Language as a tool to mask hidden agendas in David Mamet’s Oleanna

Abstract

As a prominent American playwright, director, and screenwriter, David Mamet has made significant contributions to American theater. Mamet's style of writing dialogue which is referred to as Mamet-speak has distinctive features of dramatic writing such as repetition, blunt profanity, highly stylized form of speech marked by overlapping and fragmented sentences. Within the scope of Mamet’s playwriting, language plays a distinctive role. This role is not to express feelings or simply transfer of factual information but to be dramatic action; as an instrument of action, power, and manipulation. This paper discusses language in David Mamet’s drama and his well-known play Oleanna. The ultimate goal of this paper is to show that Mamet pays great attention to the vitality of language, as it could be more effective than a weapon and it could be used as a tool to mask hidden agendas by characters. This is well-shown in Oleanna when characters, notably John and Carol, use language not to express feelings and convey factual information but to mask what they intend to accomplish: their hidden agendas. Mamet, through Oleanna, portrays the world as a battlefield where people battle with language; this battle is waged at the level of language. His characters mask their true selves with words and try to control and manipulate others through language. Ultimately, the power of language is well-explored in the play when beneath what characters utter lie hidden agendas. This paper presents a stylistic and qualitative textual analysis of David Mamet’s Oleanna, applying theories of semantics and pragmatics.