Murders in the Rue Morgue

I believe the center of this story can be found in rationale or rational thought.  As the reader follows Dupin through the narrative we observe his use of his rationale to make conclusions, even if they do not seem likely they are rational.   In the beginning of the story Poe talks of a chess game in which the "Our player confines himself not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he reject deductions from things external to the game."   Poe is asserting right away that a rational mind must take into account all things, not just make assumptions from the way one thinks things should be - just like the missing money was a wild goose chase that didn't amount to anything in the story in the end.  

If we take the opposite of rational thought, we are left with irrational thoughts.   In this story the orangoutang actually somewhat represents the irrational.  If irrationality were to take the center of this tale, than the murders, though gruesome, would not be perplexing, they would actually be the norm, and the man or woman who would attempt to put the pieces together to find out what happened would be the outcast.  

The Murders in the Rue Morgue - Kelsey Villarino

#5 - Literary Elements

Setting: Rue Montmartre, Paris/Rue Morgue, Paris

Plot: After the meeting of the narrator and Dupin, they hear of a murder of two women in the Rue Morgue, Mademoiselle Camille and Madame L'Espanaye. The first was choked to death and left in the fireplace while Madame was taken to the back of the building and severely beaten. After analyzing the crime scene, Dupin surmises that it was not a human that committed this deadly crime but an orangutan.

Point of view: first person; an unnamed narrator that befriends Dupin, a character who begins a new genre of detective crime-solving in story telling.

Characterization: Dupin is Edgar Allen Poe's Sherlock and is considered to be the one man who can solve anything that is put before him. He has the ability to find clues that others would overlook as nonsense and connect them in a way never thought of before. Poe uses the character of Dupin to act out his own love of detective work and mind games.

Symbolism: Poe uses an animal such as the orangutan to suggest that humans are incapable of committing such a grisly and inhuman crime against innocent people.

Murders in the rue mogue by Adrian

After reading The murders in the Rue Morgue a few times I have found several examples of places and pictures associated with mystery, anonymity and violence. Starting with the identity  of the narrator which is the biggest mystery in the story because the narrator does not reveals information about his or her person . Also, in the story there are other images associated with mysterious and anonymity.  The first one is the image narrated in the lines that says "Our first meeting was in an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in the search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion" the term "obscure library" suggest an empty and dark place, in other a place full of mystery where anonymity can be easy to find,  also the reference to the book they are looking for describes some of the connection between them.  In the same paragraph we can find another image associated with mystery when the narrator tell us about moving together with Dupin into what the narrator describes as " a time eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions" and he also described the mansion  as "a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain" this is another picture of a dark and mysterious place, this place creates another connection between the two characters . The narrator says they didn't admit visitors that reflects the  anonymity of them and what they do in there.

Another picture created  in the story is the one that describes the scene of the crime, from the lines "the apartment was in the wildest disorder- the furniture broken and thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead; and from this the bed had been removed and thrown into the middle of the floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses of grey human hair, also dabbled in blood and seeming to have been pulled out by the roots"  the description of this picture creates a sense of exaltation  in the reader because describes a crime of massive violence and brutality, without knowing anything else about the crime, from these picture we can anticipate that there was  lot of violence and because of the razors we can assume that there was mutilation, that creates in the reader an impact of the violence involved in the crime.

The writer uses this pictures to give the story a big sense of mystery, darkness and violence. Allan Poe is known principally because of the darkness in his stories, and in this story  the author uses the picture of the library, the mansion, and the scene of the crime as a good example of how the use of archetypals can make a great difference on the reader perception.

Feminism Critic post #2 Val hulse

The short poem "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath,  is a perfect poem to analyze thru a feminist criticism. The poem is about pregnancy.  It is a very Gynocritisism piece of literature.
   As discussed in class, Gynocritisism is literary feminism criticism that specifically includes the physically female body.  Plath uses this type of feminism criticism to give specific details of how the female body looks when pregnant.  Plath also refers to her pregnant body as "O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!".  Using feminism critic, I think, on this line of the poem she views her preggers body as a grand impressive thing. Comparing it to "ivory" a rare and previous jewel. Or when Plath calls her body to "strong timbers" she literally could be comparing her body to a strong house that protects and supports her child. Additionally, I think it is worth noting that ivory and timbers are both very strong objects.  Maybe Plath must be strong during her pregnancy for herself and not only the baby.  Maybe she needs the strength or ivory and timbers to accept what is and will happen to her because of her pregnancy.
     I believe she is ultimately unhappy with her pregnancy.   "O red fruit" could refer to a ripe apple.  Ah the red apple... a classic biblical symbol of sin? The one fruit tree Eve was not allowed to eat from.  Maybe Plath is eluding to the fact she did  not want to eat the red apple..not become pregnant for fear of ending up an outcast like Eve herself.
   Plath says "Money's new-minted in this fat purse. I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf".  This literally represents how her body is being used as a means of production.  She literally calls her body a "fat purse" because her baby will make her money. I also believe the line  "I've eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there's no getting off" proves she is unhappy about her pregnancy.  I think this refers to animals being fattened up with food, put on a train and herded to the slaughter. Maybe Plath feels she will be symbolically slaughtered by becoming a mother.
  In conclusion, Plath being unhappy is my take on the poem. However, I also believe this could be analyzed without feminism critic.  I would then argue Plath is completely thrilled about becoming a mother. Either way this poem is interpreted, I think it's beautiful because sometimes pregnancies are joyous sometimes not!

Response to option 4 Murders in the Rue Morgue by Val hulse

       I believe the center of this story is knowledge. The narrator/main character places a huge importance  on the possession of knowledge throughout the story.  In the beginning the narrator uses a chess game to emphasize the importance knowledge has in overtaking an chess opponent.  The narrator emphasizes that knowledge is separate from wealth and both do not have to coexist in order for a person to be knowledgeable.  This is the case with Dupin.  He poor but the only person more knowledgable than himself.  The major "man crush" the narrator developed on Dupin is because he envies his knowledge. In my opinion, the main chapter is willing to live and fully support Dupin in order to gain more knowledge.  He does this by literally locking himself inside with Dupin and soaking up everything Dupin says.
       The quest for more knowledge is evident when the two roommates investigate a murder. At this point in the story, the de-centering of knowledge is easy.  Is the quest for knowledge really worth viewing a horrific crime scene?  is knowledge really worth living with a stranger and isolating yourself from the world?  I believe on some level the narrator  realizes that he is perhaps a little crazy for doing this, because of what he says after Dupin refers to investigating the murder as amusement.  "An inquiry will afford us amusement," [I thought this an odd term, so applied, but said nothing]".  The narrator is however, still willing to risk everything that he thinks is right in order to gain more knowledge.
        Dupin does solve the case but at what costs? The narrator has viewed a crime scene been forced to hold a pistol and has not solved anything with his own knowledge. Is the main character really better off for perusing knowledge? There is the saying "knowledge is power" but in this case I don't see how solving this murder with Dupin gave the narrator any power.  The quest for the knowledge of this murder wasn't really knowledge at all but more of a game that occupied the two men.  I can not see what knowledge was personally gained by the narrator by solving this crime.

