The Last Lesson Summary: A Story of Patriotism and Loss

The ‘Last Lesson’ by Alphonse Daudet is mainly about the longing to learn the mother tongue and love for it. It has a sense of patriotism. 

In the ‘Last Lesson’ the Prussians rejected the freedom of the people of  Lorraine and Alsace to learn their own mother tongue and started forcing German onto them.  The colonizers took away the basic rights of the people. When the students could not learn their own language, they sensed a feeling of being restricted and being forced to not do something that they enjoy doing and find their solace in. The practice of linguistic chauvinism is highlighted in this story to draw our attention. It throws light upon the pride one owns in their mother tongue and considering other languages not equally worthy.

People of Lorraine and Alsace were the victims of linguistic chauvinism They were forced to learn German. Franz, a school student who was always reluctant in his French class and never took it seriously, saw how important it was to learn his mother tongue.  This quality of people displays that humans respect things more when they see it going. Also, the parents preferred to see their children working well rather than learning French.

In the later years they realised how much they missed learning French and felt sorry about it. How Prussians drilled their land is shown by how unfairly they were treated in their own motherland.

Summary of the Chapter

The narrator was late for school in the morning. He was a little scared for his French class as he never really cared about it and made efforts to learn it. Therefore, he felt uneasy that the teacher might ask questions regarding the same. He spent a little time contemplating whether he should just call it a day and go on to enjoy the rest of his day. Since he did not prepare anything, he wanted to skip school but still decided to attend it. On the way to school, even the most trivial seemed so interesting to him. 

The narrator saw that there was a huge crowd in front of the bulletin board in the town hall. That bulletin board was the harbinger of the bad news for the last two years. All the information on lost wars and other depressing news was put there. He just skipped past it as he did not feel like listening to anything sad.

The narrator notices that the school was disturbingly silent as compared to the general state of the school when it starts. Generally one could hear the recitation of the lessons and hustle-bustle of students in the school. 

In fact, he was pretty accustomed to hiding in the noise and reaching his desk without getting noticed. But now he went in before everybody. He was quite afraid of the French class and sitting there, before everyone made him uncomfortable.

M. Hamel, who was strict with the narrator in the past, asked him to sit down politely. Franz was confused as M. Hamel was in his special set of informal clothes that he wore on only prize days and inspection days. It was a pretty green dress, complete with a beautiful black embroidered cap. The atmosphere was extremely sad and silent. The most astonishing thing was that the village elders were also sitting on the backbenches of the class. These benches were usually left empty.

M. Hamel quietly sat on his chair and spoke in a gentle and grave tone, “My children, this is the last lesson I shall give you.” He informed everyone that an order had been released from Berlin. German is the only language that would be taught in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. 

His last lesson in the school and the German teacher will join the school from the next day. This made the narrator sad, even though he never really liked M. Hamel because all he could think of was his ruler and him tapping the ruler aggressively on the tables and forcing students to do his personal tasks for him, such as putting Franz to work by telling him to tend to his garden. He started regretting all the times he wished he did not have to learn French or just decided to slack off and carry on his ordinary chores like collecting eggs or chasing birds. He thinks of all the time he could have spent learning and reading his mother tongue.

The narrator felt guilty and ashamed for not trying to learn his lessons in French. He never liked his books. He had no interest in studies. He didn’t like his Grammar and History books. But now he was fascinated by them. He started to like M. Hamel. The thought that he will not teach him from tomorrow made him forget about all his rulers.

The village elders, including the former mayor, Mr Hauser and the former postman, also looked very sad about the class. They seemed to be very interested and spent a good amount of time focusing on the lesson. It was clear that they regretted their past actions and wished they had gained more knowledge when they had the chance.

He forgot how crazy his teacher was. It was his turn to repeat the lesson. He wanted to read out the lesson and explain the participles nice and loud but he got confused and mixed up. Usually, this type of mistake would have made M. Hamel angry but surprisingly this time he did not even care to notice it.

This made M. Hamel think about how people usually just put off learning to the next day or the days in the future but now that the last day has come, there is not much that can be done. M. Hamel spoke about his concern on how all the French people think of education and learning their language as a secondary thing after earning money by working at a mill, etc. He accuses himself of doing the same thing as well.

M.Hamel then changed the topic to talk about the French language itself. It was the beauty of the language that took over him because his speech was better than ever and brought everyone in the room to tears, including the former Mayor and the elders. He spoke about the beauty and ease of the language itself and continued to a lesson in Grammar.

How did Franz’s Feelings About M. Hamel and School change?

Franz usually never paid attention in class and was scolded by the teachers because of it. But something about the last lesson by M. Hamel made him want to listen. He paid attention to the class like never before and realised how easy the language seemed to be. He was listening with so much intent, and M. Hamel was putting in an equal effort because the narrator had never seen him explain anything with such great patience.

This was followed by a writing activity, which was followed meticulously by every single person, so much so that the only sound to be heard was the sound of pens against the paper. Franz had never witnessed such a class in his entire time at school and was moved by it.

The narrator noticed the teacher looking at every object in the classroom with so much focus, and he thought to himself that M.Hamel was memorising everything in his tiny classroom, the gardens, all of it. After forty years of work, he thought about how hard it would be to move out of a place and felt sad for the poor man.

The next lesson was in history, during which the former mayor was listening to the class wearing glasses, moved so much that he was crying. The narrator found this funny and thought of how memorable this last lesson turned out to be.

Finally, M.Hamel wanted to say something to the class after the clock had struck. However, he choked on his words and wrote boldly on the board “Viva la France”.

Why did M Hamel write ‘Vive La France!‘ on the Blackboard?

He wrote it as a sign of opposition to imposing the teaching of German in the schools of Alsace instead of French. It was a portrayal of his love for French and French culture.

The people of Alsace did not give any importance to the language French from the very beginning of the story, however, unlike others M.Hamel showed his concern. People of Alsace ignored learning their own native language and paid no heed . It was not the case only with Franz but many others were also guilty of not learning French. According to the narrator, the French language was the most beautiful language in the world and therefore, it should be respected and acknowledged by everyone.