Oleanna

A detailed Summary of Oleanna


In the play Oleanna, David Mamet reveals a relationship between a professor, a student, and their battle for power and dominance, which ultimately has destructive consequences. The play introduces two characters with opposite personalities that conflict and ironically their status exchanges. Although the dialogue is frustrating by executing many interruptions and incomplete sentences, it reveals Mamet's traits of being realistic and portrays lots of conflict. Mamet illustrates effective usage of symbolism and irony to convey a controversial scene for the viewers.

In the first scene Mamet effectively expresses the powerful status the professor, John, holds with his actions of constantly interrupting the student, Carol, in their conversations and use of complex words that she doesn't understand. The professor acts as though he is highly educated and professional, and


Ironically by the conclusion of the play John achieves physical power over Carol by knocking her to the floor and raising a chair as if to hit her. The student is degraded by John calling her "a vicious little bitch"(Mamet 79). The professor shows he regains some power by lowering the chair on his own will and then straightening his desk. Carol expresses helplessness by cowering from the professor. Although the professor gains power in that moment, he still does not regain complete control due to his loss of the tenure and his book. Throughout the play the professor and student "have done nothing more than switch places"(kerknoff 30).

Oleanna can be perceived as an annoying play with its pinball diction, but with deeper thought of the symbolism portrayed in the characters by Mamet,

Some common words found in the essay are:
David Mamet, Wrongfully Accused, throughout play, professor student, appearance actions, power control,

Approximate Word count = 601
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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