Eugene Ionesco THE LESSON

1
Eugene IonescoTHE LESSON

• Drama 201
• February 25, 2005

2
Outline

• Brief Biography and Context
• Philosophy, Politics and
• Language in the Absurd
• Absurdity isolation / repetition / inability to
  express / domesticity
• The Bald Soprano
• Berenger Ionesco as Everyman
• Exit the King philosophy
• Rhinoceros politics
• The Lesson
• - language

3
Brief Biography

• Born in Romania 1912 (1909)
• Family moved to France
• WWI 1914-1918
• Moved back to Romania
• Wrote poetry, articles, essays
• Settled in France 1938 (1942)
• WWII 1940-1945
• The Bald Soprano 1950
• Writes 30 plays in 30 years
• Dies in Paris, 1994
• The Lesson Marathon 2003

4
Philosophy, Politics and Language

• Absurdity
• isolation cut from / uncertainty
• expression grotesque subjectivity
• repetition Sisyphus
• domesticity undercut realism
• The Bald Soprano
• English Lessons (Esslin 87/88)
• René Descartes (1596-1650)
• Cogito ergo sum epistemology
• Galileo under house arrest

5
Philosophy, Politics and Language

• Berenger Ionesco
• Exit the King
• A question of existence
• -wasted life led to barren lands -life as memory
• The Rhinoceros
• - mob mentality and fear
• -individual versus the masses
• Im not capitulating (107)

6
The Lesson

• Characters
• Doubt and Uncertainty
• Integration and Disintegration
• Philology
• Ultimate Disintegration Death
• Power
• Lessons Learned?
• Marathon

7
The Lesson

• Characters
• reading now that we know
• 970 peppy to aphasia, stammer to slaughterer
• 971 professors second line seems innocuous
  enough the first time through
• At my disposal? (972)

8
The Lesson

• Doubt and Uncertainty
• We cant be sure of anything, young lady, in
  this world (971).
• Maries first entrance, urges him to remain
  calmyou cant say that I didnt warn you
  (972)

9
The Lesson

• Integration and Disintegration
• 973 Can add but not subtract
• Science is dealt with first. It can be broken
  down and reasoned.
• Moves onto the more difficult task of language
  instruction.

10
The Lesson

• Philology
• 975 The elements of linguistics and of
  comparative philology
• Must remember until the hour of her death
  that every tongue is at bottom, nothing but
  language
• Moves onto articulation, not meaning

11
The Lesson

• Philology
• 976 best way to be heard?
• In his world meaning stays the
• same, only the words change
• 978 roses
• temper and intangibility
• 979 countries

12
The Lesson

• Philology
• Taken the difficulty in being understood to an
  extreme by making all language universal a
  paradox, a non-sense, one of the aberrations of
  human nature, it is purely and simply instinct
  (980)

13
The Lesson

• Ultimate Disintegration Death
• Knife dance
• In trance until the violent blow
• And today makes it the fortieth time!...And
  every day its the same thing! Every day! (981)

14
The Lesson

• Power
• 980 struggles with Marie
• 981Tries to stab Marie
• 982 Marie forgives

15
The Lesson

• Lessons Learned?
• people wont ask questions, theyre used to it
  (982)
• repetition
• Swastika armband
• inability to comprehend
• we dont want to hurt her
• subversion of domesticity

16
The Lesson

• Marathon

17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)