Murder in Rue Morgue-Jess

Man/animal.
Through out the entire novel you are led to believe that either a man (or a woman) was the unidentifiable voice from the crime scene. In society we are taught to believe that violent crimes are perpetrated by men (or women) however in the end we discover that the killer was an orang-otang. The standing belief is that men are the dominate (idea, being race) however if that were the case in this story then the killer would have been a man and not an animal. Futher more, the animal knew enough to try and hide the first body, a skill we contribute to man alone.

living/dead
We naturally assume that living is the dominate idea, however in this text the main focus is on the dead. It doesn't matter that the people who rushed the building are alive, that the narrator is alive. Without there being two bodies upstairs there would be no murder to investigate and thus no story.

Known/unknown
There are several examples in Murder in Rue Morgue that show that dominance of the unknown. The first is the narrator and his or her companion. The companion is well know, he even has a name C. Aguste Dupin. However the narrator is entirely unknown, in fact we aren't even given a gender for the narrator and there are ambiguous statements that indicate it might be female (when they are strolling down the street arm in arm). The second is the two voices that were heard in the apartment murder scene. One was a Frenchman, no one denies that. However it is the second voice that is focused on. It might be Russian, it might be French, it might be Spanish or English. In the end it is that unknown voice that cracks the case.

BLOG POST 3, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (DUE BY THURS)

Using “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” 

as your base, do one of the following:

1)     Identify several archetypal elements (characters, patterns, images, themes, etc.) and explain how their presence is likely to affect a reader’s interpretation and/or act as foreshadowing, their familiarity helping readers make assumptions about plot, character, etc. (i.e., as I pointed out about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown”, the movement from a well-lit cozy house to a dark cold forest automatically signals a movement from safety to danger). The sample paper for psychological criticism deals with archetypes, so you might take a look at that.

2)     Trace the id/ego/superego in one or more characters, beginning with the psychic state of a character upon his/her introduction and ending with an analysis of the character’s psyche at the story’s conclusion.

3)     Identify and “reverse” three binaries, thus “dismantling” the text (the sample paper in the “Deconstruction” folder does exactly this, so it might be useful to you).

4)     Identify the story’s “center” (whatever you think is presented as a large-scale center of meaning) and reverse the binary, explaining how this center cannot “stay” a center as it requires supplementation (i.e., in “The Cask of Amontillado” the narrator touches on binaries like logic/emotion, revenge/acceptance, and life/death. Arguably, the central “value” might be self-preservation (Montresor implies that preservation not only of life but of reputation is of the utmost importance. As such, if the “self” rather than “others” is a center here, then what does this look like when we turn it around?)

5)     Identify several key literary elements (symbolism, characterization, point of view, setting, plot, etc.) that seem to be quite prominent/worth analyzing. Explain how exactly how each of these elements is working and how they work together (examples coming quickly of how formalist analysis works . . . several sample papers are already posted under the label “New Criticism”).

Anthony #2

Cinderella By Anne Sexton
 I will start off using a quote from the story Cinderella "The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on but her big toe got in the way so she simply sliced it off and put on the slipper." When reading the story of Cinderella it seemed all but the same. However, their is certain things in the story that I wouldn't fathom would happen. On one instance the sisters would have done anything in their power to be with the prince, that means cutting off piece  of your own body to make someone else happy? That seems to be farfetched, but when dealing with Feminist Criticism, they would analyze it by doing anything necessary to obtain wealth, power, prestige. It would seem outlandish for females to mutilate their own bodies so that they can gain all the material possession that they crave. On the other hand criticism would argue that this has been going on for years and nothing seems to be wrong with it. I'm astonished when I finished reading it.

Feminist Criticism - Kelsey Villarino

I chose "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid because it very blatantly showed a certain point of view. Even though I liked the structure and the way this story is told in one long sentence, you can't help but feeling like you're being yelled at. An older women is clearly teaching a young girl how to run a household and keep the man of the house satisfied. These rules are the only way a young girl in this environment will survive. Elaine Showalter, a leading voice in feminist criticism, has four models to critique and assess women's writing. I would choose the cultural model to analyze "Girl"; it investigates how society shapes women's goals, responses, and points of view. Centuries have told women in these positions how their lives are supposed to go and that they are only on this earth to provide for man. Society is a huge force against women of this time period and environment, telling them what is wrong and what is right.

-Blog post #2 Miguel - Metaphors

-Metaphors- Silvia Plath

This poem was a very interesting one because it is made in a clever way that makes the poem more complex. After I read it I noticed that not only was there a lot of metaphors in the poem itself, but that each line in the poem was nine syllables. As it says in the first line "I'm a riddle in nine syllables" it reflects the structure of her whole poem as well. Another thing that I noticed was that the entire poem was exactly nine lines long, I doubt that it was a coincidence. That number nine made me wonder about its significance in this poem and my thoughts came to the conclusion that this woman wrote the poem about a pregnancy. Due to the fact that pregnancies are typically 9 months long. Another big clue is when she says, "I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf." what I got out of it was that she was just a stage in pregnacy which woman go through until labor. The calf is the baby of a cow so that made that idea of motherhood click in my head. The last sentence of the poem," Boarded the train there's no getting off." also gave it away because once a woman becomes pregnant, there is no turning back. It isfact that it is the point of no return but in my perspective she does not embrace the pregnacy. It made me think of a quote said by plato, a feminist critic, that  "Plato thanks the gods for two blessings: that he had not been born a slave and that he had not been born a woman."

            Plato (c. 427-c. 347 B.C.E.)

This quote makes it seem like it is a pity to be born a woman, that it is possibly the next worse position to be in next to a slave. It is wrong to think that way but it can apply to this poem because a woman is making it seem like it is a shame to be in a situation of pregnancy and it can be viewed in a positive sort of way in the point of view of a feminist critic.

Erika- Blog #2

In the poem Girl, the author does a good job of describing most of the chores and activities a women would do under a society that looks down on women. It portrays females as a robot whose only tasks are to do things for men or for themselves so they won't bother men. Their roles are to please the other sex. "When buying cotton, make yourself a nice blouse, make sure it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up after a wash". This sentence forces the reader to think women are idiotic because who would want gum on their clothes? This sentence is asking for them to watch out for gum as if they wouldn't in the first place. This poem basically degrades women into "slaves" for men. This was an interesting poem, there were many messages behind every sentence about the roles women should play in a anti-feminism society.

Blog #2

"Girl"

This short story by Jamaica Kinkaid is representative of all the everyday oppression that besets females in a male dominated society.  The girl is constantly told she must do certain things that are simply expected of her, there is no mention of anything that she gets from doing these things.  This relegation down to a servant like status, show the girl as an object in a patriarchal society, of similar worth to other objects that perform tasks that are below a man.  Even though its supposed that this girl is doing what she is told, she is nonetheless continually referred to as "a slut you are so bent on becoming."  

