the “court officers.” This mention of “court officers” serves to confuse John. John begins to speak about the complaint she lodged against him, and Carol calls into question his use of the terms “allegations” and “alleged” in reference to it. Carol points out that the Tenure Committee has already met, weighed the evidence, and ruled against John. The “allegations,” she says, are “facts”; they are not “alleged” but “proved.” John, the audience then learns, has been denied tenure and will be dismissed from his position at the university. Carol’s reaction is to insist, “And full well they should. You don’t understand? You’re angry? What has led you to this place? Not your sex. Not your race. Not your class. YOUR OWN ACTIONS” (64).

By this time, Carol has assumed the role of “teacher” and has begun to lecture John. She accuses him of elitism, sexism, and hypocrisy, and attempts to have John (and the audience) see his past behavior in a different light. Carol correctly assumes that John views her in a singularly unflattering manner. She suggests that he sees her as “a frightened, repressed, confused, I don’t know, abandoned young thing of some doubtful sexuality, who wants, power and revenge” (68), and John admits as much. Moreover, Carol recognizes that John will dismiss all of his earlier behavior as “meaningless” and “devoid of sexual content” (70), but tells him, “I say it was not” (70).

Carol finally suggests that there are conditions under which she and her “group” might withdraw the complaint against John and speak to the Tenure Committee on his behalf. The list of conditions turns out to be a list of books that Carol and the “group” wish to have removed from the university’s reading lists. When John starts to say something about, “Academic freedom …” (74), Carol cuts him off. She says, “Someone chooses the books. If you can choose them, others can” (74), and she admits, “You have an agenda, we have an agenda” (74). John is initially willing to consider these demands, but then sees that his book is on Carol’s list of “banned” books. John angrily refuses Carol’s terms and orders her out of the office, citing his responsibilities to defend intellectual freedom and defy censorship. Once again, the phone rings, and Carol suggests that John answer it. Something about the telephone conversation makes John very upset and causes him to mutter that he does not understand. When John hangs up, Carol says, “I thought you knew” (77). Then, she explains: during John’s earlier attempt at preventing Carol from leaving his office, and according to the letter of the law, he committed battery and rape. He is now subject to charges in a criminal court, beyond the scope of the institution. Exhausted and subdued, John tells Carol that she should leave. However, before she has the opportunity, the phone rings, yet again. This time, it is John’s wife calling. John tries to carry on two conversations at once, yelling at Carol to “get out of here,” and telling his wife: “It’s going to be all right,” but “I can’t talk now, Baby” (79). As Carol starts to leave, she provocatively tells John, “Don’t call your wife ‘Baby’” (79). This is the last straw, and it serves as the catalyst for the violence that ends the play. John knocks Carol to the ground, raises a chair ominously over her, and spits, “Rape you … ? Are you kidding me … ? I would not touch you with a ten-foot pole. You little cunt …” (79). With this as the closing vignette, Carol utters the play’s final words, saying simply: “Yes. That’s right. … Yes. That’s right” (80).

Symbols & Motifs

The epigraphs and title: Mamet’s text is prefaced by two epigraphs, both of which also appeared in the programs for the original production. The first is taken from Samuel Butler’s novel, “The Way of All Flesh.” The passage selected by Mamet to accompany his play is one discussing the ease with which people are made unaware of the injustices they suffer by means of the familiarity that their suffering engenders, and by means of rhetoric, that assigns blame to the victims for their own misfortunes. The chapter from which the passage is taken is devoted to a discussion of education, a link that should remind us that the play is, after all, about education—a fact frequently overlooked in critical responses to the play. The second epigraph is a verse from a Norwegian folk song and the source of the play’s title. In this verse, “Oleanna” is juxtaposed to Norway, the former offering an escape from the bondage, chains, and slavery of the latter. Finally, the play’s original subtitle—“A Power Play”—points to the characters’ struggle for power and each character’s use and abuse of power as (the) fundamental concerns of the play.

