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Cho, Eun-young. “Oleanna: Thoughts on the Flip side of Political Correctness and Language
in Oleanna.” Studies on English Language and Literature. 33.3(2007): 129-149. David Mamet’s
Oleanna is a two-person drama knotting ever-tightening coils of sexual politics and power
games within the academia. Carol, the student, at first, was bewildered and confused and comes
to John, the professor, to ask for advice. But Carol takes John’s use of academic words and his
frequent allusions as an attempt to belittle her and as lack of concern for her situation and her
self-esteem. There seems to be no possibility of genuine communication between them. One
reason for this, Mamet suggests, is that both of them are pursuing power over each other. As
Carol awakens to her own power over him she ruthlessly distorts and changes John’s words
and action into an attempted rape in the name of political correctness. Carol’s admission that
the charges she made against John may be false yet cannot be denied by the accused is the
dangerous possibility of language. Language in Mamet can be an unstoppable tool for the
debased and the power-hungry living in corrupt world. (Jeonju University)