Blog #2 Dekoekkoek

I chose Girl by Jamaica Kincaid because it shows the marginalization of women, and how society coercively places them into inferior roles.  Girl is basically a long list of do's and don'ts for how a girl is supposed to behave.  If analyzing it through the lens of feminist criticism, I would focus on the nature of the tasks that the girl is admonished to learn and do--all menial work related to keeping a home, or working as a maid, or some other position of small power.  It is not mentioned once that the girl is taught math, reading, philosophy, or anything else that might have to do with higher education.  It is implied that she won't be needing those things.  Also, the girl is constantly admonished not to be a slut, which brings up the old double standard of the man who is studly vs the women who is slutty if they are promiscuous.  I liked the part that says, "this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely" because it demonstrates the powerlessness of the girl to do anything but smile at people she doesn't like.  She is not allowed to voice her opinion or stand up for herself.  She is also taught to make medicine to end a pregnancy, by a mother who is sure that she will end up a slut.  What is sad about this, is that it shows how it is not just men, but other women who perpetuate negative stereotypes about women.  I think my initial reaction to this reading, was that it seemed pretty grim.  Plato said that he "...thanks the gods for two blessings: that he had not been born a slave and that he had not been born a women."  Reading Girl made me feel the same way, I would not want to be born a woman, at least not the one that Girl was written about!

Post on feminist by Adrian

Cinderella by Anne Sexton
when I read this poem, I could get a sarcastic opinion on feminist. According to the poem a her mother told her "Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile down from heaven in the seam of a cloud." From my point this is a suggestion that women are suppose to be submissive and silent, I don't see this as a positive aspect for feminist. According to feminist both women and men have the same rights and should be look as equals, but this poem suggest the opposit in different instances. The poem describes Cinderella as a weak woman, because he let her siters and step mother to take advantage of her. This poem makes a portrait of a antifeminist portrait of a woman, because it tlaks about a woman who is considered as less than a man, who does't express her opinion, who leaves others to take advantage of her, and finally a woman who is very dependent.

Blog #2 Tyler C. "Metaphors"

On Sylvia Plath's poem "Metaphors"

The poem can be summarized as a string of metaphors for pregnancy.  My first reaction to the poem was noticing how clever its structure is.  Each line is 9 syllables, and the entire poem is 9 lines, which I'm guessing signifies the 9 months of pregnancy.  The first line, "I'm a riddle in nine syllables." I assume is referring to each line of the poem, since the concept of a "riddle" and a metaphor are somewhat similar in that the purpose of both concepts is to reveal deeper meanings that require deep thought to figure out.  It's also interesting that in six of the lines, she uses an animal or food as the object for her metaphor.

The message I got from the poem is that she feels pregnancy is viewed by society as a means to an end.  From the chapter on feminist theory, I believe it can be related mostly to Showalter's gynocriticism. "By exposing these inaccurate pictures (often caricatures) of women, gynocritics . . . provides . . . critics with four models that address the nature of women’s writing: the biological, the linguistic, the psychoanalytic, and the cultural."  The first few lines of the poem use metaphors to show how pregnancy is depicted visually, and offers a caricature-like image of a pregnant woman.  From the fourth line onwards, she transitions her imagery to refer what she's pregnant with.  A fruit, a loaf, etc.  On the sixth line, "Money's new-minted in this fat purse." this can be interpreted as her being the purse which contains money, or value.  Her metaphors from this line and the next ("I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.") can basically be interpreted as herself being worthless and the entity she's pregnant with being the only thing of true value,  i.e. pregnancy being a means to an end (as viewed by men/society.)
The last two lines, I think, are metaphors for some type of regret regarding the pregnancy.  "I've eaten a bag of green apples" makes me think she feels sick, and "Boarding the train" where there's no getting off seems like regret or unpreparedness.  Either she doesn't feel ready and/or doesn't want to deal with the "burden" of her pregnancy.

Blog # 2 Cinderella

I was actually kind of surprised by this poem. I felt that its message was feminist. While the story that she is telling isn't feminist her opinion of the story gives an underlying meaning to the poem. At first glance I thought that it was just a poem describing the story of Cinderella and then I began to read it. What let me know that it was a feminist piece was the repetition of the phrase "that story". She isn't just saying "this is what happens in Cinderella,. The End" she is saying we all know that story about the beautiful girl that is abused by family or loved ones and in the end she gets to live with prince charming. I felt that the point behind this piece was that yes, we have all heard the story and it is ridiculous. Who would cut of their toe or their heel to fit into a shoe? Since when do birds give you beautiful dresses and shoes?
Despite its ridiculousness as little girls we cling to these stories, we all want our happy ending, our prince charming but as adults we have to see that we make our own happy endings and we are our own prince charmings.

Cinderella

               After reading the Cinderella poem not so sure that it paints a good picture for Feminists. The poem portrays women trying to win over a man in order to improve their life. A man holds a ball aka "marriage market" to where all the women get dressed and don't look like they usually do in order to impress the man. Early on you get the feeling that man is far superior to women and that all women need to put on a costume to impress men instead of being themselves.
              Also talks about how the women hurt themselves in order to make the glass slipper fit.  One of the sisters cut her toe off and the other her heel, so that they could fit into the shoe. I think a feminist lens would be dissapointed in the way this poem portrays women being weak and willing to do whatever to win the man over. It didn't make women strong or independent, but instead manipulative and fake. In the beginning of the poem the author gives examples of different stories about rags to riches which I felt foreshadow the poem on how Cinderella was going to come up.
               I thought the poem was an interesting portrayal of the story most of know from growing up. It  threw for a loop when it talked about the sisters cutting themselves so they could make the shoe fit. No feminist would think that is a positive way to represent women in general. That was the most obvious point in my eyes.

Denai Adams Feminism (Blog #2)

Cinderella by Anne Sexton


  I feel that a Feminist would most likely disagree with this poem because the beginning provides both men and women being powerful and successful. I would think that if she were going to demonstrate Feminism, using both males and females, she would provide examples which show the woman being dominant on her own, not by using a man to achieve a higher status. To me, this suggests that the man already is higher than the woman, and that she is simply "riding his tailcoat" to gain a higher status. The author, being a female, seems to focus mainly on the "get rich quick", and "happily ever after" type of relationships. However the "happily ever after" doesn't come until there is a monetary, or social gain. The Feminist section states that, "men and women are not equal." It is clear, even in this poem, that they are not. However, the man takes a seemingly more superior stance in this fairytale. The poem states, "the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed" implying that the woman is property of the man. After this woman's death, she is replaced by another woman shortly after. Simone de Beauvoir believed that the woman than became, "the Other, an object whose existence is defined and interpreted by the dominant male." In this poem, that belief seems to be accepted by the author, not questioned.

Blog Assignment #2: due by 10/13

For this post, choose one of the following and explain, using a few quotes/ideas from the chapter on feminist criticism, how you would analyze it through the lens of feminist criticism. You should also provide a brief summary and your reaction to the text. (These are short; your readings should be very focused in the sense that you deal specifically with multiple lines of the poems.)

Choices:

Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl", a stream-of-consciousness narrative in 2nd person recounting the many "rules" a girl of Kincaid's ethnic/racial identity must follow

Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus", a self-confessional poem in which Plath recounts several suicide attempts and her "coming back" from them (she did eventually commit suicide, as did her son, at 47 . . . as did the woman with whom Plath's celebrated poet husband Ted Hughes had an affair and married after Plath's death. An interesting family, to say the least). 

