Oleanna by David Mamet documents what occurs between a professor and his student over a period of three meetings in which trivial daily interactions and their meanings are interpreted the wrong way. The critics who call Oleanna "a parable about the tragedy of failing to listen" are absolutely correct. If John and Carol had actually listened to each other, they may have been able to communicate effectively and nothing bad would have come from their meetings. Instead, due to the nature of their characters, they ruin any sort of connection that could have been made between the two. However, neither John nor Carol are villains, they are flawed characters who represent "humans with the same human flaw a failure to communicate." Their failure to communicate ultimately leads to the accusations against John and his retaliatory actions against Carol.
Their "failure to communicate" can easily be spotted starting on the first page of the play. Their conversation is broken and neither person can complete a sentence without the other one interrupting. From the start, John is confused as to what Carol wants him to do. Lines such as "
what can I do
?" (12) and "What don't you understand?" (12) show John's confusion. In addition to this, John's telephone constantly rings, interrupting both of them at the same time. Mamet uses the telephone as a tool to grab John and Carol out of their conversation whenever they are about to make a connection. John constantly receives phone calls from Jerry and Grace throughout the play. Not only do these calls serve as a form of deus ex machina, but also his conversations with these two people are the only instances in the play when either of the two main characters is shown communicating with the outside world. This fact is also important because it helps to establish the idea that John is a normal person who has a life outside of the school. Since Carol is never actually shown communicating with anyone from the outside world, she is portrayed as a loner, isolating her from the reader even more. Constant interruption from either person can be looked at closely and reveal much about their character.
John's constant interruptions show his lack of actual concern for Carol and his own arrogance. He goes off on tirades about his discontent and frustration with the higher education system, sometimes unrelated to Carol's inability to comprehend the material in his class.
John, as mentioned in the last paragraph, is also at fault when it comes to the lack of communication in his relationship with Ann. He’s described by Ann as slow and not good with conversation. He’s a very work driven man, and it makes it difficult for him to sit with Ann and have a nice, relaxed conversation. Ultimately, because he is a farmer, he doesn’t have many chances to have a nice long talk with his wife, so the lack of communication is not solely Ann’s fault. John, after discovering that his wife has cheated on him after 7 years of marriage, doesn’t confront her. He doesn’t attempt to speak with her at all; instead he decides that her happiness is more important, and it’s implied that he walks back out into the snowstorm and kills himself. Obviously, John’s death could have been avoided if he had actually said something to Ann before committing suicide. However, this can be considered as a very crucial moment of the story, as it proves why a lack of communication is important in a relationship, though to a very extreme measure. Because Ann, and John especially, didn’t have experience sharing their thoughts when they were unhappy, John didn’t have the ability to speak his mind when he needed to the most. They could have potentially talked about it and found a result that wouldn’t have ended in John’s death, even if it hadn’t been the happiest of endings. However, because there was very little communication in their relationship, the two couldn’t find a way to resolve their problems, and it ended in John committing
The adult John comes to civilized society as an experiment by Marx and Mond to see how a "savage" would adapt to civilization. Frankly, he does not adapt very well. He is appalled by the lifestyle and ideas of civilized people, and gets himself into a lot of trouble by denouncing civilization. He loves Lenina very much, but gets very upset at her when she wants to have sex with him. He physically attacks her, and from that point on does not want to have anything to do with her. When his mother dies, he interferes with the "death conditioning" of children by being sad. Finally, his frustrations with the civilized world become too much for him and he decides to take action. He tries to be a sort of a Messiah to a group of Deltas, trying to free them from the effect of soma. He tells them only the truth, but it is not the truth that the Deltas have been conditioned to believe, so to them it is a violent lie and they begin to cause a riot. When the riot is subdued, John is apprehended and taken to have a talk with Mustapha Mond.
John Grimes, the eldest son of Gabriel Grimes, a former well-respected and dynamic preacher, is in search of answers to his unhappiness. John wants to find his place within the church, define his relationship with God, and wants to flush the dislike he has for his father out. His father favors John’s younger brother Roy over himself. Although Roy is a bad seed and has an impeccable ability to get into trouble, he undoubtedly remains the apple of his father’s eye. John has been compared to another young man named Elisha, who is a member of the church.
Although the narrator feels desperate, John tells her that there is “no reason” for how she feels, she must dismiss those “silly fantasies”(166). In other words, John treats her like a child and gives her reason to doubt herself. “Of course it is only nervousness”(162). She decides. She tries to rest, to do as she is told, like a child, but suffers because John does not believe that she is ill. This makes her feel inadequate and unsure of her own sanity.
This is why John is able to think freely. John lacked the uniform development that every other child in the world goes through. Seeing these two, Bernard returns them to the World State. Bernard takes Linda and John to see his boss, the Director. The Director is so shocked he runs out of the lab in embarrassment.
