SINCE INCONGRUITY CHARACTERIZES THE PROFESSOR whenever he appears on a conventional Western stage, one wonders what happens to this traditionally absurd figure when he enters the theater of the absurd with Ionesco and Adamov. One anticipates an answer based on the algebraic model of two "negatives" combining to yield a "positive." But this proves to be absurd mathematical reasoning worthy of Ionesco's professor, that is, mostly, though not entirely, false. Negative and positive poles are particularly hard to determine in this case. The professor resists congruity even when he is featured in a sentimental or happy ending. His incongruity is congenital and absolute; he is at odds not only with his surroundings, but with his own self; he is a two-sided figure, combining, for instance, the character of victim with that of executioner, or concealing an intensely active nature under a contemplative mask; his absurdity is a function of his ambiguity; being a simulacrum, all words and pose, he is ideally suited to any theater and can make the most contrived action around him on stage pass for real life. The theater of the absurd could not make the absurd professor seem logical any more than it could make him blend harmoniously with his surroundings. However, by accentuating and accelerating the disjointedness of character, setting and situation, the displacement, as Simone Benmussa would call it, the theater of the absurd turned the professor into a central figure for the representation of man's condition in the modern world, in a way neither Mr. Chips nor his cousins, Moliere's Docteurs, could have represented it.