Paper on: Oleanna by David Mamet

Whichever side you take, youre wrong

A literary historian states that [David] Mamet is deeply pessimistic about the dreadful
state of economic, social, and human relationships in the late twentieth century (David Mamet:
1947-, 2509). The author also noted that fornication, manipulation, and the basic venality of
people...make his work so compelling (David Mamet 1947-). These assertions are clearly
showcased in Mamets Oleanna, which Mamet himself described as a tragedy in which both
characters fall victim to academia, a supposedly idyllic site of learning and art which is
foundering in a morass of political and personal prejudices (H.W. Wilson Company). Oleanna
is a play about not only sexual harassment, but basic human relationships and interactions,
highlighted with anger, betrayal, dominance, and manipulation. It showcases the clear divide
between men and womenand thereby the master and slave relationshipand its effects on
communication and interaction.
Oleanna is a three-act play that is an ongoing discourse between teacher and student. The
student, Carol, has questioned her grade and visits John, her professor, with each act being a
different meeting. By the end of the play, Carol has accused John of chauvinism and filed
charges of sexual harassment against him. John loses his job and new house and considers his
life to be ruined. In the plays dramatic conclusion, both John and Carol come to significant
realizations about themselves, each other, and their places in society.
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Hlne Cixous and Catherine Clment state that one never reads except by
identification, adding that, when one reads a work, she become[s], inhabit[s], enter[s] it
("The Newly Born Woman" 122). Cixous and Clment do not equate this method with loss of
self; instead they feel...traversed by that persons actions...caught up in those characters same
state, because they too were identifying ("The Newly Born Woman" 122). This is exactly what
happens while reading Oleanna: the reader enters the world of the text and becomes either John
or Carol, identifying the others actions in line with the character. By performing a feminist
reading of Oleanna, the reader can inhabit Carol and understand the motives for her actions
against John.
Gayle Austin dictates that the first act of the feminist critic must be to become a resisting
rather than an assenting reader and, by this refusal to assent, to begin the process of exorcizing
the male mind that has been implanted in us (Feminist Theoris for Dramatic Criticism 27). By
using a feminist approach on Oleanna, the reader will be paying attention to women [...] paying
attention when women appear as characters and when they do not (Austin 1). It also means
making some invisible mechanisms visible and pointing out, when necessary, that while the
emperor has no clothes, the empress has no body [...] it means taking nothing for granted and
acknowledges that society was constructed from the most powerful point of view in the culture
and that is not the point of view of women (Austin 1-2). This is especially noticeable in
Oleanna, as Carol continuously questions Johns language, the university system, and, finally,
the book choices. In Feminist Theories for Dramatic Criticism, Austin notes that drama presents
several problems as an object of study, as the writing of plays requires mastering to some
degree a male-dominated, public production machinerywhich is something that relatively
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few women have been able to do (2). Austin also asserts that plays allow the reader and
audience to visualize, to fill in blanks and gaps (Feminist Theories 2), an idea which is
extremely integral to Oleanna and which Mamet intended: the trick is leaving out everything
except the essential [...] the more you leave out, the more we project ourselves into the picture,
the more we project our own thoughts onto it (H.W. Wilson Company). For Oleanna, people
enter into the play so completely that they forget it is theatre, or that what theyve seen is as
much a mirror as an alternate reality and that something extraordinary takes place in audience
of Oleanna that breaks down the usual reserve of audiences (Sauer 4-5).
In The Newly Born Woman, Cixous and Clment are sure there will not be one
feminine discourse, there will be thousands of different kinds of feminine words, and then there
will be the code for general communication [...] but with a great number of subversive discourses
in addition that are somewhere else entirely and that this doesnt mean that the others (either
men or tongues) are going to die off (111). They also note that the term discourse of mastery,
as inspired by Lacan, refers to a relationship between mastery and university, which is such that
the masters discoursefrom the point of view of its political and economic poweris
transferred onto and shapes any discourse dealing with knowledge to be transmitted (Cixous
114). In relation to Oleanna, it is observed that mastery is at play in the Imaginary as well,
where interpretation plays a part and is always cropping up [...] a mastery that can very easily
become permeated with something going beyond the object, something [...] that adjoins a scene
of a different sort from knowledge (Cixous 119). This shows that mastery can extend into what
a reader would believe to be her own judgments, which are in fact corrupted by the continual
discourse of mastery. This discourse, or ideology is a kind of vast membrane enveloping
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everything and women have to know that this skin exists, even if it encloses us like a net or
like closed eyelids. We have to know that, to change the world, we must constantly try to scratch
and tear it, knowing we can never rip the whole thing off (Cixous 119) . Cixous and Clment
realize that the one who is in the masters place...is in a position of power and that there has
always been a split between those who are in possession of knowledge...and are in a position of
mastery and others ("The Newly Born Woman" 116). They recognize that the the only way to
bar that is to execute the master, kill him, eliminate him, so that what he has to say can get
through, so that he himself is not the obstacle (Cixous 114).
