Ringing phone
While most of the sounds and sights onstage during “Oleanna” remain static from moment to moment, restricted to John’s quiet university office, the ring of John’s phone disrupts and upsets any conversation. To the extent that the phone, as a broader symbol, represents the presence of John’s personal and professional concerns and obligations, the ringing of the phone reminds the audience (as well as Carol and John) that those concerns and obligations are impossible to ignore. The sudden aural image of the ringing phone, manifested literally in the stage productions of the play, makes it impossible for us to ignore the outside world, even when we are completely immersed in John and Carol’s conversation.
Desk
Since the physical world of “Oleanna” is so minimal, one image from the stage bears particular, even outsize importance: John’s desk. The desk separates the characters from one another, insisting, in spite of John and Carol’s various attempts to assert otherwise, that John is the authority figure in the room and that he is inalterably different from his student. At the close of the play, after attacking Carol, John walks back to his desk, giving the audience a visual representation of his mindset—he chooses to walk away from the violence he has created, returning instead to the literal seat of power.
Smiling
While explaining to John that she feels confused during his classes, Carol presents a visual image of herself smiling—“I’m smiling, the whole time. What are you talking about?“ she exclaims to him. The image, evoked in dialogue rather than represented onstage, lies somewhere between disturbing and comical, particularly since Carol is not happy or smiling as she says these lines, though she speaks them in the present tense. The image of a woman smiling, presented in a tone of confusion and anger, speaks to one of the play’s themes—the inequality and fear that often makes college students miserable in the classroom. Carol feels furious and lost in class, but, rather than voice her feelings, she smiles and pretends to understand. Similarly, while sharing these feelings with John, Carol evokes the image of a smile even while describing negative feelings.
Little yapping fool
After John tries to assuage Carol’s anger during Act III, Carol accuses him of being a “little yapping fool.” The word “yapping” is a particularly potent piece of aural imagery. It implies that there is something animalistic and pathetic about John’s attempts at reconciliation, which turns John’s self-image on its head. Whereas John conceives of himself as a humane, mature, and emotionally complex person, here he is reduced to an idiotic animal. Furthermore, the insult implies that John’s language is neither as resonant nor as eloquent as he believes. Instead, Carol accuses, it is only “yapping,” produced simply to make noise rather than to say anything important or coherent.
"Pressed" your body
After John learns that Carol has accused him of attempted rape, she explains that he “pressed” his body into her in order to prevent her from leaving his office. She repeats the word “pressed” in quotes, both to imply that she is quoting from the text of a law and to imply that it is the act of “pressing” that is central to her accusation. In this case, the image is resonant because it is so vague and empty. The verb “press” is not particularly evocative or visceral, and Carol’s use of it requires audiences to themselves imagine what the act of pressing might entail in this context. Like Carol’s complaint to the tenure committee, the image of John “pressing” himself onto Carol has different connotations to each character and indeed to each audience member: though both John and Carol can agree that this has occurred, the two have very different ideas of what the verb means in a moral context and of whether it constitutes an attempted rape.
