Let me just start this off by saying
that Oleanna made me so angry. I have never had a movie make me so angry
in my life and it was really weird how this work of fiction made me
that angry.
At the beginning of the story, Carol initially annoyed me because she
"didn't understand" anything and she kept interrupting him when he was
talking and keeping him from his more important issues like going to see
his new house. Then when she completely misinterpreted everything he
told her, I really hate her. I read the article, "P.C. Power Play: Language and Representation
in David Mamet's Oleanna" by Roger Bechtel, and it described the
language between the two characters as what they are defined by. It
gave the teacher John a "his language has earned him the identity of
teacher; a title which, ironically, lends his language a credibility it
would not otherwise have." Bechtel also used Carols language as a
definition of who she is by saying, "That is, Carol cannot form an
identity within the community of the university because she cannot
understand the language of the university." (There she goes again not
understanding anything...) By describing how they talk, it puts the
characters into a different light by giving them a kind of explanation
as to why they act how they act.
Later as the story progressed, the
language the two characters initially spoke changed. Ultimately, the
language of Carol and John were two completely different languages. Even
though Carol was right in calling John out on some of the things he
said and did, but she was completely misinterpreting them and twisting
them around to make them seem like awful things instead of a teacher
trying to help a student, which was all he was trying to do. Bechtel
makes the connection that Carol "no longer speaks or acts as an
individual, but only as an agent of the Group. The Group has subsumed
her identity into its own, and she has become as rigid and unforgiving
as it must me."
They argued about the accusations
with Carol saying, "No. Those are not 'accusations'" John: "In which it
was alleged..." Carol: "No, I cannot allow that. Nothing is alleged.
Everything is proved."
I think you are right when you say that Carol becomes the voice of the groups grievances and not of her own. I think that she was a plant by the group set out to get rid of him. However, that does not mean they are not justified in doing so. They have notes of him flirting with women and even if some of the things Carol filed complaints about were exaggerated, overall they had sufficient reason to get rid of him. They are holding him accountable for his past actions and current actions. In class it was brought up that him continuously asking her back to his office makes the play unrealistic, but I think that is is evidence that even the professor knew he was guilty. Since he thinks he is guilty, out of desperation, he keeps inviting her back to his office to try convince her shes wrong so what happened would not go public. During their last meeting Carol says "you have your agenda and we have ours" meaning their agenda is one to promote equality by getting rid of him or at least his and other oppressive literature taught at the university. He is being screwed over in a sense, and you cant expect him to be happy about it, but the group is holding him accountable for an accumulation of his actions towards students.
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