Sylvia Plath's "Metaphors", a short poem that highlights pregnancy in an unexpected way

Anne Sexton's "Cinderella", a rather ironic retelling of the classic Cinderella tale.

Anne Sexton's "Her Kind", which examines stereotypes of women

Blog Post #1 - Samantha Hoyt

                  The Marxist idea of the economic base relates directly to the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the oppressor and the oppressed.  John is a professor at a university where he is influenced by his respected position as an author and a potential tenure recipient. Carole is a current student at the same university but her position is lower in the institution giving her less power and oppressing her overall academics.

         As Karl Marx puts it in his Manifesto of the Communist Party “the oppressor and oppressed stood in constant opposition, carried on in an open fight." The professor in this case is in the role of the bourgeoisie and the student is in the role of the proletariat. In the beginning of the play Carole continuously states that she doesn’t understand what John is lecturing about. John has put himself into a dominating position because he is receiving a paycheck for his works while ultimately Carole and students like her are paying his salary. Money is what makes the university run therefore, if John is helping to bring in the money he has a direct relation with the economic base and is important to the super structure as a whole. 

Annie Hooper- Question #7

I agree with Curry that the problem with Oleanna is not mainly about sexual harassment but about false allegations. This is about women, using their supposed "weaker" status, to get what they want. In Oleanna, Carol knows that this professor is a good target for her agenda by him saying things like "Aren't you fetching today" or "have a good day dear". She purposely puts herself in a situation to be alone with him so she can bait him into harassment. I am not saying that John is not guilty, because he is, but she baited him and was partially to blame. She used her status as a lower class, little shy girl as a tool to get him to do something inappropriate because she knows that he likes his power over her. As soon as he does something inappropriate, she immediately cries to the tenure board saying she was sexually harassed, but her allegations of attempted rape were way out of line and totally false. Instead of just using what she already ligitimately had against him, she had to take it to the next level to really drive the nail home. She seemingly wanted to make an example of him and it was easy because he was not totally innocent. Curry said, "Playing to the fears of the audience, the work seems to argue that the real issue of sexual harassment is that an unsubstantiated charge could ruin the career and life of an absolutely innocent individual." Well, John is not absolutely innocent but he is certainly not guilty of attempted rape. That is the problem with the play, if John had been innocent then everyone would feel bad for him because she was ruining his life by a lie, but since he is guilty of sexual harassment and battery (however slight) her claim held water. Both John and Carol are to blame for what happened next, because he was stupid enough to think that by meeting again, he could charm her into dropping the complaint and she was clever enough to meet with him to give herself another opportunity at a harassment claim. What is so irritating about this whole thing is that it wasn't about making an example of him and standing against sexual harassment, because she would have dropped her claim if he backed her censorship agenda. She used her false allegation to blackmail him into doing what she wanted. It was never about harassment, it was about her using her status as a woman to get what she wanted which was censorship of the books. Another irritation is that, either way, Carol wins. If he does not give in to her blackmail, then she wins because he is still fired and loses his status as the rich and powerful white man. If he does give in, then she wins by getting the books censored and having him labeled with sexual harassment even if she drops the charges, he still has the stigma.

David Jacobo- blog #1 QUESTION #4

The text reveals conflict between the lower social class and the upper /middle social class. Seeing as Carol came from a lower social class than John, she feels oppressed by his language and his teaching methods/ styles. She is blaming him for her not learning and not understanding the concepts and methods that he speaks of in class. When going into a high prestige college or university, one is expected to know high level vocabulary, if one doesn't know something then he/she should ask not stay quiet until he/she receives a bad grade. Him knowing a higher level of vocabulary shouldn't cause a feminist to overreact and and make accusations of sexism.  I don't believe that Carol was oppressed at all, she just wasn't smart enough to get through the class. i think it was selfish what she did, it seems that she wanted to just get rid of the professor for her own benefit.

Question 5 - Kelsey Villarino

The first act of the play "Oleanna" by David Mamet, shows a very introverted Carol struggling to find her voice while speaking with her very educated professor, John. She can't finish her sentences, never seems to know quite how to word her argument, and is very clearly intimidated by John's knowledge of speech and vocabulary. However, seeing how his mind operates and understanding his viewpoint on higher education transforms Carol in the second act. She now uses her earlier repressed knowledge "as a tool with which to fight back against the dominant group that shapes the cultural world of the working class". While she may have seemed timid before, she now has all the confidence in the world in order to rip apart John's life. She assumes the dominant role now that she has tricked him with trusting her innocence.

Question 4

     The barriers that language creates between social classes can cause conflict in a way that the lower class can feel oppressed by not understanding what the upper class is stating. When people use large vocabularies to speak and the audience is not their own it can make the listener feel angry and oppressed.
      In Oleana this becomes evident right away when Carol is trying to speak to her professor and keeps repeating, " I don't understand".  She says this multiple times and you can see the professors patience wear thin. The professor tries to explain his thoughts over and over to Carol who just doesn't seem to understand what he is saying. The professor's language is that of an educated man and Carol's education level is obviously not up to his. This makes John look like the burgeiose and Carol a proleteriat.
        I think that John doesn't realize that he is using this elite jargon and it's not really brought to his attention until Carol states that she simply doesn't understand what he is saying. Johns words are to broad and advance for her to understand and she feels incompetent. Her feeling incompetent makes her angry and frustrated because she wants so badly to grasp the ideas John is trying to explain. I think that language can easily be used to put down people especially educated peoples vocabulary because when big words are used and less educated people don't understand it gives them a sense of power or superiority.  I know when people speak with a vocabulary that I don't understand I often wonder does this person think they are better than me that they have to use this language. Wouldn't it be easier to speak to in normal everyday talk?? And you see this happen as Carol slowly breaks down Johns wall of superiority and he levels with her.

Question # 5 I find this one to be rather true, on the basis that Carol and John always seem to be bickering at one another for the most part it is Carol. Because John has such a higher understanding of language so in that form he is dominating Carol and the majority of his students. “form of domination” – a tool of power in the hands of those in power, created by those in power, etc. This is very clear throughout Oleanna, because she is intimidated by his use of language. As quoted from " Language and its Discontents" language may be deployed to reinforce consensus and to shore up forms of domination by debasing the meanings of words, displacing our attention from the important to the trivial, or covering up with a smokescreen of obscurantisms that aim to deny and distance. Language is given to us in a variety of ways whether it be tv,music,movies, media, government, military. Language is a bondage used by those in power.

Erika - Blog 1

4. In the play "Oleanna" Carol first plays a hopeless student. She acts as if she doesn't understand the language that John uses, even though her level of knowledge isn't as far as we all thought at the beginning. At the end we all realize that she was using her class as a excuse to not being knowledgeable. Someone who is a proletariat would be oppressed by the language that the professor used, personally it took me a while to sink everything he said and to fully understand some of the words he was saying. I don't think he did it purposely, as a matter of fact he didn't know the power that his words had in this case. He thought every single word he said was understandable ( which it was for carol but probably wouldn't be for the majority of the proletariat community). This shows just how conscious the Bourgeoise are about other problems in the world that don't include them. John, like other bourgeoisie, liked his job because he was in control, and his students had to follow his rules which made him feel in total power just like any other bourgeoisie in the marxist social society.

