The Lesson

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1951

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Act Summaries & Analyses

Act 1, Part 1

Act 1, Part 2

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Addition and Subtraction

Twice in the play, Marie interrupts to plead with and warn the professor to stop, suggesting that these moments, from Marie’s external vantage point, are points of no return in the repeated semi-ritual of killing. The first moment is when the professor decides to shift into arithmetic, which he says, “is rather a new science, a modern science, properly speaking, it is more a method than a science…and it is also a therapy” (50). Of course, arithmetic is thousands of years old and far from new, and rarely considered therapeutic—although the professor’s increasing vigor might suggest otherwise. He begins by quizzing her in basic addition of single-digit numbers, praising her heavily for giving correct answers. This praise seems illogical and absurd for math that a young child would find simple, but the professor treats these correct answers as a sign of her ability to comprehend the logic of arithmetic. Earlier, when the professor and student discuss the weather, the professor comments that they are fortunate that it did not rain or snow. The student counters that it does not snow in summer, and the professor replies, “We can’t be sure of anything, young lady, in this world” (48). The expectations of no snow in summer and that one plus one equals two are, in a logical world, taken as given. But the world of the play is illogical; even arithmetic, which is typically accepted as unquestionably true, must be reasoned. Throughout this lesson, the professor’s logic and reason empower him, even when they are illogical.

The professor and student reach a point of contention with subtraction. Not only is she unable to answer single-digit subtraction questions, but she cannot grasp the concept of subtraction. Whether she understands the logic of addition or not, the logic of subtraction eludes her. He asks how high she can count, and she replies that she can count to infinity. When the professor points out that this is impossible, she amends her answer to 16. Both answers are absurd, as is her later assertion—which she demonstrates—that she has memorized the answer to every multiplication problem possible. But he accepts the absurdly low number, stating, “One must know one’s limits” (53). The student is still curious and eager to learn, but this is when the professor begins to limit her. He tries to explain subtraction via smaller and larger numbers, but he dismisses questions “that would take [them] much too far” (53). He draws invisible matches on an invisible board to illustrate, but she takes his questions too literally, returning to her default mode of addition. The professor asserts, “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” (55). Addition and subtraction become philosophical building blocks, a willingness to not just give and build but also take and destroy. In this, the professor articulates the real crux of the lesson: power requires the willingness to obliterate.

The professor and the student embody this idea of addition and subtraction, or integration and disintegration. The professor slowly gains strength and power, transitioning from weak to strong and aggressive, and the student loses her vigor and health, shifting from strong to weak. Continuing the lesson in subtraction, the professor begins to use the student’s body parts as strange tangible units to represent numbers. He questions how many noses she would have if he gave her three and took one away. Or how many ears if he added an extra and pulled one off. She struggles with this bizarre notion, and he switches from simply describing her theoretical mutilation to mutilation and cannibalism, as he posits that he gives her imaginary ears and noses and eats them. By the end of the play, of course, he will perform the final act of subtractive violence by killing her. But at the end of the arithmetic session, he only limits her, taking away the possibility of a total doctorate. He states, “It can’t be explained. This is only comprehensible through internal mathematical reasoning. Either you have it or you don’t” (58). This suggests that as a professor who is supposed to be engaged in teaching, he has very little to give or add to students. He only identifies what is already there and subtracts.

How Philology (and Language) Lead to Calamity

One of the major conventions of absurdist theatre is the deconstruction and devaluing of language, which Ionesco established in his first play, The Bald Soprano, the companion piece to The Lesson. In The Bald Soprano, Ionesco creates a distance between language and action until language breaks down. The British bourgeois couples speak to each other in cliches and non-sequiturs—what the French call la langue de bois, which means “wooden tongue,” or language that is pretentious, ambiguous, empty, and evasive. Language defines time, place, and identity, but when language becomes slippery, stable reality falls apart. The elusiveness of meaning creates the metaphysical anxiety of absurdism. But while The Bald Soprano considers the emptiness of careless language, The Lesson is about the deliberate manipulation of language as a tool of social power. Hence, the former title references a non-existent diva, and the latter title refers to a lesson that certainly happens in the play, although the word “lesson” has multiple meanings. As Marie interrupts to warn, “philology leads to calamity,” to which the student replies, “[Smiling a little stupidly:] That’s hard to believe” (60). Words are more than sound propelled by shaped puffs of air, and language is more than signs and signifiers to facilitate communication. Language is a power that has been exerted globally for millennia to enforce colonization, conformity, and tyranny. The professor manipulates language into a philosophical and material weapon, demonstrating how language shapes the world by constructing systems of power and oppression.

The professor’s lecture sounds to most audiences like random academic nonsense, a leap from kindergarten math to fast-paced graduate-level gibberish. But within the nonsense is a constructed logic—or illogic—which the professor first presents to the pupil, and then forces it on her. First, “geography and philology are twin sisters” (61), a statement that makes sense in terms of the way language creates national borders. Then, with authority, he explains, “That which distinguishes the neo-Spanish languages from each other […] is their striking resemblance” (61), which is fundamentally illogical. But he dismisses this topic as “generalities” (62), although philology is primarily concerned with the historical construction and progression of language. Instead, he focuses on the embodiment of language. He impresses upon the student that she must remember “until the hour of [her] death […] every tongue is at bottom noting but language, which necessarily implies that it is composed of sounds” (62). The professor describes nonsensically how to pronounce language in a way that commands attention. At this point, the student begins to complain about a toothache, which the professor dismisses as “trivial” (63) compared to his lecture. The professor ignores all warning signs of impending calamity. The student’s ultimate destruction is rendering her silent and unable to speak, and this metaphysical death of removing her ability to speak begins in her mouth. According to Marie, all the student deaths begin with a toothache.

