The Lesson

Imagine that you are working on a contemporary production of The Lesson. How would you make the play relevant to audiences today? What parts of the play do you think might be problematic or have not aged well? What symbol would you put on the armband (or another item to similar effect)?

Why do you think Ionesco specifies that the knife is imaginary? How does that create meaning? What difference do you think it makes in the play if the knife is a real prop?

Gender plays a significant role in The Lesson. Consider if the pupil was a role for a young man—how would the depiction of power and the murder differ for the audience? Why does Ionesco choose to make power both gendered and sexualized?

How would you characterize the maid? What does she want? What purpose does she serve? Support your answer with details from the play.

Ionesco labeled The Lesson a comic drama. What does that mean? Why do you think he applied it to this play? What’s funny? What’s dramatic?

While 1950s in the United States was a time of economic growth, Europe experienced a period of recovery, reflection, and economic decline. What elements of The Lesson might reflect French society’s struggle with questions of identity, truth, and culpability following World War II?

What are three ways that Ionesco undermines the concept of identity in the play? When individual humanity is removed from the equation, what emerges more powerfully, according to the play?

What do you think it means that the maid gives the professor an armband with a swastika? What particular meaning might that take in 1951? What would it mean today?