The Lesson E-Book

Baptiste Frankinet

• Herausgeber: BrightSummaries.com
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 24

Beschreibung

What should we remember about The Lesson, the play between drama and burlesque? Find everything you need to know about this work in a complete and detailed reading sheet.
You will find in this booklet:
- A complete summary
- A presentation of the main characters such as the student, the teacher and the maid
- An analysis of the specificities of the work: a tragedy, the destruction of language, language as a symbol of power and a satire of education
A reference analysis to quickly understand the meaning of the work.

Leseprobe

EUGENE IONESCO

FRENCH PLAYWRIGHT AND ESSAYIST

•Born in 1909 in Slatina (Romania)

•Died in 1994 in Paris

•Some of his works:

°The Bald Cantatrice (1950), play

°Rhinoceros (1959), play

°Le roi se meurt (1962), play

Born of a Romanian father and a French mother, Eugène Ionesco arrived in France a year after his birth and was naturalised in France in 1951. His theatrical work (La Cantatrice chauve; La Leçon, 1951; Les Chaises, 1952, etc.) has left its mark on literature. Today, he is one of the most widely performed French playwrights in the world. Anxious to be understood, he has left many commentaries on his work (Notes et contre-notes, 1962; Journal en miettes, 1967, etc.). He was elected to the Académie française in 1970.

Ionesco is the leader of the theatre of the absurd, a new theatrical genre which, in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939-1945), overturned the rules of classical theatre.

THE LESSON

THE ABSURD LESSON OF A TEACHER TO HIS PUPIL

•Genre: theatre (tragedy)

•Reference edition: La Leçon, Paris, Gallimard, "Folio théâtre" collection, 1994, 131 p.

•1re edition: 1951

•Themes: temptation, murder, desire, language, power, teaching

The Lesson is a one-act play written in 1950 and performed a few months later. In it, Ionesco portrays an old teacher who receives a young student in his home for private lessons. As the play progresses, the lesson becomes more complicated and communication between teacher and student breaks down. The story ends with the murder of the young woman by her teacher.

Today, The Lesson is one of Eugène Ionesco's most performed and most read plays. This tragedy has the particularity of allowing everyone to interpret it in their own way.

SUMMARY

The play is not divided into scenes or acts. It is played by three characters: the teacher, the student and the teacher's maid.

A VERY SPECIAL LESSON

A young student planning to prepare for the "total doctorate competition" to satisfy her parents goes to a teacher for private lessons.

At first, they discuss banalities, an opportunity for the professor to test the girl's basic knowledge. When the girl tells the professor that she is 'at his disposal' (p. 33), she arouses desire in him, and it becomes clear that the relationship between the two characters is ambiguous. The lecherous nature of the teacher is emphasised in the didascalia (for example, his looks are often described as 'libidinous') and also appears in curious lines, such as when he explains mathematical operations by illustrating them with far-fetched examples that refer to the student's body: 'If you had had two noses, and I had torn one off… How many would you have left now?' (p. 45)