John fits this description perfectly: he is older, married, Carols professorand a man.
He has power over Carol in every way possible; he is the master. Carol is presented as merely
the subject and must cater to Johns wishes in order to save her grade. In this first scene, John is
clearly patriarchal and in charge. He is not very concerned for his student, as he has to meet his
realtor. Carol has come to John because she is failing his class and, one would think, wants help.
John is, at first, condescending because he is trying to leave campus and doesnt have time to
meet with Carol. He tries to dismiss her, as it was not a previously scheduled meeting and he
wish[es he] had the time (Mamet 13). Carol seems fairly dim, responding to subjects after the
conversation has moved on. She repeatedly tells John that she doesnt understand the language,
the things that [John] say[s] (Mamet 6). She asserts that she sit[s] in class and take[s]
notes and that its difficult for her (Mamet 6). Carols mantra in the first scene is I dont
understand (Mamet 11). In turn, John doesnt understand what she doesnt understand and, in
between phone calls from his wife about the problems with their new house, John offers to help
her, to start the whole course over and her final grade is an A, if she will come back and
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meet with him a few more times (Mamet 25). Carol tells John that he thinks she is
stupid (Mamet 13) and he immediately assures her that he never did or never would say that
to a student (Mamet 13). John relates to her, as he was raised to think [himself]
stupid (Mamet 15). As Carol becomes more agitated, John tells her that he thinks shes angry
(Mamet 7) and that hes not [her] father (Mamet 9). Carol, as would be expected, does not
understand these statements.
It is clear from this scene that Carol depends on John for knowledge, as she repeatedly
protests that she doesnt understandany of it (Mamet 36). The opening conversation sets the
tone of their relationship: John ignores Carol as he is speaking on the phone (which continues
throughout the play), then, when he finally speaks to her, he continually interrupts then dismisses
her. John is in firm control of the conversation, telling Carol what she thinks and how she feels,
deciding shes angry and has problems (Mamet 7). John is completely condescending,
stating that hes not [Carols] father (Mamet 9), generalizing her problem, and telling her the
course is unimportant and she does not need to pass it. John shows complete disregard for
teaching and higher education, though he confesses he is a teacher because he love[s]
it (Mamet 35). John implicates that Carols worries are unfounded when, speaking of his course,
he tells her its just a course, its just a book, its just (Mamet 12) before being cut off once
again by the telephone. John actually tells Carol that he found teaching Artificial, shortly
before asserting that the tests, you see, which you encounter, in school, in college, in life, were
designed, in the most part, for idiots. By idiots (Mamet 23). John believes that there is no need
to fail at them because they are not a test of your worth [...] theyre nonsense (Mamet 23).
John shows no respect for his contemporaries, supervisorsthe Bad Tenure
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Committee (Mamet 23)or the system of which he is a part. Carol is angered by this and
finally speaks up for herself at the end of act one, though John simply tells her that its his job
[...] to provoke [her ...] to make [her] mad (Mamet 32). John finds it good that Carol becomes
angry when he questions her notion that higher education is an unassailable good, that it is one
of the very things which we should question, that, like war, we have ceased to ask What is it
good for? (Mamet 32-33).