8. I definitely agree with Showalter about the extremes of the characters. At the beginning of the play i was annoyed and wasn't in anyones team. I wasn't sure which social class the writer of Oleanna was for. I knew John was the Bourgeoisie and Carol the proletariat from the very beginning but i sided with neither of them. The perspectives were presented in a balanced manner but in this case i feel like the movie was made to make a point which i couldn't find since both these characters were so flawed. The movie was entertaining i can give it that, at the end i was happy John lost his mind and Carol got a beating, but i didn't find any strong points that helped me side with either the Bourgeoisie or the Proletariat.

Adrian Camiro, blog post 1 "Oleanna"

Question number 4

The main act on Oleanna is a conflict between a  upper middle class teacher (John), and a lo middle class (Carol). In this conflict language has an important role because the characters in the play can't communicate clear to each other because of the difference on their languages, we can hear on repetitive occasions  that Carol says to John "I don't understand, I can't understand". We can take John's  jargon as  elitist and exclusionist that brings him some kind of power because not everybody can understand it, and gives him a feeling of superiority.

When carol talks about "her group", she  says that they have been  oppressed for a long time and that they are tired of being left. We could interpret this as her saying that her class (that could be the proletarian) feel oppressed by the burgoise system, and also they feel oppressed by the language of the dominant educated elite.

Oleanna in Language - Jamal Clark

Question 5: As I read in Oleanna, in Act One the character Carol acts as a student who is troubled in not understanding the book and the entirety of the course. John, however, is the professor and although he is trying to help her understand by talking about his personal experiences before later on the act when he makes a proposal to change her grade to an A, restarting the course. In this act, Carol keeps expressing on how she doesn't understand John or the terms or "jargon" that is being used. Carol also stated to John "I come from a different social... a different economic..." (Mamet, 8) and in that she identifies herself with the lower class. In relation to the class system, it is known that the lower class has a hard time with the upper class in relation to language. John represents that as he speaks to Carol throughout the entirety of the play, but in his way to have her understand him, he would say a word he would use in his vernacular and then say a synonym that is simpler for her to understand. So, from this standpoint, John as seen as the upper class, elitist with power not only due to his status, but his use of language. With it, his personal identity is wrapped up in his personal power that is blinding him from Carol. In this, it is evident that Carol clearly does not have her own power and John has it and maintains it...however, Carol writes down everything that John says and basically uses it against him in Act 3.

By Act 3, Carol's personality has changed due to her possible influence by her Group, and with it: her personality. She evidently melded herself into what her Group is about and she adopts the very language that John uses and decides to use it against him. In the consulted report, she claimed everything that John has done and documented it as "fact". Now, in my honest opinion when it came to the accusation of rape that Carol said that John tried to do, I believe that in that moment she had gained herself personal power over the situation and, ultimately, over John. At this point, John has lost his chance at the tenure; the new house he was to buy; his job and is going to jail as the end result. His use of language as I noticed in Oleanna was still similar, but detached and started to degrade into anger and rage towards her.

The process in which this occurred in Oleanna was (in my opinion) compelling. In how her identity changed from a student to a formalized member of her Group, aimed to bring down John, and John from being a professor living a upper middle class lifestyle personally and in the university whose use of language alone proved that he had a power and lost himself in his identity, eventually lead him to having losing everything that he had gained, thus realizing that his identity is gone along with it...resulting into utter rage and loathing towards Carol.

In regards to Marxist theory, in how your social being can create one's consciousness, that concept is shown quite well in Oleanna and this also shows to me that language alone has its strength, but when coupled with social status and a collective group, it weighs heavy like a strong, abusive weapon.

Denai Adams Blog 1

Question 1

Reflection theory is displayed in a number of ways throughout the play. For example, Carol is originally displayed as a very innocent, nervous, grade oriented young women who claims to need extra help understanding John's class. At one point in the play she states that teachers how power over the children because one bad grade could prevent them from being able to get into a university. This play also makes it seem as if Carol's attitude to tenure is that it is all about power, and that John feels invincible due to the offer of this power, even though the papers have yet to be signed. Toward the end, Carol demonstrates obvious feminist techniques to completely rid John of his career. In my opinion it seemed as though the power completely flipped, showing that  teachers do not have as much power as they may think. One student is not only able to prevent John from getting tenure, but she also makes sure he loses his job all together. Ultimately, she is able to push him so far that he loses his freedom, while she guarantees he goes to jail. I feel it was critical that Carol's character used sexual harassment in the manner that she did because it created a largely dominate position for her. Since the claims were false (for the most part) she shows that a female can manipulate herself into power simply because she is seen as innocent and incapable of such wrongdoings.

     I feel, based on Oleanna, that the author might have grown up experiencing economic hardships, and therefore understands the extra struggle it takes to reach the top. This could similarly mean that the author could have been very much like John's character, in the sense that he grew up not understanding school and now strives to help others understand. However, that could have made the author very critical of the educational system, and that is why he puts a negative connotation on both tenure and false sexual harassment claims.

Blog 1-Jess

Question 4

In regards to John's “jargon” I felt that he used college level words, nothing too complicated. Instead of making me feel sorry for her, Carol made me angry because she didn't know what the teacher was talking about, ever. College isn't something everyone HAS to do. She didn't have to go to college, but if you are going to go you should educated enough to be in the classes that you are taking.

Each type of class requires a specific type of language. For example if you are taking and intro biology class you are going to be learning words that are really only used in biology. Your teacher is going to use these words because that is a really good way for you to learn them.

I don't know if there is an “elitist” language. People who are higher educated tend to use a larger vocabulary, but again if you are in college expect to be spoken to in a college appropriate vocabulary or ask what the word means THE FIRST TIME it is used.

Blog #1 - Tyler C.

Question 4:  The social class conflict in Oleanna is difficult to analyze because it's hard to pinpoint what exactly Carol's intentions were from the very beginning.  From the short class discussion we had on Thursday, it seemed that most people assumed that Carol had already intended to revolt and bring John down from the beginning.  If this is the case, then the conflict arises from Carol's group feeling that their social class is being exploited and treated unfairly by John and those like him in his upper social class.  However, if initially Carol genuinely did want to see him to talk about her grade, then the conflict that arose afterwards resulted from misunderstanding or misinterpretation from both parties based on their social class perspectives.

I do think that John's use of specialized language did contribute to the conflict, but I don't think it was intended to be elitist.  From Carol's perspective, I could see how it could be interpreted as a tool of oppression or exclusion, but to say that was John's intent is too presumptuous.  To me, it just seemed like that was the type of language John was most comfortable using since he seemed perfectly fine with explaining what he meant (he never belittled her for not knowing what he was talking about.)  It's frustrating to analyze, because Carol (presumably) came to this university to learn, yet when John uses vocabulary and language she doesn't understand she views it as him trying to hold a position of power rather than an opportunity to learn.  So, in my opinion, because John did not intend to use his language for elitist or exclusionary purposes, viewing it in that fashion as Carol did is a one-sided misinterpretation.

