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......

Join Now to view the rest of this term paper!
Members: Login to view this research paper.

Title: Oleanna
Approximate Word Count: 923
Approximate Pages: 4 (250 words per double-spaced page)

With the Term Papers Lab Membership Pass, you get instant access to every essay on this site, including this essay on Oleanna, for as long as you remain a member.

Other essays sites charge almost $100 for a single term paper. At Term Papers Lab, you can get instant access to over 100,000 research papers for as little as $29.95!