John Quotes in Oleanna
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.
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?
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.
JOHN: If I fail all the time, it must be that I think of myself as a failure. If I do not want to think of myself as a failure, perhaps I should begin by succeeding now and again. Look. The tests you see, which you encounter, in school, in college, in life, were designed, in the most part, for idiots. By idiots. There is no need to fail at them. They are not a test of your worth. They are a test of your ability to retain and spout back misinformation. Of course you fail them. They’re nonsense.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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 …”
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.
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?”
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.
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…
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.
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…
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.)
CAROL: Yes. That’s right. (She looks away from [JOHN,] and lowers her head. To herself:) …yes. That’s right.
John Quotes in Oleanna
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.
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?
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.
JOHN: If I fail all the time, it must be that I think of myself as a failure. If I do not want to think of myself as a failure, perhaps I should begin by succeeding now and again. Look. The tests you see, which you encounter, in school, in college, in life, were designed, in the most part, for idiots. By idiots. There is no need to fail at them. They are not a test of your worth. They are a test of your ability to retain and spout back misinformation. Of course you fail them. They’re nonsense.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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 …”
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.
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?”
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.
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…
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.
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…
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.)
CAROL: Yes. That’s right. (She looks away from [JOHN,] and lowers her head. To herself:) …yes. That’s right.