Question 8:  I have to agree with Showalter.  I really don't think that Mamet provided a balanced perspective since it's too easy to take John's side in the conflict and view Carol's actions as being mostly malicious.  

John did do many things wrong, such as manhandling her inappropriately, appearing self-absorbed at times, and arguably not using his position of power to the best that he could.  However, it's hard to see many of John's actions as anything but good-intentioned, especially in the first act.  This might be due to the lack of contextual information outside of the office setting which the entire play took place.  Carol did note a few remarks John made towards female classmates (something like "Don't you look fetching?") but without more of that outside information, it's difficult to see John and Carol as equally abusive.  The most balanced argument I can think of is that John simply misunderstood Carol's social background, which caused him to act in a way that made Carol misinterpret the intention of his actions and use of language.  But even then, I can't say that John deserved what he got just because of a misunderstanding.  

Dekoekkoek Blog 1

1.  To be honest, I don’t see a strong connection between the characters of Oleanna and the real world.  The dialogue is interesting, and so is the conflict created between the two characters, but is all highly artificial, primarily because Oleanna’s character and her actions are so devious and unbelievable.  I do believe that there are real criticisms to be made of “higher education,” but I’m not sure that the play addresses them.  The primary goal of Oleanna is to overthrow the professor from his position of power, and institute her “group’s” agenda.  In other words, Oleanna wants to control the curriculum of the school.  My question would be, why would you even go to school in the first place if you felt your teachers were wrong, needed to be torn down, and the curriculum replaced with your superior ideas?  Oleanna, at least in her own mind, doesn’t need a teacher.  She accuses her professor in once instance saying “You are not god.”  But she might just as well have said “I am god” since she felt perfectly comfortable putting her books and her ideas in place of his.  In other words, she didn’t ever actually have a problem with the social power and authority of his position as a teacher.  She merely wanted it for herself.

The play doesn’t seem to do a good job to me of reflecting the position of a lower-class or socially divergent student, simply because her character is so maliciously devious and manipulative.  Oleanna is totally unlikeable as a character, and I don’t think she reflects at all underprivileged or social outliers at all.  At least, none of the ones that I know would want to be associated with her!

I understand that we could view the professor as the “bourgeoisie”, and Oleanna as the “proletariat”, but isn’t the fact that she is attending what appears to be a prestigious school actually mark her as a member of the bourgeoisie class, or at least a future bourgeoisie in training?  I don’t actually see a theme of exploitation in Oleanna, other than perhaps the text-book aspect.  The modern cartel system of text-books (twenty editions with no real changes to content) and price gouging is definitely a system of exploitation against American students and the families who food the bill.

I’m not really sure what the author’s worldview is just from watching this one work, because he never judges either of his characters, but rather steps back and let’s you decide for yourself who you hate more.  I wonder if maybe the point of his work was less about social commentary than it was about the art of creating strong emotional reactions in his audience?

2.  In the beginning of Oleanna the professor clearly is in the position of power.  I would argue that his powerful is legitimate though, since he presumably is teaching a subject that he is an expert on, while his students are not.  Also, his students are perfectly free to not attend his class and pay for his services (it is a private college), so his authority, while real, is not coercive in any way, and presumably, his students are voluntarily submitting to his authority.  Oleanna, after filing her complaint has the upper hand for the rest of the play, and actually has her final victory over the professor when he loses his temper and hits her.  The difference is that her hegemony was gained through deceit and manipulation.  She attempted coercion near the end when she made a list of her demands to her professor and offered to rescind her fraudulent complaint against him if he agreed to her hegemony.  I would argue then that her hegemony was complete at that moment, but that it was also illegitimate since it rested on fraud, lies, and coercion.  This brings up interesting questions about what makes authority and power legitimate or illegitimate.  What is ironic, is that if we do view Oleanna’s character as the revolting proletariat and John as the overthrown bourgeoisie, her successful revolution is no real success at all since she is clearly just as much or more of a tyrant than the professor that she accuses of just those flaws.  In other words, it brings up the question, whose tyranny is worse, the tyranny of the bourgeoisie, or the tyranny of the proletariat once he has taken the power formerly exercised by the other?

4.  I do believe that social conflict is very real, but the conflict in Oleanna is so artificial, and the character of Oleanna so unbelievable that I don’t see it as a good reflection of real-world social issues.  I found Oleanna’s constant nagging of the professor about his language to be quite annoying since I saw it as an attack on knowledge and on the beauty of the English language.  My personal perspective is that if you have a poor vocabulary and don’t understand the language being used, it is your problem, not the speaker’s.  I love the English language and I love words, and I think it is offensive to ask someone to dumb down their speech.  Oleanna seemed to take it as a personal insult that John used a large vocabulary instead of taking it as an opportunity to better herself and increase her knowledge.  I found this attack on the beauty of language disturbing.  John’s jargon could be viewed as elitist, but we should change that by helping everyone to speak beautifully regardless of social class.  Why let the elites have a monopoly on the command of the English language?  It definitely could exclude some people from the conversation, but then maybe they should be in a less advanced class?  It does afford him power as well, the power that comes from knowledge, but again the question is whether that power is legitimate or not.

5.  Oleanna in the early part of the play basically lies about not understanding her professors vocabulary, and accuses him of “strutting and posturing”, but we later find that she is actually quite eloquent herself.  So her whole objection to his use of large words was actually just a sinister ploy to fool him into thinking that she was inferior to him and needed his help.  It is interesting to watch her use of language transform throughout the play as she increases in power.  In a sense, she ends the play becoming what she claimed to hate (the eloquent exerciser of power), while John is left stuttering and muddled in his speech, with his final words being nothing more than a dazed “Oh God.”

6.  I really wonder as I said before if the play is more about the art of evoking powerful responses.  If it is a cautionary tale meant to warn professors and teachers, it fails, since John is an unusually foolish teacher, and Oleanna is a unusually sinister student.  As I mentioned before, I find it hard to really pull any real world lessons out of this play since I find both of the characters, but particularly Oleanna to be totally unbelievable.  I wonder if perhaps the scholar Richard Badenhausen was just being opportunistic by weighing in on a contemporarily faddish play (Oleanna) that was all the buzz at the time?  I find it personally difficult to engage in a conversation about social lessons taught by the play since I see it more as a artistic and powerful work of fantasy designed to evoke strong emotions, than as a educational work of social commentary.

7.  Now that is interesting analysis!  That is one lesson we could take from the play; how a person can use false accusations to destroy another person and remove them from a position of power.  Curry quotes the definition of sexual harassment as "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment; submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting the individual; or such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.”  I think his argument that Oleanna is really about false allegations is totally accurate since John’s behavior never met the definition of sexual harassment.

