My assumptions were obviously incorrect, so I asked them to cite particular details from the play that led them to side with John. To my even greater surprise, they made claims about Carol that were not supported by the text. I don't want revenge. The same woman also claimed that she was surprised and disturbed by Carol's attempts at censorship in demanding that John's book be banned from the university. Stanley Fish, writing about interpretive communities, takes Holland's ideas one step further.
Fish explains that the situation in which a text is read helps determine the text's meaning.
In particular, he suggests that an academic institution has a set structure of relationships that helps to form a shared understanding of language. John's point of view is the institution's point of view, and as members of a similar institution, they found more sense in John's position than in Carol's. This similar institution at which I teach is a private liberal arts college in the deep south. My students have been brought up to respect authority, and even though their politeness is sometimes a thin veneer, it is something they defend vigorously. It was clear that they had trouble with Carol's aggressive bad manners after Act One, and her impoliteness was worse for them because she's a woman.