Cho, Eun-young. “Oleanna: Thoughts on the Flip side of Political Correctness and Language in Oleanna.” Studies on English Language and Literature. 33.3(2007): 129-149. David Mamet’s Oleanna is a two-person drama knotting ever-tightening coils of sexual politics and power games within the academia. Carol, the student, at first, was bewildered and confused and comes to John, the professor, to ask for advice. But Carol takes John’s use of academic words and his frequent allusions as an attempt to belittle her and as lack of concern for her situation and her self-esteem. There seems to be no possibility of genuine communication between them. One reason for this, Mamet suggests, is that both of them are pursuing power over each other. As Carol awakens to her own power over him she ruthlessly distorts and changes John’s words and action into an attempted rape in the name of political correctness. Carol’s admission that the charges she made against John may be false yet cannot be denied by the accused is the dangerous possibility of language. Language in Mamet can be an unstoppable tool for the debased and the power-hungry living in corrupt world. (Jeonju University)