By act two, Carol has taken the first step toward eliminat[ing] the master: she has gone
to the Bad Tenure Committee (Mamet 23) with allegations of sexual harassment and
elitist (Mamet 47) behavior against her and her group (Mamet 51). At this point, Carol has
recognized that John is also part of a group in which someone (Mamet 50) has misused the
power and she feels he committed these acts because he felt empowered (Mamet 51) and that
he love[s] the Power. To deviate. To invent, to transgress...to transgress whatever norms have
been established (Mamet 52) for the students. The opening of this scene is a monologue by John
that, at first, seems like it could be his tenure acceptance speech: he speaks of his love (Mamet
44) of teaching and reluctance not to become that cold, rigid automaton of an instructor which
[he] had encountered as a child (Mamet 43). He then turns to Carol, saying she could not
possibly understand the situation in which he finds himself, as she doesnt have [her] own
family and may not know what that means (Mamet 44). John tells Carol he was hurt and
shocked when he received the report of the tenure committee (Mamet 45). Carol also
continues to put words in Johns mouth, filling in that he wishes to force, to bribe, to convince
[her]...to retract her accusations (Mamet 46). John merely want[s] to make amends and to
know (Mamet 46) how she feels he wronged her so deeply. Carol cannot simply tell him, she
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must refer him back to the report. John finds that he is sexist...elitist and that he insist[s] on
wasting time, in nonprescribed, in self-aggrandizing and theatrical diversions from the prescribed
text which have taken both sexist and pornographic forms (Mamet 47). John doesnt
understand the basis of these allegations and finds them ludicrous (Mamet 48). He assures
Carol that he was only trying to help her, and would still like to, before this escalates (Mamet
49). Carol misconstrues a simple statement as sexist and John explains to her that they are just
human and that means that sometimes were imperfect (Mamet 53). He is trying to explain to
her that people make mistakes, but the phone rings yet again and interrupts them. When John
tries to resume their conversation, she dismisses him, telling him they will talk about the
complaint at the tenure committee meeting.
John is so shocked by these allegations because he is almost completely self-involved. In
the first act, he has no time for Carol, as he has a telephone call [...] to make, an appointment,
which is rather pressing and points out that it was not a previously scheduled meeting (Mamet
12-13). John feels he shouldnt have to pay taxes, to improve the City Schools at [his] own
interesta task he deems The White Mans Burden (Mamet 34), because he is sending his
son to a private school. He confesses to teaching because he loves itloves the aspect of
performance (Mamet 43)and, it would seem, from the power he exerts over his students to
make up for those who made him feel stupid, incompetent, unworthy, and
unprepared (Mamet 17) through his life. John adds that he still experiences these feelings, the
feelings of [his] youth about the very subject of learning (Mamet 17) when he is tested, which
causes him to feel that [he] must fail (Mamet 18). Here, he cant even help a student without
returning to himself. Upon learning of the charges, John is incredulous and questions Carol:
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What wrong have I done to you? (Mamet 47). When he refers to her report, he finds (Mamet
47) his list of injustices and refuses to acknowledge them, saying its ludicrous [...] its not
necessary, that its going to humiliate Carol, and, most importantly, its going to cost [him
his] house (Mamet 48).
Act three, the most radical of the play, presents a complete role reversal: Carol is now in
control of the conversationforceful and interruptingas John tries to complete his thoughts
and sentences. He no longer possesses the feeling of empowerment Carol assigned him in the
previous scene. This time, Carol is condescending, insisting she didnt have to come (Mamet
60) talk to John as he asked. The dialogue becomes even choppier as they go back and forth
about the accusations (Mamet 61) John faces. John finally comes to the realization that he
feel[s she] is owed an apology after he read and reread (Mamet 61) the report. Carol is
outraged that he would still call them accusations, as she feels that everything is
proved (Mamet 63) and that John is negligent, guilty, that he has been found wanting, and
in error; and [is] not...to be given tenure (Mamet 64). In response, John asks dont you have
feelings? (Mamet 65), asking Carol to consider his family. Naturally, she finds fault with his
final argument of question[ing] if [shes] Human (Mamet 65). As the play closes, Carol has
the larger sections of dialogue and John must fit his answers in between, a reversal of the first
scene.
In this final scene, Carol constantly claims that she doesnt want revenge and insists
she want[s] understanding (Mamet 71), though she couldnt provide it herself. She asserts that
she came to his office to tell [John] something: that he was wrong, terribly wrong (Mamet
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68). Carol has also filed criminal charges against John and he has lost his job at the university.
John becomes outraged when Carol produces a list of books she and her group find
questionable (Mamet 73)even more so when he discovers his book is on the list. He
immediately and repeatedly tells her to get out of his office. Shortly after this confrontation, John
learns that Carol has actually filed charges against him and claims that he tried to rape her. The
last straw falls when, as he is talking on the phone, Carol makes a final power play, telling John
dont call your wife baby (Mamet 79). John begins to beat her (Mamet 79) , according to one
of the few stage directions. As he is beating her, John is finally revealing his true feelings and
opinions of Carol. Carol, despite the brutal beating, must have the last word and responds yes.
Thats right to Johns distraught well... (Mamet 80).
