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Oleanna

            
             Oleanna is a movie about a young college girl named Carol confronting her older male professor named John about understanding his class and his book that he wrote. Carol is failing the class, she goes to his office to try and get her grade improved but while they talk they are continually interrupted as the talk throughout the movie.
             In the first act we see the two characters in the professor office. She comes in and starts saying that she does not understand many things in his class and in his book and says that is the reason for her struggles in the class. In the begining the professor never really seems to understand the problem she has probably due to the fact that he keeps getting phone calls about his house that him and his wife our purchasing. They are purchasing the house because John is receiving tenure. The whole first act Carol also interrupts John pretty much non stop. During their discussion John decides to help her but in doing so he really never helps her with her problem but instead he gives his view on education and on life in which she takes everything the wrong way. Also during the conversation we see Carol get very emotional and excited so the professor tries calming her down so he grabs her and sits her down. Then at the end of the first act you are lead to believe that Carol and John are going to get together. Just by the way that they talk about his problems with his wife and it just feels like there is sexually tension between both of them.
             Then in the second act we discover that Carol has filed a sexual harassment suit against John. Now John is the one in jeopardy of losing his job and his precious new house. In this act the roles are reversed and he does not understand her. During the final confrontation she provokes him and he starts swearing and telling her to get out then she pulls the final straw and says that he should not talk to his wife that way. So then he beats her up and that is where the movie ends.


Essays Related to Oleanna

1. Oleanna

Whether Oleanna is a misogynistic play, can be argued either way. It depends on which point of view one sees it from. The play portrays Carol, a woman, as a manipulative character lacking any positive ... way out of the situation he has created. Perhaps John realizes that if he is going to lose his job because of a lie, he might as well make it true. Oleanna shows how easy it is for a woman to twist the truth, especially when it is her word against a man's. Through certain mistakes made by John, Carol is able to manipulate ... ...

  • Word Count: 693
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Oleanna

"Oleanna" I agree with David Mamet's statement that Carol and John are "both altogether right and altogether wrong". I can see how he can relate to John from a teachers perspective as well as from the standpoint as a man communicating to a woman. John is in a position of an authoritative figure a...

  • Word Count: 738
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Oleanna -

Oleanna, a two-hander play, is set in a college professor's office. The professor, John, is only partly interested in his students. He has tenure and a new house on his mind. The student, Carol is not that bright and can"t understand his course. John tries to help her. But Carol takes the expression...

  • Word Count: 1190
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

4. A Wench In The Works

... claim he had to continue being seen as a man working in the men's world of business. In Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, and Oleanna, Mamet retains a central theme: if men did not have to deal with women, business could operate unhindered. First, though, one must consider Mamet's ... to the studio chief's office. The men's business remains intact and on track, despite the female assault. However, the male protagonist in Oleanna would not be so lucky. Unlike Bobby Gould in Speed-the-Plow or James Lingk in Glengarry Glen Ross, John the professor had no ... she cannot understand. Joh...

  • Word Count: 1694
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

5. The Plot of The Book of Ruth

... meaning what the subject is. The books chosen for this paper are The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton and The Quiet American by Graham Green and the play Oleanna by David Mamet. The Book of Ruth If we look at the first thing in The Book of Ruth we see how a young girl, whose name is Ruth ... of the matter. Pyle and Fowler do not change and they are still the same people inside, while Pyle shows us being the quiet American that he is not. Oleanna Oleanna is a short play that gives us no side story and no innocence. There are two characters that are not showing who is the protagonist and the...

  • Word Count: 3654
  • Approx Pages: 15
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Drama

... ) can move an audience but if done in correctly it can make someone question what is trying to be said and not what it means to them. For example in "Oleanna" by Mamet there was no real reality to the construction of the deception of the teacher by the student and it leaves the audience wanting the hero to get knocked ... over the head by a chair instead of relating to her struggle. "Oleanna" also did not sit well with me because there was no emotional bonding done with the characters. A play must allow a reader/viewer to identify with the characters or they will ... ...

  • Word Count: 3148
  • Approx Pages: 13
  • Grade Level: High School

7. The Power of Literature

... amounts of time, so that's where the media fits in. There are always books and plays being made into movies, and a lot of them deal with important issues and events. "Oleanna," for example, deals with the issue of sexual harassment and the relationships between the professors and their students, and men and women. It's also about power; who holds it and ... ...

  • Word Count: 263
  • Approx Pages: 1

8. Cate Blanchett

... in Timothy Daly's "Kafka Dances" won her the Newcomer Award from the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle. Cate continued with the Sydney Theatre Company, starring opposite Geoffrey Rush in David Mamet's, "Oleanna". She won her second award for the year for the Rosemont Best Actress Award. Cate starred in the Belvoir Street Theatre Company's production of "Hamlet" in 1995, for which she ... ...

  • Word Count: 1139
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

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