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By Eug'ne Ionesco Rhinoceros. Translated by Derek Prouse (Penguin Modern Classics) (New Ed) [Paperback]
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July 11, 2024
It was my second reading of this play, since taking a class in Modern Drama in college. I enjoyed the light, comic repartee between the various characters (male friends, workplace acquaintances and lovers) who suddenly find themselves confronted with an absurd crisis. We come to see how people handle this absurdity in their conventional life roles.
There is a political reading of the text which I think is a valuable interpretation--how the individual struggles to hold on to his/her essence, or soul, in trying to stave off the rising tide of fascism. The quick transformation of the French townspeople into wild beasts may be a critical statement about how the French so easily surrendered and collaborated with their new Nazi rulers, when the Vichy regime was set up in World War 2. Human beings can so easily become brutish animals.
Nevertheless, Ionesco's play transcends political analysis and is ultimately an Existential statement: The play presents a universal conflict-- life-long struggle to keep one's sanity, one's soul, one's humanity, when the world around him is fraught with absurd realities. Ionesco uses the character of the logician to ridicule man's reliance on rational thought to find truth in an absurd world.
There is a political reading of the text which I think is a valuable interpretation--how the individual struggles to hold on to his/her essence, or soul, in trying to stave off the rising tide of fascism. The quick transformation of the French townspeople into wild beasts may be a critical statement about how the French so easily surrendered and collaborated with their new Nazi rulers, when the Vichy regime was set up in World War 2. Human beings can so easily become brutish animals.
Nevertheless, Ionesco's play transcends political analysis and is ultimately an Existential statement: The play presents a universal conflict-- life-long struggle to keep one's sanity, one's soul, one's humanity, when the world around him is fraught with absurd realities. Ionesco uses the character of the logician to ridicule man's reliance on rational thought to find truth in an absurd world.
Displaying 1 of 1 review