Previous
John
At first glance, Carol is a meek, insecure girl struggling under the weight of what’s expected of her—by her parents, her peers, and society—as she navigates college life. When Carol first comes to John’s office, she tells him that she’s having trouble keeping up in his class—and also, she implies, with even seeing the purpose of higher education. John sees himself in Carol, empathizing with her struggles and her growing disappointment with the rote rituals of institution, and Carol, though standoffish, seems open to John’s help. In the second act, the tables have turned—Carol, with the support of a radical on-campus “group,” has filed a sexual harassment claim against John, threatening his chance at tenure and his very position at the university. Carol wants to teach John a lesson—and the meek, lost front she presented in the first act may have been a manipulative façade designed to provoke John into behavior that crossed a professional boundary. Carol is self-admittedly angry at the power structures all around her, at the men who uphold them, and at the systems which prioritize granting even more privilege and power to men like John while neglecting students who are in actual in need of institutional support. Whether Carol has harbored these feelings all along and is engaged in a conspiracy to bring down the old guard at the university, or whether her conversation with John about the “hazing” rituals of academia itself was what radicalized her, it’s clear that Carol wants to burn the system to the ground. In many ways the play’s most controversial character, Mamet paints Carol as something of a feminist nightmare—a choice that has drawn the ire of critics and scholars but has kept audiences and readers intrigued and scandalized since Oleanna’s premiere in the early 1990s.
Carol Quotes in Oleanna
The Oleanna quotes below are all either spoken by Carol or refer to Carol. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1 Quotes
JOHN: What is a “term of art”? It seems to mean a term, which has come, through its use, to mean something more specific than the words would, to someone not acquainted with them … indicate. That, I believe, is what a “term of art,” would mean. (Pause)
CAROL: You don’t know what it means…?
JOHN: I’m not sure that I know what it means. It’s one of those things, perhaps you’ve had them, that, you look them up, or have someone explain them to you, and you say “aha,” and you immediately forget what…
CARO: You don’t do that.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: I did what you told me. I did, I did everything that, I read your book, you told me to buy your book and read it. Everything you say I … (She gestures to her notebook.) (The phone rings.) I do…. Ev…
JOHN:… look:
CAROL: …everything I’m told…
JOHN: Look. Look. I’m not your father. (Pause.)
CAROL: What?
JOHN: I’m.
CAROL: Did I say you were my father?
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
JOHN: I’ll tell you a story about myself. (Pause) Do you mind? (Pause) I was raised to think myself stupid. That’s what I want to tell you. (Pause.)
CAROL: What do you mean?
JOHN: Just what I said. I was brought up, and my earliest, and most persistent memories are of being told that I was stupid. “You have such intelligence. Why must you behave so stupidly?” Or, “Can’t you understand? Can’t you understand?” And I could not understand. I could not understand.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: There are rules.
JOHN: Well. We’ll break them.
CAROL: How can we?
JOHN: We won’t tell anybody.
CAROL: Is that all right?
JOHN: I say that’s fine.
CAROL: Why would you do this for me?
JOHN: I like you.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: I was saying … I was saying … (She checks her notes.) How can you say in a class. Say in a college class, that college education is prejudice?
[…]
JOHN: … that’s my job, don’t you know.
CAROL: What is?
JOHN: To provoke you.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: But how do they feel? Being told they are wasting their time?
JOHN: I don’t think I’m telling them that.
CAROL: You said that education was “prolonged and systematic hazing.”
JOHN: Yes. It can be so.
CAROL: …if education is so bad, why do you do it?
JOHN: I do it because I love it.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2 Quotes
JOHN: You see, (pause) I love to teach. And flatter myself I am skilled at it. And I love the, the aspect of performance. I think I must confess that. When I found I loved to teach I swore that I would not become that cold, rigid automaton of an instructor which I had encountered as a child. Now, I was not unconscious that it was given me to err upon the other side. And, so, I asked and ask myself if I engaged in heterodoxy, I will not say “gratuitously” for I do not care to posit orthodoxy as a given good—but, “to the detriment of, of my students.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
JOHN: Well, all right. (Pause) Let’s see. (He reads.) I find that I am sexist. That I am elitist. I’m not sure I know what that means, other than it’s a derogatory word, meaning “bad.” That I… That I insist on wasting time, in nonprescribed, in self-aggrandizing and theatrical diversions from the prescribed text … that these have taken both sexist and pornographic forms … here we find listed […] instances “…closeted with a student” … “Told a rambling, sexually explicit story […] moved to embrace said student and … all part of a pattern …”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: I don’t care what you feel. Do you see? DO YOU SEE? You can’t do that anymore. You. Do. Not. Have. The. Power. Did you misuse it? Someone did. Are you part of that group? Yes. Yes. You Are. You’ve done these things.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: How can you deny it. You did it to me. Here. You did… You confess. You love the Power. To deviate. To invent, to transgress […] whatever norms have been established for us. […] And you pick those things which you feel advance you: publication, tenure, and the steps to get them you call “harmless rituals.” And you perform those steps. Although you say it is hypocrisy. […] You call education “hazing,” and from your so-protected, so-elitist seat you hold our confusion as a joke, and our hopes and efforts with it. Then you sit there and say “what have I done?”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes
JOHN: They’re going to discharge me.
