Summary
Carol begins to leave John’s office and John asks her to wait. After a short pause, he says “nice day today.” Confused, Carol asks John why he is bringing up such a mundane and irrelevant fact. Somewhat didactically, John replies that the act of conversing is the essence of human communication. He goes on to explain that Carol is not crazy and he is not exploitative, rather this situation arose because they were simply acting out their respective roles in a conversation. All he has done, John says, was present his opinions on education to Carol, which she can either choose to accept or reject. He asserts that he has fulfilled his responsibility as a teacher by sharing his beliefs.
Following this monologue, John tries to assert control over the conversation by asking for her thoughts on the matter. A familiar pattern returns wherein Carol tries to express her opinion but is hampered by John, who continually cuts her off. Carol references the group of students who have brought the complaint to the committee. John, clearly misunderstanding the nature of the group, tells her that it is important to have advisers and tries to relate this framework back to his relationship with Carol.
The phone rings again and, after a moment of hesitation, John picks up. While the audience hears only half of the conversation, it appears to be another argument about the house. Likely speaking to his wife, who he calls “baby,” John asserts that they will force the deal to go through and they will buy the house. Before hanging up, John tells the person on the other end that he is in the midst of dealing with Carol’s complaint.
Apologizing for the interruption, John continues pushing Carol to discuss the complaint with him. Carol is unwilling to continue discussions and asserts that the complaint would best be discussed with the tenure committee, following official procedure. As Carol gets up to leave the office, John grows more aggressive, demanding that she stay and discuss the complaint with him. Carol tries to leave the room and John physically restrains her, all the while telling her that he just wants to talk. The scene ends with Carol, held back by John, yelling for help.
Analysis
There are many ways to interpret the events that occur in the first act of the play: are they merely examples of an unorthodox mode of pedagogy, as John claims, or are they instances of harassment, as Carol claims? In Act II, this ambiguity dissolves. The act ends with John physically restraining Carol. Though, yet again, he does not mean to hurt her, and intends only to prevent her from leaving his office, the action is evidently inappropriate and harmful.
John’s act of violence against his student is particularly ironic, given that he has called her into his office in order to come to an understanding with her. Indeed, it would be something of an understatement to say that the conversation does not end the way John planned for it to end. Yet again, Mamet has presented us with a situation in which the bare facts are completely obvious, but leaves open the possibility that we, the audience, will sympathize with either character. The audience is put on the spot, asked to choose a side in this heated moment.
On the one hand, some audience members will side with John. Few would deny that his action is wrong, but his motives, some might think, are understandable. He has been accused of behaving monstrously and of harming his student, which has put him under so much strain that he actually begins to behave monstrously and harm his students. After all, Carol’s complaint has put stress on his home life as well as his career—we learn this due to the phone call that he takes in his office.
Others might believe that John’s actions in this scene are simply more extreme versions of the ones of which Carol has already accused him. If, in Act I, John manipulated Carol, threatened her, and implied that he wanted to find a way to force her to spend time by herself with him, he has now made good on all of those threats. According to this reading, John’s violence against Carol is not a result of her accusations. Rather, it is proof of the legitimacy of those accusations. Furthermore, according to this reading, John’s phone call is not evidence of the strain Carol has placed him under. Rather, it is evidence of his shoddily constructed life, in which personal fulfillment depends on the approval of the tenure committee and on his ability to buy an expensive house. In his frustrated phone call, we see that this life is falling apart, but, some audience members will feel, it was bound to do so eventually. Carol is merely witnessing the final dissolution of John’s fragile personal life.
