A Rhetorical Analysis: Linguistic Power Dynamics in Oleanna Anonymous 11th Grade

David Mamet’s short, two-character play Oleanna deals with the shifting linguistic power dynamics between professor John and student Carol over the series of three separate meetings. Both characters continually trail off, interrupt one another, and digress from the primary issue at hand: Carol’s confusion in the class. John is excessively verbose while Carol, conversely, tends towards vague colloquialisms, but both manage to disastrously miscommunicate. In the beginning, as their interactions become increasingly hostile, John and Carol derive power from interrupting one another and, complementarily, avoiding interruption from the counterpart character.

As the play progresses, the frequency of these interruptions lessens and both characters, each more composed, begin to extract power by repeating and misappropriating their counterpart's language. In both overlapping circumstances, John and Carol use short, succinct, complete sentences maintain their power. In doing so, they literally limit the number of words available for interruption or expropriation while also articulating their expressions with more clarity. This conciseness merges offensive and defensive rhetorical strategies, making it the most effective power-play. In...