CAROL: As full well they should. You don’t understand? You’re angry? What has led you to this place? Not your sex. Not your race. Not your class. YOUR OWN ACTIONS. And you’re angry. You ask me here. What do you want? You want to “charm” me. You want to “convince” me. You want me to recant. I will not recant.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: Even if I were inclined, to what, forgive? Forget? What? Overlook your…
JOHN: …my behavior?
CAROL: …it would be wrong.
JOHN: Even if you were inclined to “forgive” me.
CAROL: It would be wrong.
JOHN: And what would transpire.
CAROL: Transpire?
JOHN: Yes.
CAROL: “Happen?”
JOHN: Yes.
CAROL: Then say it. For Christ’s sake. Who the hell do you think that you are? You want a post. You want unlimited power. To do and to say what you want. As it pleases you—Testing, Questioning, Flirting…
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: Do you hate me now? (Pause)
JOHN: Yes.
CAROL: Why do you hate me? Because you think me wrong? No. Because I have, you think, power over you. Listen to me. Listen to me, Professor. (Pause) It is the power that you hate. So deeply that, that any atmosphere of free discussion is impossible. It’s not “unlikely.” It’s impossible. Isn’t it?
JOHN: Yes.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: Do you want our support? That is the only quest…
JOHN: …to ban my book…?
CAROL: …that is correct…
JOHN: …this…this is a university… we… […] No, no. It’s out of the question. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking of. I want to tell you something I’m a teacher. […] It’s my name on the door, and I teach the class, and that’s what I do. I’ve got a book with my name on it. And my son will see that book someday. And I have a respon… No, I’m sorry I have a responsibility… to myself, to my son, to my profession…
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL (exiting):…and don’t call your wife “baby.”
JOHN: What?
CAROL: Don’t call your wife baby. You heard what I said.
(CAROL starts to leave the room. JOHN grabs her and begins to beat her.)
JOHN: You vicious little bitch. You think you can come in here with your political correctness and destroy my life? (He knocks her to the floor.) After how I treated you …? You should be… Rape you…? Are you kidding me? (He picks up a chair, raises it above his head, and advances on her.) I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. You little cunt…
(She cowers on the floor below him. Pause. He looks down at her. He lowers the chair.)
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
CAROL: Yes. That’s right. (She looks away from [JOHN,] and lowers her head. To herself:) …yes. That’s right.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Oleanna LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Carol Character Timeline in Oleanna
The timeline below shows where the character Carol appears in Oleanna. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1
...university campus, John, a professor, takes a phone call at his desk while his student Carol sits opposite him, waiting for him to finish. On the obviously-frustrating phone call, John talks...
(full context)
John scribbles some notes and apologizes to Carol for being distracted. She asks him what a “term of art” is. John asks her...
(full context)
John apologizes again for being distracted, but Carol insists he doesn’t need to apologize to her. John suggests they “get on” with their...
(full context)
John says he has a hard time believing that Carol is struggling so profoundly, and remarks that she’s “an incredibly bright girl.” He says the...
(full context)
...he can’t talk, and will call him back. He hangs up the phone, turns to Carol, and asks what she wants him to do. He says that both of them are...
(full context)
John asks Carol for an example of something she doesn’t understand. She opens her notebook from class and...
(full context)
John tells Carol that he wishes he could help her with her anger, but has a phone call...
(full context)
Carol insists that she’s stupid, and will “never learn.” She wonders aloud what she’s doing at...
(full context)
John asks Carol, who has stood up during her tirade, to calm down and sit. She does so....
(full context)
Carol cannot believe that people once told John he was stupid, and asks him who told...
(full context)
John tells Carol that he’s talking to her the way he’d talk to his own son—in a “personal”...
(full context)
...problems with the final agreements on the new house he and his wife are buying. Carol asks him if he’s buying a new house “because of [his] promotion,” and he tells...
(full context)
Carol asks John if he has problems, too, and he says he does. Carol asks him...
(full context)
Carol asks John how he stopped feeling the “need to fail,” and John replies that he...
(full context)
John begins to elaborate, but Carol interrupts him, saying that she wants to know about her grade. John caustically replies, “Of...
(full context)
John tells Carol, again, that he wants to make a deal with her. He says that if she...
