The Lesson

“We can’t be sure of anything, young lady, in this world.”

The professor casually undermines the notion of truth in response to the student’s assertion that snow does not fall in the summer. This statement, which does not seem to reach the student, foreshadows the way the professor will deconstruct truth altogether.

“PUPIL: Yes, indeed, Professor, I am at your disposal.

PROFESSOR: At my disposal? [A gleam comes into his eyes and is quickly extinguished; he begins to make a gesture that he suppresses at once.] Oh, miss, it is I who am at your disposal. I am only your humble servant.”

The pupil’s word choice is strikingly odd, and it foreshadows what will eventually become of her. If she is at his disposal, he may dispose of her, which is contrary to teaching. There are sexual undertones of this exchange, as evidenced by his brief lewd gleam. It is also a gambit in terms of power. Each defers power to the other, marking this as the start of their power struggle.

“She exaggerates. Her fears are stupid.”

After the maid interrupts and expresses her worries about the professor teaching arithmetic, the pupil comments that she must care about him if she worries. But the professor responds to Marie’s interruptions with aggression and defensiveness, as if her concerns that he might exhaust himself are attacking his masculinity and virility. Ironically, although Marie berates him for committing another murder, she is truly concerned about his health—not the safety of his victims.

“Magnificent. You are magnificent. You are exquisite. I congratulate you warmly, miss. There’s scarcely any point in going on.”

This level of praise is absurd considering that the pupil only added some basic, one-digit numbers. But questioning his sincerity is useless, since truth is slippery in absurdism. His language is also flirtatious, praising her wholly instead of her skills and using the word “exquisite” that usually refers to beauty.

“PUPIL: I can count to….to infinity.

PROFESSOR: That’s not possible, miss.

PUPIL: Well then, let’s say to sixteen.

PROFESSOR. That is enough. One must know one’s limits.” 

Counting to infinity is certainly impossible, considering that infinity is a concept rather than a number. But the pupil also claims that she has memorized every potential multiplication problem, which is just as impossible, and she demonstrates that achievement. In absurdism, it is impossible to know what is true. This is the first moment that the professor begins to set the student’s limits. Her limits are her weaknesses, and he begins to define those limits for her.

“You always have a tendency to add. But one must be able to subtract too. It’s not enough to integrate, you must also disintegrate. That’s the way life is. That’s philosophy. That’s science. That’s progress, civilization.”

The professor expresses his real lesson for the student, which is that power, the creation of knowledge, and the creation of civilizations require destruction as well as construction. She should embrace the power to disintegrate by calling it progress, just as the Nazis embraced genocide and decimation in the name of building their version of civilization. Her inability to subtract is the weakness that he begins to exploit.

“That’s the way it is, miss. It can’t be explained. This is only comprehensible through internal mathematical reasoning. Either you have it or you don’t.” 

The professor reaches his limit as an educator, which is his inability to teach her subtraction. Mathematical reasoning can and is taught, but he fails. This is a moment of weakness and impotence for him, but he projects the fault back onto the student, insisting that there is something wrong with her.

“It’s easy. Not being able to rely on my reasoning, I’ve memorized all the products of all possible multiplication.” 

This claim should be ridiculous, but the student demonstrates her ability by providing the answer to an impossibly large multiplication problem. This suggests intelligence and creative problem-solving, even though she took the most difficult and impossible tact she could.

“It is by mathematical reasoning, simultaneously inductive and deductive, that you ought to arrive at this result—as well as at any other result. Mathematics is the sworn enemy of memory, which is excellent otherwise, but disastrous, arithmetically speaking!…That’s why I’m not happy with this…This won’t do, not at all…”

Certainly, a significant part of learning mathematics, even basic addition and subtraction, are learning how and why an answer is what it is. But this discussion brings up the question of knowledge, and how one can have two identical answers, but one is wrong because it was reached incorrectly. In math, process is important because memorizing every answer is impossible. But what if it weren’t impossible? Would it make the right answer wrong?