Language and power: The latent power of knowledge and, in particular, language has long fascinated Mamet. In fact, Richard Badenhausen argues, “When examined outside the context of the explosive headlines of the early 1990’s, the message of “Oleanna” appears to have much less to do with political correctness and sexual harassment and more to do with the difficulties of acquiring and controlling language, especially in the specialized environment of the academy” (1–2). Similar preoccupations with language and power may be seen in other Mamet plays, including the critically acclaimed “American Buffalo” (1976) and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1984).

Sex and violence: Other themes that figure prominently in Mamet’s body of work are sex and aggression. In his book “Some Freaks,” Mamet writes, “The true nature of the world, as between men and women, is sex, and any other relationship between us is either an elaboration, or an avoidance” (90). Christine MacLeod compares John and Carol’s relationship in “Oleanna” with relationships depicted in the all-male world of “Glengarry Glen Ross.” She says, “Men do to men in “Glengarry, Glen Ross” much as woman does to man and man to woman in “Oleanna” (206). In other words, struggles over power and violence are the constants in Mamet’s canon, whereas sexual harassment and claims of sexual violence are specific to “Oleanna” simply because they are forms of aggression that are limited to members of the opposite sex.

Historical Context

“Oleanna” was written in the wake of the “feminist backlash” of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. This was a time when the predominant mindset, mainstream culture, and popular politics of the nation had moved significantly to the right. Feminism was being blamed for societal ills ranging from the breakdown of the traditional family to the nation’s increased drug use and higher crime rates. Conservatives espoused an Arcadian return to a time when gender roles were clear and society was better for it. Within this environment, Mamet’s play was often held up by the so-called New Right as exemplifying just how far liberals would go in their attempts to force an artificial tolerance of diversity and unhealthy leveling of hierarchies into the various public arenas. Many liberals, for their part, condemned the play as a kind of “feminism bashing,” while some accused Mamet of being an apologist for masculine privilege and hegemony.

Furthermore, the play’s debut coincided with the highly publicized sexual harassment case involving Clarence Thomas on the eve of his confirmation as United States Supreme Court Justice and a former associate by the name of Anita Hill. During the hearings, the defense focused attention on Hill, painting a portrait of her as an opportunistic female indiscriminately looking to scapegoat, and take revenge on, men for the consequences of her own failures. Using a legal strategy that has since become infamous, Thomas represented himself as the victim in the case by associating Hill’s accusations (ironically, those of a black woman) with the discriminations suffered by African Americans throughout U.S. history.

Societal Context

Although written prior to the controversies of the Clarence Thomas case, the concurrence of “Oleanna’s” debut with these events made it difficult for audiences and critics to view the play exclusive of those proceedings. As Verna Foster suggests, “Oleanna” “does not in the end center on the issue of sexual harassment. … The primary issue in “Oleanna” is not evidentiary—whom to believe. In Mamet’s play, we know who said what, though not always with what motive. It is power, not sex, which is of the essence of the relationship between John and Carol” (41).

However, the play did reflect debates that were currently raging over “political correctness” or “PC,” and John, in fact, does use the phrase: “You think you can come in here with your political correctness and destroy my life?” (79). The phrase, apparently first used in its contemporary sense during the early 1980’s, gained popularity during the 1990’s as a catch phrase. It was used for language that was seen by proponents as sensitive to individuals frequently subject to stereotyping and derogatory labeling. Political opponents used this in ridiculous and awkward attempts to monitor speech and control behavior as part of a liberal political agenda. Political correctness became closely associated with colleges and universities in their quests for increased diversity and tolerance. However, the fervor, disingenuousness, and pure silliness of certain attempts to achieve politically correct speech and/or behavior soon caused the phrase’s primary usages to be either sardonic or sarcastic. Political correctness is by far the most conspicuously addressed theme in the criticism surrounding the text and its various productions. However, readers should also look past this theme to ones that are not so obvious, but that might prove more significant. Therefore, readers should be reminded that John refers to political correctness only on the last full page of the text. He has a stake in using the phrase—as was commonly done at the time—to avert attention from other issues at hand, and that John refers to political correctness as a means, not as a source or a result, of the conflicts and events of the play.