The more absurd and nonsensical the lesson becomes—which began with the most basic, logical, and concrete question of one plus one equaling two—the more the student experiences real physical pain. Language manifests physically in what seems to be a vampiric transfer of power and vitality from the student to the professor. Earlier, in the arithmetic lesson, language manifested a chalkboard, chalk-drawn matches, and extra ears and noses that were unseen but used to illustrate subtraction. The professor manifests an unseen knife, repeating the word “knife” over and over, forcing the student to repeat it as well, despite her increasing pain. He stabs her with the imaginary knife, the knife conjured by language, and she dies, fully blurring the line between language and reality. The professor calls her a “bitch” (75), the only vulgar word in the play, and the word is powerful and viscerally violent. He tries to make up lies to placate Marie, claiming that he misunderstood what Marie meant by “calamity,” and Marie retorts, “Liar. […] An intellectual like you is not going to make a mistake in the meanings of words” (77). She is not his student, so she has not been a victim of his rhetoric, but she respects him because she cares about him. She likewise benefits from his authority, and she may take pride and solace in her own proximity to power, even if she has to dispose of a body from time to time. His attempts at lies and subsequent casual manner about disposing of the body are reminders of the lascivious gleam in his eyes. Although the power of language seems to make him lose control, the violence resides in the man, and language gives it an outlet. Marie gives him a Nazi armband, connecting him to a violent organization that only recently attempted world domination and followed an ideology that justified genocide and war.

Rape, Violence, and the Subjugation of Women

According to Ionesco, “The Lesson is the story of rape, or rather a whole series of rapes.” Notably, in line with Ionesco’s tendency to manipulate language to absurdist effect, there is no rape in the play—at least, there is no literal rape or any mention of the word. Meaning and symbolism are slippery in the play, as are logic, language, and identity. Acts of colonization and conquest are frequently described as rape, and often rape is used in art as a metaphor for social injustice. But less often, metaphor represents rape. Often, it is shown, described, or alluded to in a way that is exploitative, or worse, sexually titillating. The rape of the student is not necessarily softened through symbolism, since it is represented by the murder of the student, but the murder is absurd, carried out with an imaginary knife. It is also possible to assign a multitude of meanings to the murder, none of which Ionesco necessarily intended. But the buildup in the text mimics flirtation and failed seduction, and sexual give and take that is conflated with the giving and receiving of learning. Among the represented power structures including teacher-student, employer-maid, fascist-citizen, and age-inexperience, the play represents the hierarchical power of men over women. Higher academia has long been a site of male domination, even more so in 1951 than in the present, in which older male professors with institutional power have preyed on young female students and scholars. In the play, the professor not only symbolically rapes and murders the pupil, but he consumes and erases—or subtracts and disintegrates—her.

It is significant that the young woman is from a privileged family with parents who are involved and invested in her success. She is “a well-brought-up girl” (45), meaning that she has been trained to be pleasing and obedient, and she enters this situation with innocent confidence. She is fresh, pretty, and 18, a new adult who has been sent straight from her parents’ house to the house of academia. The professor’s occasional lewd looks betray his intentions to devour her from the beginning, but he is also (seemingly) timid and harmless. The pupil mirrors the professor and engages in flirtatious exchanges. He tells her, “Ah, you’re very far advanced, even perhaps too advanced for your age” (49), a subtle assessment of her sexual maturity. At the start of the lesson, she says, “Professor, I am at your disposal,” conjuring a gleam and a lascivious “At my disposal?” from the professor that he quickly represses, stating, “Oh, miss, it is I who am at your disposal. I am only your humble servant” (50). This exchange sets the tone for both the academic and sexual tension that will begin to rise between them. He feigns subservience until he reveals himself to be a predator, calling her “magnificent” and “exquisite” (52). Pouring his academic knowledge into her is an act of penetration, and he fails to perform twice. First, he cannot teach her mathematical reasoning, as “either you have it or you don’t” (58). Then, after an even larger buildup, he cannot teach her philology because “one must have a feeling for it, and well, that’s it” (68). Two moments of academic impotence feed the rage that leads to the killing. She participates until she is in pain, begging him to recognize her suffering. His third act cannot end with impotence because he uses a knife as a phallus. He then defends his actions, claiming limply that she was a bad student, which clearly was not the case. She was a good student with potential, but she was also a pretty girl who he wanted to consume.

The professor’s misogyny is also apparent in his rude dismissals of Marie. He belittles her—she is not welcome in the room because she is not an attractive, intelligent young girl. He even tries to kill her for daring to insult him for being a murderer. But his tone changes when she takes the role of the supporting wife and/or mother. All it takes is an insincere apology, which she solicits, and Marie melts. He is the husband who cheats, and she is the wife who will look the other way as long as he comes home. He is the son who a mother loves unconditionally. The professor is a powerful man, but as a mass rapist and murderer, he is “a good boy in spite of everything” (77).

At the end, Marie answers the door and greets another (unseen) young woman, implying that the cycle will begin again. His very identity as a professor is contingent upon having students, so he needs a constant stream. Academia and language are power structures, and women must pass through the gauntlet of lascivious and powerful men who want to consume and destroy them sexually, academically, and physically. They must fight through men who want to use them and then crush their potential, and they are sent unprepared by their well-meaning parents. The end of the play is not quite cyclical, which would suggest that everything begins again. In this case, the violence repeats over and over, but the bodies are accumulating.