"Oleanna" by David Mament
The play "Oleanna" is centered around two characters, Carol, the student, and John, the professor. John presents himself with a clean image, and he is well spoken, while Carol appears to be a bit sloppy and unorganized. Carol walks into John's office with a question about the class lecture, and John is quick to help her. Even before he speaks you know he is intelligent, and well organized by looking around the room. Carol is stuttering, and nervous because she does not want to fail the class... the "status" is obvious. I feel that at the beginning of the play, and even towards the middle where there was some tension forming, that John handled himself very well. Even though they were both interrupting each other at times, Carol could wait until John was finished talking. She kept throwing questions at him when he was still explaining the previous.
Carol is promised an A if she returns to speak to John, so day after day she returns with more questions, taking notes. At first she is taking down notes while John answers her questions, but from then on, everyday she returns she may have been jotting down his "language," and "gestures." What I found weird about Carol was that she didn't seem bothered by John when he said "I will make you a deal... your grade for the whole term is an “A.” If you will come back and meet with me. A few more times," and he places both his hands on Carol's shoulders. At this point she could have shrugged them off, or even tell him that she is uncomfortable with the way he is speaking/touching her... based on the allegations later in the play.
Towards the middle of the play things start to get heated. At this point the audience has to be both annoyed and frustrated with Carol. John in a way also uses his power, his knowledge, to perhaps tease and belittle Carol by continuing to use difficult words. Carol asks John several times what a word means, and when he explains she says "Then why didn't you just say that!" But even after that, John continues to use challenging words, almost as though he wants to her struggling to understand what he is saying. The conversation also shifts quickly from a friendly one to an argument, where both characters end up raising their voices at each other.
At the end of the play Carol comes in with several accusations, saying that John tried to rape her. But never did Carol tell him to "stop." She hands the accusations to John, reading, "He told me that if I would stay alone with him in his office, he would change my grade to an A," though I don't ever recall John stressing to Carol to come alone. Carol was just an innocent student when she walked in, I couldn't help but feel bad for her, but my feelings changed again when she came in with her "ridiculous accusations" and tried to get back at John by saying some pretty unnecessary things... for example at the end of the play when John was talking to his wife and said "baby." She demanded John not to call her "baby" and the anger escalated fast from there. I was left not feeling bad for neither of them. Maybe it was sexual harassment, abuse of power, or maybe it wasn't, but the end was sure unexpected and purposely leaves the mind with many questions, and open for some discussion.
That's interesting that you thought that John was "teasing and belittling" Carol with his use of difficult words. I actually saw the opposite. I thought John continued his use of big words, not as a display of superior power, but simply because he was an academic. From my past experiences, I have run into a lot of teachers similar to John: in that they always spoke with quite the vocabulary in teaching or just normal conversation. I always labeled such teachers as almost "too smart for their own good." They understand what they are teaching perfectly, but they don't understand how the student doesn't understand. In the teacher's mind, they are speaking normally: big words because of their surrounding environment, the college. They don't realize that they need to "dumb-down" their explanations for the students. I thought that was John's problem. He thought he was speaking normally but didn't realize that his speech was a bit too... um... advanced(?)... for his current audience (Carol). And sure Carol asked a few times what a few words meant, but it really didn't help that she would ask by interrupting him whenever he started an explanation. So I didn't see it as sexual harassment or abuse of power, but as a strong failure to communicate, blown way out of proportion by Carol.
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