8.  I completely agree with Showalter’s assessment!  Neither character is very likeable, and Oleanna is especially unlikeable and unrealistic just because of her attitude and her lies.  Showalter basically says that Mamet fails to deal with the issue of sexual harassment since the play is really about false accusations of harassment.  I think if I was a feminist I’d be more than a bit annoyed at being represented by Oleanna’s character and would voice the same objections!

Important Marxist concepts (and examples from Oleanna that illustrate them)

1. Ideology: Ideologies are the changing ideas, values, and feelings through which individuals experience their societies.They present the dominant ideas and values as the beliefs of society as a whole, thus preventing individuals from seeing how society actually functions. Literature, as a cultural production, is a form of ideology, one that legitimizes the power of the ruling class. In the eighteenth century, for example, literature was used by the English upper classes both to express and transmit the dominant value systems to the lower classes.”

2. Hegemony: is a pretty complex concept, but . . . it’s a form of power, influence, and (often hidden)coercion that “[. . . ] does not just passively exist as a form of dominance. It has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. It is also continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged by pressures not all its own”, according to Raymond Williams a preeminent Marxist theorist (his “Marxism and Literature” is one of the additional pieces of Marxist theory I posted for you in BB.)

Keep in mind that a Marxist believes that no one/no group “owns” power; it’s out there, circulating, until someone grabs it, and it’s slippery, too – one might have easily get it and even more easily lose it, and thus the need for it to be “renewed . . . altered”, etc. 

Consider John’s recognition of hegemony operating in his feud with Carol: he says, “is it not always at those points that we consider ourselves least assailable that we are the most vulnerable?” )

Hegemony is both dynamic and “. . . it attempts to neutralize opposition – ‘the decisive hegemonic function is to control or transform or even incorporate [alternatives and opposition]’" (also Williams). Hegemony is also “the necessary condition for a successful overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat and its allies”.

If you consider Carol part of the proletariat group and John as a part of the bourgeoisie who exercises social and educational hegemony, we see how this condition is operating prior to the a major shift in power dynamics.

According to another major Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci, “hegemony, therefore, is a process by which "educative pressure [is] applied to single individuals so as to obtain their consent and their collaboration, turning necessity and coercion into 'freedom' . . .." The "freedom" produced by instruments of the ruling class thus molds the "free" subject to the needs of an economic base, "the continuous development of the economic apparatus of production." Essentially, this is a condition/process whereby people can be manipulated and controlled so long as they are made to feel/believe that they’re free. Hegemony is further described by Gramsci as “"the "'spontaneous' consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group [i.e. the ruling class – in Gramsci's Western Europe, the bourgeoisie]; this consent is 'historically' caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production. For Gramsci, hegemony is exercised primarily through the superstructure. This is an important distinction as we move to the . . .

3. Superstructure: according to Williams in “Marxism and Literature”:

1. "(a) legal and political forms which express existing real relations of production;
2. (b) forms of consciousness which express a particular class view of the world;
3. (c) a process in which, over a whole range of activities, men [sic] become conscious of a fundamental economic conflict and fight it out.

A simpler definition of superstructure: “all human institutions and ideologies . . . including all social and legal institutions, all political and educational systems, all religions, and all art. These ideologies and institutions develop as a direct result of the economic means of production, not the other way around.” (this comes from Charles Bressler, who wrote the introduction to theory text I use regularly with my students). How do you think the superstructure works with regard to higher education?

4. Economic base: the economic means of production in a given society (a Marxist would suggest that the economic base of a capitalist system is exploitative and designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

An elite university (or any college, really), the kind at which John teaches and Carol attends, has an economic base; the mighty budget controls the organization of everything: the tenure John is on the verge of getting, the tuition that Carol likely has paid for her through grants and scholarships, etc.)John, of course, hopes to attain tenure primarily for the economic value – as he admits, “I have an interest in the status quo” (as opposed to wanting tenure purely for altruistic reasons).

5. Proletariat: from the good ol’ Manifesto: "the class of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour-power in order to live".

Can you see how Carol might be a symbolic representation of the proletariat position?

Lenin himself articulated the proletariat "As the only consistently revolutionary class of contemporary society, [the proletariat] must be the leader in the struggle of the whole people for a fully democratic revolution, in the struggle of all the working and exploited people against the oppressors and exploiters.”

 Obviously, Carol, then, is the visible face of her group, which is working toward unseating John, who’s obviously the exploiter (from Carol’s point of view, of course).

From Bressler: “Consciously and unconsciously, the ruling class forces its ideology on the working class or the proletariat, also called the wage slaves. In effect, the bourgeoisie develops and controls the superstructure. In such a system, the rich become richer, and the poor become poorer and increasingly more oppressed. The bourgeoisie’s ideology effectively works to perpetuate the system upon which it was founded. By controlling material [economic] relationships, the bourgeoisie controls a society’s ideology” (emphasis mine).

What do you need to believe or at least acknowledge to do Marxist literary analysis?

1.    That reality is understandable and definable (in other words, its not some abstract idea or something one can define in lots of different ways) and that our reality (our place in society, position in our family, economic reality, etc.) shapes our consciousness (this is the exact opposite of capitalist ideology, which suggests the individual can transcend their reality and make their own consciousness (reality). You should look closely at character backgrounds, their jobs, their familial indoctrination/reality, their social class.

2.    Accordingly, our social and particularly economic realities very much shape our beliefs and values (as opposed to freely defining our beliefs and values).

3.    That a class-based society is necessarily exploitative (some group of people must be exploited others; these exploiters are exploited by those richer and more powerful than they are, etc. etc.) A capitalist society absolutely requires “wage slaves” – workers in low-level service positions that offer no opportunity for advancement or cultural capital (many literary analyses examine and explain where exploitation is occurring in which situations and articulate the consequences of said exploitation.

4.    “As an approach to literary analysis, Marxism’s methodology is a dynamic process that maintains that a proper critique (proper defined as that which aggress with socialistic or Marxist beliefs) of a text cannot exist in isolation from the cultural situation in which the text involved” (Bressler). A text, then, cannot be divorced from its historical reality, the culture into which it was written, the dominant values and assumptions of the culture of the text’s “birth”. For example, the play Oleanna cannot be considered outside the early 1990s’ social and political dramas (like the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill sexual harassment case, new and morphing policies on sexual harassment in the workplace, etc.)

5.    The writer cannot write “outside” his or her consciousness/reality. By necessity, the literary text will reflect the author’s (maybe implicitly, but it will be there) economic and social realities, his/her lived experience. While that writer may explicitly support OR reject a particular value, practice, or assumption, their own experience heavily colors such support or critique (even if the author actively tries to write outside personal reality and experience). Thus, David Mamet, writing Oleanna, is revealing his views, his beliefs, his assumptions (in some way or another).

6.    “Whatever method the critic chooses, a Marxist approach exposes the dominant class, demonstrates how the bourgeoisie’s ideology controls and oppresses the working class, and highlights elements of society most affected by such oppression” (Bressler).

Oleanna Trailer and Other Vignettes

Also, Julia Stiles talks about playing Carol, then

actors Julian Sands, Rose McGowan, Chris Noth, Robert Loggia, 

and a few others react to the play. 

Lastly, a scene from Broadway, with Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles.

