Netty Nur Rahmawati
A. 320 080 037
1st Assignment of Drama
THE LESSON A Comic Drama
by Eugene Ionesco
A. Structural Elements of Drama
1. Character and Characterization
The characters are the focal point of The Lesson. They come from three of Theater largest character-pools - Maid, Pupil, Professor – and this has given the characters brilliant resources which to base their versions on. The Pupil was taking over-acting to new heights and was duly concerned. The Professor, an elderly man of about 50 to 60, is expecting a new Pupil (aged 18). The third character is the Professor's Maid, a stout, red-faced woman of about 45 to 50, who is always worrying about the Professor's health.
Major Characters:
☼ The professor
The professor, between fifty and sixty years of age, who tutors individual pupils for their “total doctorate” examinations. He is character are irrationally, even absurdly, aggressive person, excessively polite, very timid, his voice deadened by his timidity, angry; disallowing any interruptions of his barrage on philology and associated as the cleverest and the highest. He always attacks the student using language as a tool of dominance, power, deception, and, in the end, violent cruelty.
Minor Characters:
☼ The Pupil
The Young Pupil is eighteen years old. She is quieter and meek, rich and fool person but she is attractive. Another characteristics of her are enthusiasm for the lesson and she always get increasing pain at being in the presence of The Professor.
☼ The Maid
The maid’s characters are a stout, red-faced woman of between forty-five and fifty, who is always worrying about the Professor's health. She is stout, patient, red faced. She is always pay attention to the professor.
2. Setting
The setting takes place in the office and dining room of a small French flat. The old Professor's study, which is also his dining-room. On the left of the stage a door leads to the main staircase of the apartment block; at the back of the stage, on the right, another door opens on to a corridor in the flat. To the rear and slightly to the left there is a window hung with plain curtains, and outside, on the sill, pots of common or garden flowers. In the distance can be glimpsed low red-roofed houses : the small town. The sky is bluish gray. On the right a simple dresser. The table, which also serves as a desk, stands in the center of the room. Three chairs round the table, two more on either side of the window, a light wallpaper, a few shelves holding books. As the lesson progresses, the Professor grows more and more angry with (what he perceives as) the Pupil's ignorance and the Pupil becomes more quiet and meek.
3. Plot
The Lesson is a play about status and control. In this drama shows that a confident young girl come for lessons from a renowned professor. She dominates the Professor at the beginning with her youth and confidence, but soon the Professor begins to take over control of the girl until at the end she is killed by him, with the assistance of his housekeeper, and the stage is set to begin again with another young girl. The play is designed to be performed cyclically so that the end is really the beginning and the inevitable play of wits between youth and age, power and manipulation is staged over and over again as a part of the game of life itself.
The young pupil is eager to learn and she dominates the professor with her confidence and youth, but as the story develops. Even more she is suffering from the professor’s voice and explanation, such as toothache, earache, headache and eyes ache.
The maid (Marie) is always warns the professor about his “health” and calamity that might happen. Unfortunately the professor, instead of listening to his maid, ignores her every time she warns him. The maid warns him when the professor explains about philology, and again, the professor ignores her.
The maid also warns the professor again when he starts asking about ‘knife’ in different languages, but the maid is already tired to warn him. In the end of the play, the professor kills the pupil with an imaginative knife and with the help of his maid he could get rid of her corpse and then the stage is set again with another young pupil who is ready for the lesson. And it is fortieth times his killed.
At the climax of the play, the Pupil is murdered by the Professor, after a long bout of non sequesters (which are frequently used in Ionesco's plays). The play ends as a new Pupil is greeted by the Maid.
4. Style
Grammatical Structure (in Narration and Dialogues)
☺ Standard.
Sentence Construction (in Narration and Dialogues)
☺Long and Short.
5. Point of View
The author of this short story, Eugene Ionesco is non – participant. Because, he doesn’t introduce him self as a character.
6. Theme
The theme that appropriate with this story is The Professor's Health. In here, explores the relationship and transferal of power between characters, and at points can be rather unnerving. There is also a startling and murderous ending that is not resolved. The Professor gives lessons to young girls-students and kills them one by one. The pupil is killed, and the professor is not brought to justice; instead, his maid just removes the body and they carry on as if nothing has happened.
This drama shows that first impressions are the appearances sometimes deceptive to do something worst.
The moral of the drama story is that we must not emotion to do anything. We should controlled our behavior and reactions in difficult situations.
If we to be a tutor, don’t give much lesson or material for our students or private learners.
We must understanding about what the people want and say.
B. Conclussion
This play is subtitled "a comic drama", and is set in the cluttered office of an elderly Professor. A maid lets in the Pupil, an attractive young woman, who sits to wait. Lengthy stage directions describe her appearance, and the transformation she undergoes through the course of the play - from confidence and strength to fearfulness and weakness. The Professor then enters, and equally lengthy stage directions also describe his appearance and his transformation - from weakness and frailty to strength, confidence and bullying. After formal greetings, conversation between the Professor and the Pupil reveals that the Pupil is hoping to learn enough to pass the doctoral exams she plans to write in three weeks. Before conversation can go any further, the Maid comes in, warning the Professor to behave himself.
The play explores the funny, absurd, and often dangerous ways that math and language can be used to distort and twist reality. It tells the story of a young pupil who visits a professor in her small French town to get tutored before taking a difficult oral exam. The Lesson takes a fascinating twist when the pupil learns that her failure to understand philology may or may not lead to calamity.
The Lesson, if we see this play in the context of contemporary times, hints at the rigid system of education in collaboration with the corporate world. The crime of the privileged class is not a crime, rather its just an attitude or method of dealing with other people. The professor is assisted by his professional maid to hide the crime committed inside the four closed walls.
The professor may be a misogynist also who is unable to understand his female pupils. There is a little possibility of communication without presence of any kind of affinity between two people. The play presents the idea that in this fast changing world, the weak, powerless and somewhat ignorant are knocked down and slashed by the mighty though nonsensical controllers of the society. So, this drama story is is classified as “man versus society”, because the conflict arises between professor and his pupil. Professor kills the pupil at the end of the drama story.
