Rupal Arora

Modern European Drama

RHINOCEROS
- EUGENE IONESCO

Living in Romania at the bleak of second world war, Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994) was one of the many

spectators of the spread of the Nazi ideology amongst parts of Europe, Ionesco watched some of his most

intelligent friends become a part of the sympathizers of the Nazi and supporters of its ideology and on the other

hand he notices his Jewish friends become victims under the wave of anti-Semitisms. Ionesco was a French

Playwright who developed and inaugurated a drama that testifies to its wonders by means of the absurd.

According to Ionesco, the modern man is a puppet, a jumping jack. His tendency is not to give way to his own

thinking process and self-consciousness. His approach is that of an existentialist because that the central

concern of his writing is an individual and his existence in this modern world.

Ionesco’s first political play won him global attention when it was staged in Germany in 1960. The self

avowedly an anti-Nazi play, Rhinoceros’ philosophy that takes root in the collective conscious, turning the

masses into fanatic followers and practitioners of a particular ‘ideology’. People metamorphose into rhinoceros

fiercely safe guarding their new found identity. Ionesco says he is very much struck by what one might call

current opinion, according to him it develops so rapidly and is so contagious that it soon grows into a regular

epidemic. He highlights how suddenly people get caught up in some new religion or fictional doctrine and what

takes place thereafter is really a mental mutation. He explains how when people no longer share a common

opinion, they can no longer reach a mutual understanding with each other leaving am impression for one as if

they’re trying to get through the monsters. The most important question asked about the play is ‘Why did

Ionesco choose Rhinoceros as his animal?’ to elaborate on which, Ionesco emphasizes how the rhinoceros in the
play embodies these monsters because they have the same mixture of ingeniousness and ferocity. They can kill

without a qualm if one did not think as they do. He elaborates how the then last quarter of the century’s history

has given a clear proof that people transformed that way are not just like, but truly are rhinoceros.

Throughout the play, Ionesco explores multiple themes, like conformity, morality, cultural and mass

movements, philosophy. It is not just totalitarianism of a particular variety, be it Communism, Fascism or

Nazism that the play is trying to depict, bit it tries to make a larger statement on the dangers of extreme

conformity and any kind of political ideology. Rhinoceros makes this statement while construing a human

response to baffling a transmogrification – an ultimate grotesque transformation that is employed as a device to

evoke curiosity and horror in the audience. The play gives the illusion of being rooted in an existentialist

tradition, but is as much about the frivolousness and inanity of human condition as it is about historical capacity

for cruelty and savagery as a race.

Rhinoceros is permeated with animalistic groans, blows and panicky and naïve human debility showing us how

it feels to have one’s identity subverted and traduced. When a person morphs himself into a Rhinoceros, he

happily relinquishes his personal beliefs, hopes, ideas and aspirations in order to ascribe to a powerful

collective. In the third act of the play, ‘rhinoceritis’ is labelled as a disease which then becomes the central

metaphor for fascism as a contagious, half rational, half absurd infection of mind and morality. Ionesco

provides possible, even humane reasons for why rhinoceritis spreads so rapidly, refusing to settle on the

generally acknowledged claim of human savagery. The first rhinoceros is introduced into the play with a sound

effect that amplifies slowly, during this scene, Ionesco has given all the characters a common dialogue “Oh, a

rhinoceros” or “well, of all things”, this is a symbol of a man’s intrinsic savagery. Eugene highlights this by

humanizing Mr. Beouf – he is the first complete transformation or metamorphosis. It is not anonymous, Botard

labels such appearances as collective psychosis. This kind of psychosis is not rare and can be seen in our society

where people are used to following each other. Throughout the play, Ionesco beautifully justifies the reasons

when each of his character contracts ‘Rhinoceritis’. Jean is a zealous conformist who speaks and thinks only in

platitudes. Botard is an ideologue, a left-wing activist, who sees conspiracies everywhere and claims to know

the secret behind the sudden appearances of the rhinoceros. Dudard represents the type of intellectual for whom,
to understand is to justify. Daisy and Papillon are the ordinary citizens who go along with rhinoceros just

because everyone else is too and because they are afraid. The transformations that Ionesco dramatizes

throughout the second part of Rhinoceros can be read as a comment on the dominant political ideologies of the

day.

Berenger posits that those who have changed are ‘temporarily unbalanced’; these are definitely not the words of

a Nazi apologist, but Ionesco intimates the fascist appeal is linked less to permanent and corrupt human nature

but to provisional imbalance of a time. Dudard’s assertion that Berenger lacks the ‘vocation’ to become a rhino

is a pun on Berenger’s lack of will, which will prevent him from attaining the powerful status of the rhino, and a

petty insult that criticizes his apathy towards his job. He is a twentieth century version of the outcast of the 19 th

century. He lacks poetic hallo but he is nevertheless the heir of the romantic hero and embodies the spirit of

negation which an affirmation of a man’s most precious attribute, his freedom.

The rhinoceros has been used as a symbol for monsters in the play as they have a mixture of ferocity and

ingenuousness. It is as if the writer has visualized this symbol for rhinoceros. There are some parallel instincts

between Nazism and the play. First, Berenger mentions how even Mr. Papillion is now a rhinoceros,

“Rhinoceros!!! Mr. Papillion a rhinoceros” (Ionesco, 80 “I still would have thought Mr. Papillion would have

had the strength to resist. I thought he had a little more character” (Ionesco,80), this first instance shows how

when a leader follows a new path, his/her followers blindly mirror his actions as what happened with

Berenger’s office colleagues, they all followed the herd. Further, Dudard explains, how the mayor, the police,

judge, firemen everyone is now a rhinoceros; all of this again glorifies how the leaders manipulate their

followers to do the same as them and follow their actions, following a new ideology spreads like fire in a forest

and till one does not opt out of it him/herself, they are caught in the middle, following the rest.

Ionesco has tried to show how mortality goes side by side with any political movement and finally there is no

space left both for mortality as well as humanity. The majority is progressing so it must be good side whereas

the minority is resisting so it must be the bad side. In the play those who are resisting humanity are bad

according to Botard, but he himself transforms into a Rhino. Jean and Botard both are not sure of their action so
their behavior is inconsistent. They try to rationalize their inconsistent behavior. First they both deny the

Rhinoceros but later accept the transformation.

Rhinoceros is fundamentally an analysis of this betrayal. The problem is not “What is Fascism?” but “How does

a rational and civilized nation come to accept the Fascist ideal?”. And Ionesco’s answer is that, accustomed to

camouflage all reality behind the illusion of logic, the bourgeois mind has come to rely on reason to supply a

posteriori justification for every event. Berenger alone resists the general infatuation: his salvation lies in his

positive acceptance of the irrational. He alone, in his naiveté, receives the facts for what they are instead of

striving to demonstrate their “logical necessity”. In Rhinoceros, Ionesco pitilessly attacked cowardice and

‘running with the crowd’.

BIBLOGRAPHY

 Eugene, Ionesco, Rhinoceros, world view publication, 1959

 Kaur, Haewinder, Authenticity VS Conformity: An Existential Study of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.

September,2016

 Gulia, Anuj, Rhinoceros a play by Eugene Ionesco as a critique of Political Conformist Ideologies,

Totalitarianism and Fascism, Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science Volume 6 ~ Issue

12 (2018)pp.:25-28