(full context)
Carol says they can’t start over, but John says they can. Carol points out that there...
(full context)
Carol tells John that she was confused, in class, when he referred to “hazing.” She looks...
(full context)
John asks what Carol thinks about what he’s just said. She says she doesn’t know what she thinks. He...
(full context)
Carol asks if John believes that higher education is “prejudice,” and he says he does. Carol,...
(full context)
Carol tries to interject, but John keeps talking. Eventually she becomes frustrated and shouts that she...
(full context)
...feeling to the feeling of realizing that higher education is not necessarily “an unassailable good.” Carol and her fellow students, he says, have been trained to hold education “so dear” that...
(full context)
John continues ranting, talking to Carol about his own desire to buy a nice house “to go with the tenure” and...
(full context)
John and Carol continue debating the use of a college education. John states that young people now believe...
(full context)
John suggests Carol take a look at some statistics about the demographics of college students from the mid-1800s...
(full context)
John continues trying to calm Carol from a distance. He shushes her and tells her to “let it go,” reassuring her...
(full context)
John continues encouraging Carol to share her thoughts with him. Carol begins speaking, and starts saying that in all...
(full context)
...no problem, he says he’ll head out “right away” and hangs up the phone, confused. Carol asks John what’s going on—he tells her that all this time, his wife and friends...
(full context)
Act 2
John and Carol are seated in his office again, looking at one another across John’s desk. John is...
(full context)
...home in which he could raise his family. Now, John says, because of a “complaint” Carol has brought forth against him, the tenure committee will have to delay signing John’s contract...
(full context)
John tells Carol that he was “shocked” and “hurt” when the committee informed him of her complaint. He...
(full context)
Carol tells John that she thinks he’s trying to figure out what he can do “to...
(full context)
John looks down at a piece of paper on his desk—Carol’s report. He looks through it, narrating as he does. He says aloud that the report...
(full context)
After a pause, John tells Carol that her report is “ludicrous.” He claims that it is going to do nothing but...
(full context)
John says he wants to help Carol now “before this escalates,” and she replies that she doesn’t need John’s help—or anything else...
(full context)
Carol cuts John off. She tells him that she came to his office only as a...
(full context)
Carol begins ranting against John, accusing him of speaking inappropriately to a woman in the privacy...
(full context)
John, though, comes back at Carol with a fiery rant of his own. He says he’s not an “exploiter”—and that though...
(full context)
John encourages Carol to tell him in her own words what she wants and how she feels. She...
(full context)
Carol tells John that she doesn’t want to talk to him about her complaint now—she wants...
(full context)
Act 3
John and Carol are seated in his office once again. John says that he has asked Carol here...
(full context)
Carol stands up to leave, but John asks her calmly to stay. He tells her that...
(full context)
John hangs up the phone and regains his cool a bit. He tells Carol that he has spent time studying the indictment. She says that she doesn’t know what...
(full context)
John says that the university is going to discharge him. Carol says they should—his own actions have brought him to “this place,” and now he’s angry....
(full context)
John asks Carol if she has any feelings at all. Carol accuses John of comparing her to an...
(full context)
John asks what would “transpire” if Carol overlooked his behavior and forgave him. Carol berates John for using the word “transpire” when...
(full context)
Carol pulls John’s book from her bag. She reads from it, pointing out how inane and...
(full context)
Carol says that she came here not to listen to whatever John wanted to tell her,...
(full context)
Carol explains that though John mocks higher education and calls its rituals “hazing,” she and many...
(full context)
John says he understands Carol’s point, and sees “much good” in her thinking. He asserts, though, that he is not...
(full context)
Carol, incensed that John still wants to talk about his job, gathers her things and heads...
(full context)
Carol tells John that her group will consider withdrawing its complaint and even speaking to the...
(full context)
John asks for the list. Carol hands it to him, and he reads it over. When he gets to the end,...
(full context)
...a hotel, “thinking [things] out.” The phone begins to ring. John lets it. He tells Carol that he understands that he owes her a debt—but sees her demands as “dangerous,” and...
(full context)
...here with me.” Jerry hangs up on John, and then John sets the phone down. Carol says she “thought [John] knew.”
(full context)
John asks Carol what’s going on. Carol replies that “according to the law,” John tried to rape her....
(full context)
John, in shock, sinks into his chair. He tells Carol to get out—he needs to talk to his lawyer. Carol agrees that he probably should...
(full context)
...conversation, assuring his wife—whom he again calls “baby”—that things are going to be okay. As Carol walks towards the door, she calls over her shoulder, warning John not to call his...
(full context)
...the chair down and goes back over to his desk. He begins arranging some papers. Carol, still lying on the floor, says quietly to herself: “Yes. That’s right.”
(full context)