Religious Context

Religion does not figure into the text. The conflicts, while often dealing with morality and ethics, are secular and kept largely removed from religion and religious connotation.

Scientific & Technological Context

Although science is not given attention in Mamet’s play, technology plays a key role in the form of the telephone. This device (the phone as technological device, but also as stage device) allows Mamet to minimize further the communicative content of the play’s dialogue. Generally interested in the ways that interpersonal communication can fail to convey meaning accurately (or at all) and result in misinterpretation, in misunderstanding, or in manipulation by the most language-savvy characters, Mamet’s plays frequently explore the power inherent in language. This is true whether the language in Mamet’s plays is depicted as being purposefully used to accomplish certain ends or is portrayed as a force beyond the control of characters that are, therefore, helplessly subject to the power of language in combination with their own linguistic deficiencies. Moreover, in “Oleanna” the telephone—a tool designed to facilitate communication—is shown to be capable of quite the opposite. Whenever John answers the telephone in his office, he essentially privileges a conversation with an unseen and unknown caller over an ongoing and face-to-face interaction with Carol. During his personal telephone conversations, John also inadvertently shares bits of private information with Carol, an unwilling infiltration into his personal life. While, on the other hand, the one-sided nature of the conversations ensures that Carol will achieve only a partial and inaccurate impression of John. In these ways, at best the incessantly ringing telephone invites one to violate etiquette; at worst, it invites one to generalize from bits of “information” disconnected from one another and devoid of context while, at the same time, one is invited to feel s/he has managed to glimpse a candid bit of the real person. Mamet, then, invites audience members to reexamine their notions regarding this and similar forms of technology.

Biographical Context

Cecilia Liu writes, “Born on November 30, 1947 in Flossmoor, Illinois, David Mamet studied at Goddard College in Vermont and the Neighborhood school of Theater in New York before venturing into the professional world of the Theatre” (1). Later, after achieving success as a playwright, screenwriter, and director of both stage and film production, he returned to teach at Goddard, as well as at the Yale Drama School and NYU. Mamet’s unsatisfying experiences at Goddard—he once quipped that at Goddard he never learned anything of any use—seems to have consistently informed his writing. While “Oleanna” is set in academe and populated by a teacher and a student, Verna Foster notes that there are “several plays written prior to “Oleanna” in which Mamet depicts some kind of quasi-teacher-student relationship that is also explicitly a power relationship and sometimes … involves a reversal of roles” (40).

In his article “‘Oleanna,’ or, the Play of Pedagogy,” Robert Skloot notes that commentary about the play commonly centers Carol and the role she plays in determining John’s fate and neglects to weigh John’s own contributions to his eventual predicament. Skloot points out that, in doing so, commentators ignore the significance Mamet places on John as teacher. So, while commentators often mention how the play is populated by a teacher and a student, or that the play takes place entirely on campus, few of them mention the characters’ very different expectations regarding the nature and purpose of higher education. Fewer still acknowledge that Mamet provides for his audience a detailed account of John’s teaching philosophy and its practice in the classroom, nor that Mamet’s account of John often serves to highlight a glaring deficiency, inconsistency, or pretense in his teaching.

The play’s reception has likewise been colored by Mamet’s reputation as a “masculinist” writer. In truth, Mamet’s characters are predominantly male and many of the dramatic situations involve male—male relationships and/or male subcultures. This absence of female characters in his plays has been offered as evidence of a disinterest in women on Mamet’s part and, in some cases, of an outright misogyny. The degree of violence and profanity (often verisimilar male speech and, therefore, often misogynist speech) in his plays has done nothing to dispel such opinions.

Works Cited