The narrator then truly drops into the realm of insanity. She starts to be untrusting of John, stating, “He asked me all sorts of questions too, pretending to be very loving and kind. As if I couldn’t see through him” (235). Her distrust reveals that her mind has truly discovered how oppressed she is. She then viciously begins ripping the wallpaper from the wall (236).
always a lot to be done John manages not to do anything to help as he
Ann and John, two characters from he short story "The Painted Door", do not have a very healthy relationship. John is a simple farmer who thinks the only way he can please his wife, Ann, is by working all day to earn money for her. However Ann would prefer him to spend more time with her. Their relationship is stressed even further when Ann is left at home alone with nothing to think about but their relationship because John has to go to his father’s house. The terrible snowstorm accentuates Ann’s feelings of loneliness and despair. John does not pay enough attention to Ann, and therefore creates a weak relationship.
All sense of individuality and self worth is taken way from the narrator when her name is never revealed to the audience. Furthermore, John continues to belittle his wife by giving her the command to not walk around at night. Although the John thinks in his mind that he is looking out for the best interest of his wife, in actuality, he is taking away his wife’s abilities to make choices for herself. There is a possibility that John’s controlling personality is one of the factors that led to his wife’s psychosis. Such a controlling life style more than likely limited the narrator’s ability to live any life outside of the home.
suspicious of John. By the end of the play, she is a lot more open
...ssion and intrusiveness. John’s lack of having an open mind to his wife’s thoughts and opinions and his constant childish like treatment of his wife somehow emphasizes this point, although, this may not have been his intention. The narrator felt strongly that her thoughts and feelings were being disregarded and ignored as stated by the narrator “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (Gilman 115), and she shows her despise of her husband giving extra care to what he considers more important cases over his wife’s case with a sarcastic notion “I am glad my case is not serious!” (Gilman 115). It is very doubtful that John is the villain of the story, his good intentions towards doing everything practical and possible to help his wife gain her strength and wellbeing is clear throughout the story.
In the beginning of the story, John has to go see his father who lives five miles away and help him as there is a blizzard expected. Since the snow was too deep, he had to walk over to his father's house due to the wagon would not be able to go through all the snow. Ann never being alone, argues that surely she is more important than John's father by saying, “[..]Surely I'm as important as your father.” This later end with her failure to remain loyal due to the fact that she starts comparing her own husband qualities to the qualities of Steven making her to be unfaithful to John who later sees Ann and Steven together. This was all a result to Steven’s ambitions to undermine Ann’s loyalty to John. But as the story continue we see that Ann remains loyal by keeping positive and also fully aware that John will always return home for her. So keeping this thought in mind, she keeps to a routine and decides to paint the bedroom door knowing that it's too cold for the paint to stay on the door. However, she keeps repeating, “'I'm a fool” leading to understand the frustration and the hate for living a life that includes so much
The narrator is trying to get better from her illness but her husband “He laughs at me so about this wallpaper” (515). He puts her down and her insecurities do not make it any better. She is treated like a child. John says to his wife “What is it little girl” (518)? Since he is taking care of her she must obey him “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word”. The narrator thinks John is the reason why she cannot get better because he wants her to stay in a room instead of communicating with the world and working outside the house.
Even though her husband treats her with what seem at first as love, it becomes clear she is nothing more to him than a piece of property. Every time he talks to her, he asks her to get better for his sake and the children's, and only after mentions hers interests. He doesn't think that she has any normal human feelings or worries and attributes her behavior to minor nervous depression. He doesn't see her true suffering since he believes "there is no reason to suffer" (574). He could never understand that a woman can be unsatisfied with the role imposed on her by society. Even though the heroine recognizes that her condition is caused by something other than John's theory, she is too scared to voice her opinion.
When John sees his dad at the store, his internal conflict develops and this leads to his conflict with Grace. People in relationships tend to get into arguments with each other. It is a very realistic representation of his character. It would be unrealistic if a couple never argues. He accuses her of being a snob and this leads to the argument which is revealed when the narrator says, “They had never talked in this way, and now they were both quickly eager to hurt each other” (4). This illustrates that they were growing as a couple and were opening up to each other about their feelings. John finally lets his inner anger out on Grace and shows that he cares about her opinion on different matters such as how she views people from lower social class (3). John is a hypocrite since he calls Grace a snob when in reality he, himself is a snob because he is embarrassed of his dad’s lower social status. He is assuming that Grace would not like to be associated with him after finding out the truth. This is shown when he asks Grace, “You don 't like the kind of people you bump into here, … he asks recklessly, full of a savage eagerness to hurt her” (3). He is being naive for forcing his anger on Grace and not realizing the reason that is causing it. People tend to make foolish decisions when they are angry; likewise, John is trying to hurt Grace because he thinks he