Carol has sufficiently ousted the master, for nothing is allegedeverything is proved
(Mamet 63). However, Carol doesnt realize that, as she grows in power and strength, she
becomes as much of a tyrant as John is when he is the patriarchal one in power in the first act
and that by intervening to take control of Johns personal life [...] she is carried away by her
sense of power, just as he had been in Act One (Sauer 28). Carol has completely transitioned
from victim to victor in this final scene and has fully embodied the stereotypical castrating
bitch (Austin 27). She has attempted to eradicate everything in Johns life that gives it meaning:
his reputation, his job, his family, his house, his book. John is finally incensed when Carol
reveals that she wants his books banned from the curriculum, which he will not allow. At last, he
realizes that he has a responsibility...to [him]self, to [his] son, to [his] profession (Mamet 76).
John attempts to remind Carol that he is the one in power: I am a teacher. Eh? Its my name on
the door, and I teach the class, and thats what I do. Ive got a book with my name on it (Mamet
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76). By banning his book, which John believes is an representative and an extension of himself,
Carol would have effectively castrated him.
Oleanna was first published and performed in 1992, the year that came to be known as
Year of the Woman (O'Reilly). Editor and writer Jane OReilly stated that 1992 is almost
always headlined as The Year of the Woman! singular, in a subliminal reminder that one is
enough (O'Reilly). She also remarked that, in 1992, women are clearly not about to take over
the world. But we do think we are capable of it (O'Reilly). During 1992, four women were
elected to the US Senate, in addition to many landmark cases in sexual harassment. Women felt
this marked a shift in both politics and their lives and undoubtedly had a new opinion of
themselves and what they felt they could do in society (O'Reilly). Also, in 1991, there were the
publicly-televised hearings of Anita Hill v. Clarence Thomas. These hearings held no legal
significance, yet to many observers they symbolized a public referendum on sexual harassment
and other gender inequities in late twentieth-century America. As such, they have been widely
credited with increasing public awareness about gender discrimination and motivating female
voters during the 1992 congressional elections (Beasley). Because these hearings brought the
issue of sexual harassment into the national spotlight and made it the subject of passionate
debateand due to the unsympathetic portrayal of Carol and the obvious lack of foundation
for her chargesOleanna caused an uproar (H.W. Wilson Company). This is precisely one of
the central problems of the play: Mamet sought to explain that both characters believed they
were correct and that the strength of their righteousness is what ultimately brings about their
destruction (Sauer 60).
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Roger Ebert, unimpressed by the film, questioned whether Oleanna is a portrait
of...sexual harassment or self-righteous Political Correctness (Oleanna (Play)) after seeing it
performed at the Orpheum. Katherine H. Burkman believes that Mamets demonization of
political correctness in Oleanna becomes the means of a more general attack on feminism,
blurring the issue of sexual harassment that the play also purports to investigate (Burkman).
Clearly, the issue of politics also arises within Oleanna. Who determines what is politically
correct? In Sexual/Textual Politics, Toril Moi states that it still remains polticially essential for
feminists to defend women as women in order to counteract the patriarchal oppression that
precisely despises women as women (41); this is exactly what Carol is attempting to do in
Oleanna. This notion is furthered by Judith Fetterlys idea that America is female; to be
American is male; and the quintessential American experience is betrayal by woman (Austin
27). Additionally, the castrating bitch is heralded as one of the most persistent of literary
stereotypes, yet the cultural reality is not the emasculation of women but the immasculation of
women by men (Austin 27), exemplified by Carol.
A writer for the New York Times, in 1993, noted that Carol drives the action of the play
and triumphs in the end and that in purely theoretical terms, the villains role is usually the
choicest. Active, not passive. Defiant, not compliant (H.W. Wilson Company). However, Carol
is not the villain of Oleanna; both John and Carol are at both at fault. Additionally, the villain of
the play is essentially the system itself which Mamet attacksan academic utopia which first
empower the (male) professor to lord it over female students, and then endows the female
students with power over the male professors (Sauer 34). Further, the empowered are totally
unaware of how the change in circumstance changes them (Sauer 34). John is obviously
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oblivious to his own self-importance and Carol is ignorant to the fact that she has become what
she was trying to oust.
Oleanna, first published and performed in 1992, is an exemplary piece of modern drama.
It features minimalist staging and innovative dialogue. The characters are carefully constructed
and easily be placed in the real world. The readers and/or audience has no background or
information other than what is given to themnothing is simply black and white. The audience
is left to fill in the blanks and make up their own minds on the situationthey are the jury.
