![]() ![]() South Africa, which holds more than 80 percent of the continent's rhino population, has been losing at least 20 rhinos per month. These crimes are fueled by demand for African rhino horn from the Asian market, where it can fetch more than $30,000 a pound ($60,000 per kilogram).Īfrica is losing a rhinoceros every other day. Fascism, he suggests, can crop up anywhere-but if enough people can be like Berenger and refuse to rationalize it in its early stages and refuse to accept the violence that follows, it may be possible to stop it before it’s too late.The poaching of rhinos for their horns has risen dramatically over the last year and a half, conservationists report. With this, Ionesco simultaneously condemns the actions of the thousands of people in Germany and Romania who allowed fascist movements to gain traction and carry out unspeakable violence, while also encouraging readers or audiences to look critically at their own world. If allowed to flourish, all aspects of infrastructure will inevitably be compromised, and society will thus break down into an unintelligible violence. Instead, the attempts to make sense of a person’s reasons only provide more legitimacy for the ideology or movement itself and, for this reason, should be avoided or treated with intense caution.Įspecially once Berenger and Daisy discover that the rhinoceroses have taken over the radio, the phone lines, and that even the firefighters have become rhinoceroses, the play makes it clear that fascism and other extreme and harmful ideologies aren’t to be trifled with. It’s impossible, he insists, to ignore the fact that rhinoceritis-or fascism-is harmful, just because someone’s reasons for believing in the ideology make sense. Papillion had a moral imperative to resist such an urge, and essentially makes the case that people’s reasons for becoming a rhinoceros don’t matter in light of the inexcusable things they do in their new forms. Berenger refuses to play into Dudard’s line of thinking, suggests that Mr. Papillion is now committing violent and destructive acts as a rhinoceros. Papillon may have become a rhinoceros because he was bored and tired of office life-a distinct possibility, but one that still ignores the fact that Mr. Rather than express outrage at the damage that the rhinoceroses cause or fear for his own safety as he talks about navigating the overrun town, Dudard encourages Berenger to keep an open mind and consider the possibility that, for example, their boss Mr. When Berenger’s coworker Dudard visits him a few days into the rhinoceroses’ takeover, he and Berenger discuss that all of their coworkers and friends have since become rhinoceroses. Although this desire may seem noble, within the world of the play this leads, without fail, to making excuses in the name of rationality or fairness while ignoring the pain and suffering that the rhinoceroses cause. Through the characters’ blind acceptance of the rhinoceroses’ presence, Ionesco also suggests that fascism, as rhinoceritis’s real-world parallel, is able to spread in part by preying on people’s sense of humanity and a desire to understand the other side of the argument in a rational, logical way. Instead, the play suggests, anyone-from the office secretary to one’s coworkers and even best friends-is susceptible to such things, no matter a person’s sex, educational level, marital status, or anything else. By doing this, Ionesco makes it clear that it’s not just identifiably evil villains who discover and promote harmful ideologies like fascism. ![]() The play does this in part by offering characters who are relatively generic and devoid of any backstory or distinguishing characteristics-the little backstory that the play gives for Jean, for example, in no way offers any insight into who he is why he ultimately succumbs. One of the points that Rhinoceros repeatedly makes is that while people may like to think that they wouldn’t be swayed by something like fascism, in reality it’s shockingly easy for normal, sensible, and respected people to be taken in by such an ideology. Ultimately though, much like the rhinoceritis illness that befalls the characters in the play, fascism lulls people into sympathizing with or buying into a belief system that is fundamentally dangerous and dehumanizing. As “rhinoceritis” functions as a metaphor for fascist regimes in general, Rhinoceros pays close attention to the way in which fascist and totalitarian beliefs-and eventually, regimes-are akin to a disease that gradually infects a population by introducing its ideas in a way that, at first glance, don’t seem to be so horrible. ![]() Rhinoceros is widely considered to be a critique of Nazi Germany, as well as of the fascist party and movement known as the Iron Guard, which simultaneously arose in Ionesco’s native Romania. ![]()
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