“Professor, especially not philology, philology leads to calamity…” 

Later, the maid will amend that arithmetic leads to philology, and philology leads to crime, which is perhaps a more useful formulation. This suggests that the maid does not want the girl to know what is going to happen to her, although that would most likely send her running and end the cycle. The pupil even responds that she finds that unlikely. Perhaps the maid’s interruptions and admonishments are also part of the cycle. She serves as a voice of conscience that has been disempowered and ignored.

“Don’t parade your knowledge. You’d do better to listen.”

Although the student offers the word “phoneme,” which is the correct word that the professor is fumbling for, he rejects her input. During the arithmetic section of the lesson, the professor and student spoke equally. Now he is demonstrating his ability to subtract (or disintegrate) in the name of knowledge by breaking her down and filling her with the knowledge he wants her to have.

“That which differentiates these languages, is neither the words, which are absolutely the same, nor the structure of the sentence which is everywhere the same, nor the intonation, which does not offer any differences, nor the rhythm of the language…That which differentiates them […] is an intangible thing. Something intangible that one is able to perceive only after very long study, with a great deal of trouble and after the broadest experience. […] I cannot give you any rule. One must have a feeling for it, and well, that’s it.” 

The professor fails at teaching for a second time. This time, his subject matter is nonsensical. He claims that all languages are the same in form, structure, and vocabulary, differing only in an unexplainable quality. For both topics, expecting students to have an innate sense for what they are doing is contrary to education. There is no point in teaching students who do or do not already have the sense. He is also limiting her further, deeming her incapable of philology.

“PROFESSOR: Silence! Or I’ll bash in your skull!

PUPIL: Just try to! Skulldugger!” 

The pupil has tolerated the professor’s browbeating, even his mockery of her toothache and a threat to pull out her teeth. When he threatens overt violence, she defends herself for the first time, implying that she will fight him if he attempts to hurt her. She calls him a “skulldugger,” which is someone who is dishonest and dishonorable, someone who deals in shady practices such as bribery and extortion. Thus, she insults him by calling him a fraud, suggesting that she rejects his teaching. He twists her wrist to make her quiet.

“Instead of staring at the flies while I’m going to all this trouble…you would do much better to try to be more attentive…it is not I who is going to qualify for the partial doctor’s orals…I passed mine a long time ago…and I’ve won my total doctorate, too…and my super-total diploma…Don’t you realize that what I’m saying is for your own good?” 

The professor is exerting his position of power over the pupil, who called him a “skulldugger” and then started resisting his teaching. She has not left or attempted to leave, suggesting that either she cannot leave, or she still believes that he can help her. The professor told her that she cannot attempt a total doctorate, and she accepted it without argument, which implies that he has the power to deny her. He also mentions a super-total diploma, which means that there is a mysterious next level above the total doctorate, both of which are absurd notions.

“Here is one, young lady, here is a knife. It’s too bad that we only have this one, but we’re going to try to make it serve for all the languages, anyway! It will be enough if you will pronounce the word ‘knife’ in all the languages, while looking at the object, very closely, fixedly, and imagining that it is in the language you are speaking.”

The professor has limited her lesson and potential again, narrowing all of philology into the word “knife.” Since all the languages are absurdly the same, the word “knife” is the same, which makes this a theoretically easy task. He is also telling her to stare at a knife that is not there. But although the word is different in every language, a knife as an object is always the same. It always cuts, slices, and kills. Violence is a universal language.

“Oh, no! My God! I’ve had enough. And besides, I’ve got a toothache, my feet hurt me, I’ve got a headache. […] You’re giving me an earache, too. Oh, your voice! It’s so piercing!” 

The student’s pleas recognize that the professor is causing her ailments. The toothache started when he was speaking about pronunciation. The more he pushes her, the more the pain spreads. Now his voice is piercing while he is talking about a knife. He is feeding off her energy and draining her.

“PUPIL [In a weak voice]: Yes, yes…the knife kills?

PROFESSOR [striking the Pupil with a very spectacular blow of the knife]: Aaah! That’ll teach you!” 

The professor has been demanding that the pupil repeat his words, a final level of education and indoctrination in which she, as the oppressed, only knows and repeats the lessons and language of the oppressor. When she finally gives him what he wants, repeating “the knife kills,” he rewards her by penetrating her with the knife. The imaginary knife is composed of his language and discourse, and he shoves it into her, killing her.

