Rhinocéros by Eugène Ionesco

Condition : good

The main character in this avant garde play is Berenger, who pays little heed when a rhinoceros first appears running past his town square. Everybody else is astounded at the time, but are truly horrified when the rhinoceros returns and kills a cat, an event that still has little effect on Berenger. The situation is dramatically altered later, when Berenger realizes that many of his acquaintances are turning into rhinoceroses without apparent reason. The play can be viewed as a metaphor for Nazism and its diffusion in Germany, a result of Ionesco's experiences with the Nazis. However, the main themes are the rise of totalitarism and the dehumanization of those that succumb to conformity. "Le rhinoceros" was considered a dangerous play by more than one government, including that of the USSR which didn't allow it to be produced because Ionesco refused to say that the rhinoceroses represented the Nazis specifically, and not another totalitarian regime such as that of the Soviet Union. Euguene Ionesco (1912-1994) was born in Romania, but lived a great part of his life in France. He was an important exponent of what became known as "the Theatre of Absurd", a form of avant garde theater that was born in the 1950s and that includes works by Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter.

246 pages, Gallimard, Paperback