Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Lenke Németh: Academia as a Carnivalized Space: A Bakhtinian Reading of David Mamet's Oleanna

intrusion of business-like mentality onto the terrain of higher education conventionally believed to be free of economic forces causes frictions between a female student and her professor. In the present context I am going to challenge the widely-held claim sustaining that Oleanna indicts political correctness on college campuses in America.

1 Since the world emerging in Mamet's drama evokes a chaotized world characterized by radical transformations and subversions of conventional routines (degraded value system, aborted human relationships), it is legitimate to claim that it has been saturated by a "carnival sense of the world" (Bakhtin 107). Thus, the approach I intend to take will rely on Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin's concepts and descriptive-analytical tools inherently pertaining to carnivalized literature. For the present analysis, however, I find it necessary to introduce business space as a new carnival image. Acquiring a large number of various functions, business transforms into a multi-dimensional and multi-functional space that absorbs and assumes the characteristics of a carnival image. Like the traditional images of carnival (fire and laughter), which "unite within themselves both poles of change and crisis: birth and death (the image of pregnant death), blessing and curse [...]" (Bakhtin 126), business space also encompasses ambivalence and dualism

, the fundamental requirements of an artistic image as initiated by Bakhtin. When endowed with artistic qualities in representation, the Mametian business space possesses an enormous character-shaping force since it considerably determines the reactions and actions of characters. The negative pole of business space manifests itself most blatantly in the degradation of human values and disfigurement of human relationships. In accordance with its dualistic nature, the "blessing" of business space is embedded precisely in its "curse": its immensely degenerating effect may bring to a character a lucid insight into his own nature and his relations with others (the professor in 1 cf. Arthur Holmberg. "The Language of Misunderstanding." Theater 24.1 (1992): 94-95. Showalter Elaine. "Acts of Violence. David Mamet and the Language of Men." Rev. of Glengarrry Glen Ross, by David Mamet. Odeon Haymarket, London. Rev. of Oleanna, by David Mamet. Orpheum Theatre, New. Orpheum Theatre, New York. Times Literary Supplement 6 Nov. 1992: 16-17. 238