Blog Post 1 (due by Sat. 9/29)

You CAN elect to write an extended answer to one of these questions as your 10-paragraph paper. If you are considering doing so, I'd answer that question here to get a head start/develop part of your paper via your blog response.

Each time you blog, you are responsible for answering one or two questions (thoroughly and thoughtfully) and responding to at least two peer posts. Your responses to others' posts should help further develop the conversation, extend/explore ideas introduced, and/or ask the writer critical questions about his/her response in order to extend said conversation.) 

Question 1: Marxist theorist Georg Luka´cs, a Russian formalist, believed that “a detailed analysis of symbols, images, and other literary devices would reveal class conflict and expose the direct relationship between the economic base and the superstructure reflected in art. [This is] known as reflection theory. This approach to literary analysis declares that a text directly reflects a society’s consciousness . . . For these theorists, literature is a part of the superstructure and directly reflects the economic base. By giving a text a close reading, these critics believe they can reveal the reality of a text and the author’s Weltanschauung, or worldview. It is the critic’s job to show how the characters within the text are typical of their historical, socioeconomic setting and the author’s worldview.”

Using the general idea of reflection theory, explain how the characters in Oleanna reflect real-world (and American) ideas, problems, concerns, beliefs (for example, how does the play reveal anxieties about higher education? The tenure system? How does the play reflect concerns about sexual harassment in the workplace (its use as a “tool” to advance versus genuine accusation)? What does the play establish about students coming from a working class, or as Carol says, “a different social, a different economic” place and who endure “prejudices” that can be “economic” and “sexual” (among other things)? Basically, how does the play reflect the position of a lower-class student whose economic and sexual positions/preferences are outside the dominant ideal? What does the play establish about exploitation in the classroom that might mirror what can and does happen to students and professors? Etc. etc. What do you think the author’s worldview might look like based purely on Oleanna?

Question 2, which corresponds directly to definition 2 (hegemony): How, specifically, is hegemony exercised in Oleanna? Where does it begin to fail? “Unlike Luka´cs and his followers who assert that the superstructure reflects the economic base, the Italian Antonio Gramsci  . . . declares that a complex relationship exists between the base and the superstructure. How, Gramsci asks, is the bourgeoisie able to control and maintain its dominance over the proletariat? His answer: the bourgeoisie establish and maintain what he calls hegemony, which is the assumptions, values, and meanings that shape meaning and define reality for the majority of people in a given culture. . . . This shaping of a people’s ideologies is, according to Gramsci, a kind of deception whereby the majority of people forget about or abandon their own interests and desires and accept the dominant values and beliefs as their own.” How does hegemony control Carol and/or John’s assumptions, values, and meanings? (John actually explores this question implicitly when he notes that going to college became, “after the war,” a trend for those who were already part of or “aspiring to the new vast middle class”, that people have accepted a college education as a given good and a necessity but “have ceased to ask: what is it good for?” Effectively, they’ve accepted the dominant assumption that college is a must, even if it isn’t particularly necessary or important to one’s actual desires.)

Question 4: What kind of social class conflicts does the text reveal? That is, what sort of conflict will likely arise when a member of the working class and the middle/upper middle class collide? (An example from Oleanna: Carol confronts John again and again about his language, or jargon, consistently asking him to define his terms. John uses academic jargon without even noticing he’s doing so; his complicated lexicon is so internalized that he seemingly doesn’t notice that he may be excluding students by failing to explain terms. Thus, the class conflict at hand involves the use of specialized language, usually acquired only via a college education, versus the use of the vernacular (everyday, ordinary language). Is John’s jargon elitist? Exclusionist? Does it afford him a particular kind of power? Would Carol or someone like her (since we know that, ultimately, she understands John just fine) be considered oppressed by the language of the dominant educated elite? Another possibility: the “group’s” ideology versus John’s/ideology of the university.)

***Several of the articles I posted deal particularly with language and power in Oleanna.

Question 5: According to the author of the scholarly article “PC Powerplay: Language and Representation in Oleanna”, The inhabitants of Mamet's plays
find their identity, and thus their personal power, through language.”  Explain this process as you see it happening in the play. If you choose this question please read and quote from my essay titled “Language and Its Discontents” and Connections to Oleanna”. (Mine is grouped with the other critical essays in BB).

Question 6: Scholar Richard Badenhausen (“The Modern Academy Raging in the Dark: Misreading Mamet's Political Incorrectness in Oleanna"), acknowledges that “In discussing the 1992 debut of David Mamet's Oleanna, audiences and critics tended to highlight two features of the play: its indictment of political correctness on college campuses in America and its treatment of sexual harassment, an issue made more potent then by the just-concluded October, 1991, Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.¹ Both of these timely themes allowed spectators of varied political persuasions to take up the cause of the Left or Right via the play's two characters, characters polarized not only in their gender, but physically, generationally, and educationally.”

However, he argues that, “Oleanna ultimately explores the perils of inferior teaching and the subsequent misreadings that necessarily follow in a pedagogical environment that tacitly reinforces (instead of collapsing or bridging) hierarchical differences amongst its participants. In fact, this is more a play about teaching, reading, and understanding: how to do those things well and the consequences of doing them poorly. As such, Oleanna offers an ominous commentary on education in America and more particularly functions as a dire warning both to and about those doing the educating.”

Do you agree with his reading? Is the play a cautionary tale meant to warn both would-be and current students and professors? Do you disagree? Be sure to use clear textual examples to support your answer.

Question 7: J.K Curry (“David Mamet's Oleanna as Commentary on Sexual Harassment in the Academy”) asserts that "The problem with Oleanna is that it is not really, or not primarily, about sexual harassment at all but  rather about false allegations. Or, perhaps more accurately, about exaggerated or distorted claims of harassment, for John actually has said or done many of the things in Carol's report, though in slightly different context. The work obscures the issue of sexual harassment by suggesting that sexual harassment is really a ploy of militant feminists to disempower and destroy whilte, middle-class, male academics." (The article as a whole offers a Marxist/feminist analysis of the play.)

Do you agree with Curry? If so, how and where does the play argue that sexual harassment is simply a tool of disempowerment meant to destroy those with more power and cultural cache (white educated males being a major such group)? Be sure to quote directly from the article.

Question 8: In well known feminist theorist Elaine Showalter’s indictment of Oleanna ("Acts of Violence: David Mamet and the Language of Men"), “In making his female protagonist a dishonest, androgynous zealot, and his male protagonist a devoted husband and father who defends freedom of thought, Mamet does not exactly wrestle with the moral complexities of sexual harassment. What he has written is a polarizing play about a false accusation of sexual harassment, and that would be fair enough--false accusations of harassment, rape and child abuse indeed occur--if he were not claiming to present a balanced, Rashomon-like case. The disturbing questions about power, gender and paranoia raised in Oleanna cannot be resolved with an irrational act of violence.

Essentially, Showalter is saying that the characters are drawn so extremely that the play doesn’t accomplish what Mamet suggested it should (he tells us that, no matter who’s side your on, you’re “wrong”, which suggests their perspectives are presented fairly and in a balanced manner). What do you think?