I think a major theme is the hypocrisy of the major characters and motives. For example John says education is just a “hazing process” of society yet he uses his education to level himself above carol, with big words like “paradigm.” He says that the student and teacher relationship is artificial, saying that the teacher is the one who knows and the student is the one who does not know is a false relationship yet he projects that relationship on to carol. He constantly interrupts her by affirming her, saying good yes the moment she starts speaking, he acts as though he is able to coax her towards the right answer, which he already knows. But when she disagrees with him he denies that it’s true.
Carol is also hypocritical, she comes in for help from her teacher and she ends up accusing him of sexual harassment, when he only tried to help her. He may have been to caught up in his own thoughts to listen to her but he certainly didn’t attempt rape. And she didn’t make herself easy to help. She just had emotional ranting about how she didn’t understand and started whining that she’s stupid. Well obviously she wasn’t going to understand better if she wasted the teachers time complaining of her own stupidity. She wants to pass the class he offers her an A and then she comes in with a sexual harassment charge. He did say that she had to return to his office repeatedly in order to get an A so he holds power over her. She shifted that power clearly with the harassment charge. But because she constantly refers to her group, its unclear whether she’s trying to “protect herself “ or just doing her what her feminist group would do. She’s actually being manipulative because she didn’t have to go to his room to threaten him with his charge if it was real danger she should have just given it to the harassment report collecting people. She doesn’t
Black mail him like a smart manipulative person does, she just goes in to see him and leaves screaming. What motive could she have besides being angry with the teacher and wanting to see him embarrassed and then walking into the room to rub it in his face? Or perhaps she doesn’t have a motive, she’s just the person who follows protocol, she does “all ways do what she’s told.” But the same could be said about Johns motives, why does move her grade up to an A and says he “likes” her? Why does he offer to spend even more time with her? I don’t think its sexual harassment he just wants to be “that teacher.” The kind who sees him in one of his troubled students and inspires them to like his subject, that whole cliché. Yet he fails miserably at it and constantly answers the phone before listening to her, especially when she’s about to tell him something big. He doesn’t listen at all, he just wants to play the encouraging cool teacher role for his own ego, I think. They certainly have this contrast she plays the role of person who enforces rules for the sake of it, seemingly with no practical self-interest but self-righteousness. And he plays the role of a teacher who is engaged and committed to his students, and questions the system, but mostly out of ego. I think the theme is the conflict and deadlock between these two ideas in today’s society.
I never actually thought about hypocrisy being a theme within Oleanna, and by the examples you've given, I believe that it does indeed appear to be a major theme. I do think that the theme of hypocrisy is heavily related to the theme of miscommunication, and the two often become intertwined. The examples you provide of the miscommunication between the two characters show how because they are unable to effectively converse, this John's teaching methods are considered to be unsuccessful, rendering his published book to be a work of falsities.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect I disagree on is your belief that Carol is also hypocritical. You say that she came to John for help, but that's not what I think. There are two ways to interpret the reasons for Carol's actions: one being that she actually needed help passing the class and only until the feminist group heard about her endeavor did they decide to intervene, the other being that the feminist group had planned scheme since the beginning of the play, and Carol's plea of help was simply a ploy in order to weaken John and make him vulnerable, sealing his doom. This is the interpretation that I believe, and I discuss that the entire play was a result of feminist powers in my blog post concerning the same topic. Nothing was ever Carol's fault, as it was entirely John's for being unable to satisfy Carol in the area of understanding that a teacher should do. In your post, all the faults and contractions of Carol can be attributed to John and his teaching, and I believe Carol realizes this, and takes him down not for revenge, but to prove how some people don't deserve the power the possess.