McDermott examines Ionesco's use of inane, meaningless dialogue as a means of criticizing small talk or conversation with very little content. Ionesco felt that such discourse prevented people from thinking and talking about subjects that were truly important.

In his play The Bald Soprano, Eugene Ionesco objected to mundane, peripheral talk "to diversions that tempt us to avoid thinking about or talking about the only things that really matter - the meaning of existence and the inevitability of death." Ionesco was agitated because he felt that "words no longer demonstrate: they chatter.... They are an escape. They stop silence from speaking... They wear out thought, they impair it."

In relation to the idea that words no long "mean," Mrs. Martin remarks near the end of the play "We have passed a truly Cartesian quarter of an hour," which implies that those with her all knew that they...