Seemingly, Carol has very little to no evidence to back her accusations, yet she wins over the
tenure committee and successfully dismantles Johns life. Oleanna also tackles the issues of
gender, political correctness, and mistaken information in a clear divide that forces readers to
choose a side. This play cynically illustrates that there isnt always a winner in every debate.
Oleanna proves to be a play about not only sexual harassment, but basic human
relationships and interactions, highlighted with anger, betrayal, dominance, and manipulation; it
is one of Mamets most poignant and exemplary works. By engaging feminist criticism and
becoming a resisting reader (Austin 27), the reader can begin to separateor at least recognize
and acknowledgethe decidedly patriarchal ideology that runs through Oleanna. The reader will
see that, often, while the emperor has no clothes, the empress has no body and that the most
powerful point of view in the culture [...] is not the point of view of women (Austin 1-2).
Feminist criticism will also illuminate the discourse of mastery and the need to kill him,
eliminate him, so that what he has to say can get through, so that he himself is not the
obstacle (Cixous 114).
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In Oleanna, Mamet effectively illustrates the divide between master and subject where
gender is the major factor and its effects on communication and interaction while presenting an
unusual instance of sexual harassment. In Oleanna, whichever side you take, youre
wrong (Internet Movie Database).





Works Cited
Austin, Gayle. Feminist Theories for Dramatic Criticism. Ann Arbor: Univeristy of Michigan
Press, 1990.
Beasley, Vanessa. "Hill-Thomas Hearings." Museum of Broadcast Communications. 27 April
2009 <http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/H/htmlH/hill-thomash/hill-thomas.htm>.
Burkman, Katherine H. "The Web of Misogyny in Mamet's and Pinter's Betrayal Games."
Staging the Rage: The Web of Misogyny in Modern Drama. Ed. Katherine H. Burkman and
Judith Roof. Cranbury: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1998. 27-37.
Cixous, Hlne, and Catherine Clment. "The Newly Born Woman." Feminist Literary Criticism.
Ed. Mary Eagleton. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited, 1991. 111-134.
"David Mamet 1947-." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. 6th Edition.
Vol. E. New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc., 2003. 2508-2509.
Ebert, Roger. "Oleanna (Play)." Wikipedia. 16 March 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Oleanna_(play)>.
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H.W. Wilson Company. "Mamet, David." 1998. Current Biography. 16 March 2009 <http://
ezproxy.shc.edu:2082/hww/getStartPage.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/jumpstart.jhtml>.
Internet Movie Database. "Oleanna (1994)." Internet Movie Database. 4 May 2009 <http://
www.imdb.com/title/tt0110722/>.
Mamet, David. Oleanna. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Moi, Toril. "Sexual/Textual Politics." Feminist Literary Criticism. Ed. Mary Eagleton. Essex:
Longman Group UK Limited, 1991. 41-47.
O'Reilly, Jane. "Year of the Woman." 1992. Annals of American History. 25 April 2009 <http://
ezproxy.shc.edu:2078/america/print?articleID=390353>.
Sauer, David K. David Mamet's Oleanna. London: Continuum International Publishing Group,
2009.

COMMENTS:
Im still shocked by your choice of Oleanna, but half way through the paper am quite impressed with your
grasp of very arcane French feminist theory. Well done.
One line you quote never jumped out at me before: Its just a course, its just a book. Because at the end
of the play, he goes ballistic when the book is what she wants banned. So when the crisis of identity is
his, he sees the course and book quite differently. But as you say, condescends that it is of little import
when it is her whole academic career!
I wonder, though, if you will reverse your master/slave analysis when she becomes master in acts 2 & 3?
Yes, you do, p. 8 . Im also interested in the language of automaton, robots without feelingswhat John
saw teachers as and resolved not to beyet he became??? And then Carol rightly notes that he
dehumanizes her by questioning if she has feelings. He has all the illusion, Lacanian misrecognition, of
himself as the great human teacher. She exposes the cracks in his faade but are hers exposed as
well?
Wow. Pp. 10-11 do excellent work in beginning to open up the political significance which Mamet sought
to ignore or pretend didnt exist.
In this way Mamet, like John, seeks to control the discourse about his own play. But feminist issues which
are rightly constructed as political have their place in discussion of this play; so like Carol, they seek to
accuse him of being blind to crucial concerns which Mamet, like John, doesnt even recognize. Theres a
deconstruction and death of the author all in one.
Excellent resistance, reader.
DKS