SOURCE: Goggans, Thomas H. “Laying Blame: Gender and Subtext in David Mamet's Oleanna.” Modern Drama 40, no. 4 (winter 1997): 433-41.

In the following essay, Goggans asserts that protagonist Carol reveals consistent signs of child sexual abuse in Oleanna.

“The Bitch Set Him Up”—that's what Daniel Mufson thought the working title of Oleanna could have been, after he appraised the critical responses to the play's 1992 New York production, adding that “one can expect few other reactions when Carol is such a viper.”¹ Mamet's presentation of the conflict between a professor and his female student is marked by ambiguous discourse, troubling physical contact, and subsequent charges of sexual harassment.² Mufson found, in the seventeen reviews of the play he considered, two typical responses: some critics, including John Lahr, seem to defend the play's political message because they “[loathe] what Carol represents,”³ while others, Elaine Showalter among them, lament the construction of...