Summary
In the twenty-first scene of the play, the man expresses his ecstatic joy about the emperor's arrival. The woman echoes the man's words and tells him to speak in the third person. Both of them appear completely overcome with emotion. The man complains about feeling that he was persecuted and unloved. The woman tries to say she loves and respects him, but he does not seem to hear her.
His complaints grow more heated as the woman continues to try to comfort him. He goes into detail about the opportunities he has lost, while the woman describes all of the things that he had the potential to be had he not been so mistreated. The man and woman say they are both throwing themselves at the emperor's knees. He says that all that matters is the approaching moment, in which his speech will be delivered. The man says his parents attempted to make him a man by marrying him off to someone, but that his spouse has functioned as both his mother and father. He and his wife say the orator will arrive shortly and begin to repeat themselves in a sort of incantation. The orator then appears.
The orator comes into the room and is a real person, seen by the audience. The door opens slowly and the orator is dressed like a nineteenth-century artist, with a felt hat and blouse. He sports a mustache and goatee. He salutes the invisible emperor. The man and woman seem shocked at his arrival and announce him to the room. The man says that people may ask for the orator's autograph.
The man addresses the room, thanking everyone for coming and giving special praise to the orator and the organizers. He then goes on to list a number of professions that he also wishes to thank for the evening, including carpenters, printers, and technicians. He concludes by thanking the emperor and his wife. His wife continues to echo him in broken syllables.
The man says he has nothing more that he wants from life. He says his life purpose has been put into this message. Meanwhile, the orator seems to wave off requests for an autograph. The man thanks his wife, who he refers to as his "helpmeet," and says that they must withdraw from life as it has nothing left to offer them. He recites a poem to her and says that he hopes they "rot together," meaning he wants to be entombed with her when he dies.
He adds that they will be remembered by the emperor for their feats. He says there will even be a street named after them. They say their goodbyes, toss streamers and confetti at the emperor, say "long live the emperor," and leap out of the window. There is a surprised reaction from the invisible audience as the sound of two bodies hitting the water is heard.
The orator begins to speak but only makes guttural noises. It becomes readily apparent that he is a deaf-mute and cannot speak. He attempts to write words on the board but is also unsuccessful in communicating anything to the audience. He then leaves brusquely, bowing to the audience and the emperor. The invisible audience finally begins making sounds, with the noises of coughs, shushes, and murmuring becoming audible.
Analysis
Death is one of the most important themes of this final section. The old man takes a strange and somewhat tragic view of life. Feeling that the message he has crafted will be the pinnacle of his accomplishments, he says he has no more use for life. He then says that he wishes only to lie in the same grave with his wife, to never be parted from her. They then leap from the window into the water below, killing themselves. He has placed such an emphasis on posterity and legacy, that he has failed to find tangible meaning in the actual events of his life. This takes on a particularly tragic element considering that his speech ends up being a complete failure, meaning that his life and death were rendered similarly meaningless.
Absurdity is also strongly present in this part of the play. The emperor is unseen, but the orator bows to him when he enters and exits. The orator is a real person, whose appearance surprises the man and woman, all of whose other guests are invisible. The guests are unseen and silent for the entire play, but at the conclusion, they are heard making noise. The orator never actually interacts with the man or woman. The sum total of these strange moments in the play is that they allow Ionesco to reveal the absurdities inherent to the overly determined ideas about language and accomplishment that both the man and woman share.
Communication breaks down entirely at the play's end. The climax of the story is the orator's attempt to deliver the man's speech. However, things do not go according to the man's plan, as the orator is actually deaf and mute. He makes some unintelligible noises and then writes on a chalkboard near him. The orator's inability to relay the man's speech, taken together with the man's death, marks all of his attempts to secure posterity with his message as meaningless. While the man has been failing to connect with other people throughout the play—his wife, the invisible guests, the orator—this failure is the most tragic, as he has pinned all of his aspirations on this moment, which has come to nothing.
The concept of failure is a major part of the play's conclusion. Feeling that he has nothing more to do, the man leaps from his window with his wife and they both die. When the orator goes to speak, he is only able to make meaningless sounds. His attempts to write down the message are similarly fruitless. Displeased, the orator leaves. The play focuses on these futile gestures to show how easily language comes apart. The man's final failure shows how he has, all along, been unsuccessful in using words to convey meaning or build relationships. He has instead been trapped in the world of his own thoughts, with no way to share them.
The play ends with the invisible guests finally making noise. The audience hears their coughing, laughing, and murmuring. This appears to be a very fitting conclusion to a work that deals so much with the breakdown of language. In the absence of the mute orator and the old man and woman, the viewer or reader is left only with the dull noise of an unseen crowd, the stage filled with meaningless sound.