“Bitch…Oh, that’s good, that does me good….Ah! Ah! I’m exhausted…I can scarcely breathe…Aah! […He gets up, looks at the knife in his hand, looks at the young girl, then as though he were waking up, in a panic]: What have I done! What’s going to happen to me now! What’s going to happen! Oh! Dear! Oh dear, I’m in trouble! Young lady, young lady, get up!”

The professor calls the student a “bitch” (75), demonstrating that his hatred and violence are gendered. He seems to suddenly lose the aggressive energy he absorbed off the girl and become the mannered professor again, but his only concern is for himself. He tells her to get up because he is afraid of getting in trouble. She was also stabbed with an imaginary knife, so she probably looks as if she might get up, which feeds into the absurd humor of the play which is, after all, a “comic drama” (43).

“MAID [sarcastic]: Then, you’re satisfied with your pupil, she’s profited by your lesson?

PROFESSOR [holding the knife behind his back]: Yes, the lesson is finished…but…she…she’s still there…she doesn’t want to leave…”

Humorously, the professor tries to hide what he did, having called for Marie, and then regretted it. He begins to make up absurd lies, first that she is alive and does not want to leave, and then he lies about who killed her. The professor is terrified of Marie, a sudden power shift to comic effect from the man who dominated, raped, and murdered the student. If Marie is the voice of his conscience, she feels very little guilt. She berates him briefly, but then her admonishment is silenced, and she only helps him to get away with it.

“MAID: Liar! Old fox! An intellectual like you is not going to make a mistake in the meanings of words. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes.

PROFESSOR [sobbing]: I didn’t kill her on purpose!

MAID: Are you sorry at least?

PROFESSOR: Oh, yes, Marie, I swear it to you!

MAID: I can’t help feeling sorry for you! Ah! You’re a good boy in spite of everything. I’ll try to fix this. But don’t start it again…It could give you a heart attack…” 

The professor is reduced to a weepy mess, not seeming to remember that he already did this 39 times. But he is not remotely sorry for the girl. He only wants to offset his own guilt. Claiming that he did not kill her on purpose is an obvious lie, as the audience witnessed the murder. At Marie’s prompting, he claims to be sorry, and that is all it takes for her to give forgiveness and help him. She warns him not to do it again, for the sake of his own health, which suggests that Marie is not entirely outside of the cycle if she believes after 40 bodies that he will not kill again.

“Don’t worry so much. We’ll say that [the coffins] are empty. And besides, people won’t ask questions, they’re used to it.” 

It seems impossible that authorities would trust their word about the contents of coffins, or that the people around them could grow used to girls disappearing to the point that they would become complacent. Here Ionesco demonstrates the absurdity of the world’s ignorance around the existence of concentration camps before and during World War II. Many looked the other way and were tacitly complicit; it is harder to believe that Germany quietly slaughtered six million people and the world did not know until the camps were liberated.

“Wait, if you’re afraid, wear this. then you won’t have anything more to be afraid of. […] That’s good politics.”

Marie’s line after putting the swastika band on the professor’s arm, “c’est politique,” translates more accurately to “It’s political.” This is a minor difference, but “It’s political” suggests that wearing the armband makes the killings political. If he makes them political, he does not have to worry about consequences. The professor wears it without hesitation, suggesting that he does not have particular political leanings. He is simply wearing the swastika because he is a killer, and the armband justifies the killings while protecting him.

“Thanks, my little Marie. With this, I won’t need to worry…You’re a good girl, Marie…very loyal.” 

The professor has been verbally abusive to Marie throughout the play, snapping at her rudely every time she tries to stop him and save him from himself. Then he tries to lie to her as if he is her naughty son, a role that she plays into by scolding him and then comforting him. Now, she is the wife who endures his infidelity/murdering because she loves him, standing by him as if his crimes are justified. He speaks to her with loving affection, even infantilizing her as a “good girl” (78), as if the cycle will not again repeat, and he will once again turn to insulting her.