We Hold the Key to What is Happening
Eugène Ionesco, the twentieth century playwright and writer, wrote numerous plays depicting the monstrosity of human beings. Authored in 1959, Rhinoceros was inspired by his friends and the people around him who, one by one, gave in Nazism during the Second World War. Ionesco called this rise of totalitarianism a “collective hysteria”.
Rhinoceros is the story of a village fighting, or rather not fighting, an epidemic. It all starts on the terrace of a coffee shop where various people are gathered, including the main characters, Berenger and Jean. Just as the eloquent and intellectual Jean is delivering a morale-boosting lecture to his alcohol-addict friend, Berenger, a rhinoceros suddenly rampages across the square. Everyone present is astonished and begins to debate whether they saw one or two rhinoceroses. Jean is deeply outraged over letting a rhinoceros roam the village, to the point where he gets in a fight about it with Berenger.
As the story progresses, Jean, who’s admired by Berenger for his self-restraint and dignity, is one of the very first people to transform into a rhinoceros. “After all, rhinoceroses are living creatures the same as us; they've got as much right to life as we have!” Jean says right before transforming. And this is what Rhinoceros is about, the rise of totalitarianism. It reinforces the fact that the people we expect to fight the most aren’t always the ones who fight the most. In fact, most social justice warriors, with the exception of Berenger, are usually the first ones to give up.
Every character has their own reason to transform. If, for Jean, it’s a question of respecting everyone’s decision, for Dudard, Berenger’s colleague, it’s about his duty to follow his bosses and comrades — a maxim taught in the Hitler Youth and the Communist Youth, for better or for worse. We also see Mrs. Beef transforming herself following the transformation of her husband, who she does not want to abandon. For Botard, “It’s a bedtime story! An infamous machination!” He simply refuses to believe in ‘rhinoceritis’ — a parallel to some who may have denied the rise of extremes in the 1930s and 1940s. Berenger’s lover, Daisy, who was initially scared of rhinoceroses begins to develop a fascination with them when they start becoming prettier as the story progresses. Admiring their energy and zeal, she refuses to save the world and allows herself to get carried away by their beauty. The remaining humans also come to recognize the rhinoceros' superiority and eventually give up. At some point in the story, everyone has a close rhinoceros relative. This raises the question of what they should do if they don't wish to give them up. When their numbers continue to rise, how do you cope as a minority? Let’s not forget that most of the modern totalitarianism regimes started from democracy.
Berenger ends up being the last human in the story who hasn’t transformed. He's forced to isolate, locked up in his own apartment, so he doesn't succumb to rhinoceritis. But even he ends up regretting not having transformed earlier. “It’s too late. Alas, I will never become a rhinoceros, never, never! I can't change anymore. I wish I could, I want so much, but I can’t. I can’t see myself anymore. I’m too ashamed! How ugly I am! Woe to the one who wants to keep his originality! Well, too bad! I’ll defend myself against everyone!” complains Berenger. His nonconformist personality doesn’t let him give in to the society. Quite interestingly, the alcoholic who everyone once looked down upon, ends up resisting what everyone falls prey to.
Rhinoceros is a well-written play about the ease with which metamorphosis takes place. This, in turn, poses existential questions about the thought patterns that can take hold of a population. Is it possible to remain human when all the humans around us agree to turn into rhinos? Ionesco insists on centering attention to the progressive and visible nature of the rise of rhinoceritis. Each act represents a slow process of transformation, a stage in the evolution of this epidemic. Each of these acts can be stopped but, because of a lack of will, they end up becoming the majority’s preference, eventually birthing a hegemonic society.
Ionesco reminds his readers that everyone holds the key to these happenings. He deliberately chose an animal that can’t go unnoticed, to represent the visible rise of totalitarianism. As analogous to totalitarianism, people can’t deny the existence of a rhinoceros unless they’re lying to themselves. And one of the main issues, at the very beginning of the story, is that the characters are in denial of the issue at hand. A few minutes into the event, they're no longer fazed by the presence of the rhinoceros, but are more interested in debating whether it has one or two horns, as if it makes a difference.
The strength of this book is the timelessness of its subject. "Men abdicate their humanity", Ionesco used to say. It poses the question of what a man really is and how easy it is for him to abdicate his humanity. Let’s never forget that everyone holds the key to these happenings.