Reading Order
The Lesson Reading Order
The Lesson (1951) by Eugène Ionesco is the companion to The Bald Soprano — the second of his early one-act plays that established the Theatre of the Absurd. A Professor gives a lesson to a young Female Student who has come to take her examinations; the lesson begins normally (she is better at arithmetic than he is) and gradually becomes something else: the Professor's language becomes increasingly domineering and erratic; the Student develops a toothache that grows during the lesson; and by the end of the lesson the Professor has killed her — with the word 'knife,' which he repeats forty times. The Maid then arrives, cleans up the body, warns the Professor that this is the fortieth murder today, and they prepare for the next Student. Ionesco called the play 'a comic drama' — another attempt to find the form that holds comedy and tragedy simultaneously. The play is about language as domination: the Professor's progressive appropriation of the Student's subjectivity through the instrument of 'teaching' is Ionesco's investigation of the relationship between pedagogy and power.
Where to start
The Lesson (1951) — the complete text. Best Ionesco reading order: The Bald Soprano → The Lesson → The Chairs → Rhinoceros → Exit the King.
Complete The Lesson Book List
- 1Buy
The Lesson
Eugène Ionesco·1951·The complete play — the Professor, the Student, and the Maid. The companion to The Bald Soprano; the first production was directed by Marcel Cuvelier at the Théâtre de Poche in Paris in 1951 - 2Buy
The Bald Soprano
Eugène Ionesco·1950·The companion — the Smiths and the Martins and the collapse of language. The companion investigation of the emptiness of language from a different angle: The Bald Soprano shows language as social performance that means nothing; The Lesson shows language as the vehicle of domination - 3Buy
The Chairs
Eugène Ionesco·1952·The companion — the elderly couple and the accumulating empty chairs. The companion in Ionesco's darker, more emotionally resonant mode: The Lesson is a comedy of domination; The Chairs is a tragic farce about meaning and its failure - 4Buy
Rhinoceros
Eugène Ionesco·1959·The companion with a more explicit political dimension. The companion investigation of mass conformity: where The Lesson investigates the one-to-one relationship of domination (professor and student), Rhinoceros investigates the collective version of the same phenomenon - 5Buy
Discipline and Punish
Michel Foucault·1975·Foucault's companion investigation of the relationship between power and knowledge in modern institutions. The companion philosophical text to The Lesson: Foucault's analysis of the school as a disciplinary institution that produces subjects through the examination is the theoretical complement to Ionesco's theatrical investigation of what actually happens in a lesson - 6Buy
Oleanna
David Mamet·1992·Mamet's companion about the relationship between a professor and a student — organized around a sexual harassment accusation. The companion contemporary investigation of the same pedagogical relationship and its power dynamics: where Ionesco uses absurdist logic to reveal the Professor's domination as murder, Mamet uses realistic logic to investigate the ambiguity of power in the same relationship - 7Buy
The History of Sexuality
Michel Foucault·1976·Foucault's companion investigation of the relationship between knowledge and power. The companion philosophical text to The Lesson as an investigation of the way that the discourse of knowledge is always also a discourse of power: the Professor's 'teaching' is also his domination, and Foucault's analysis of the confession (the practitioner who elicits speech from the patient/penitent/student) illuminates the mechanism - 8Buy
Hard to Be a God
Arkady Strugatsky·1964·The Strugatsky brothers' companion science fiction novel about an Earth historian observing a medieval-level civilization and the temptation to intervene. The companion investigation of the relationship between knowledge and power from the other direction: what does it mean to possess knowledge that another person or civilization does not have, and what gives you the right to withhold or transmit it?
The Lesson — Frequently Asked Questions
What happens in The Lesson by Ionesco?
A Professor gives a private lesson to a female Student who has come to take her total doctoral exam (the highest of all). The lesson begins normally — she is better at arithmetic than the Professor, who cannot add — but gradually the Professor takes control. He introduces the Student to 'neo-Spanish linguistics,' a made-up subject in which his authority is absolute; the Student develops a toothache that grows throughout the lesson; and the Professor's language becomes increasingly domineering and aggressive. By the end of the lesson, the Professor has killed the Student — with the word 'knife,' repeated forty times. The Maid then arrives, warns that this is the fortieth murder today (hence the need for blinds on all the windows), helps dispose of the body, and a new Student rings the doorbell. The play is a circular structure like The Bald Soprano: it starts again.
What is The Lesson about thematically?
The Lesson is about the relationship between language and power, specifically the way that teaching — the transmission of knowledge — is also a relationship of domination. The Professor's progressive appropriation of the Student's subjectivity follows the logic of pedagogy: he defines the terms, he determines what counts as knowledge, he corrects and redirects her responses until she is simply repeating what he says. The toothache is the symptom of her progressive loss of subjectivity — as the Professor takes more control of the lesson, she loses the ability to experience anything except pain. The murder with the word 'knife' is the logical conclusion of the process: language, when it is purely the instrument of one party's authority, becomes a weapon.
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