Eugène Ionesco

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Bérenger's Dubious Defense of Humanity in 'Rhinocéros'

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[Rhinocéros is not an allegory.] Few readers are likely to agree at the outset with this assertion, because for most interpreters of the play, starting with its author, Eugène Ionesco, Rhinocéros is indeed allegorical—or at least broadly symbolic. The meaning of the drama must be explained in dualistic terms, so the argument goes: good versus evil, Bérenger against the world, humanity refusing to succumb to the grotesque epidemic of rhinoceritis, the individual—flawed but admirably courageous—celebrating selfhood in defiance of conformism or totalitarianism, language holding its own in the face of rampant noncommunication. (p. 207)

If we disregard external evidence …, we discover that the thematic import of Rhinocéros is less transparent than has often been contended. Having stripped away all elements foreign to the text, one must attempt to answer some fundamental questions about the nature of literature in general and about this dramatic work in particular. (1) What relationships, if any, exist between a concept in literature and its empirical applications? (2) What does it mean to be human—in the implied internal definition of the term found in the play? (3) How effectively does Bérenger defend the human condition? (4) Is rhinoceritis necessarily bad, in light of the play's dynamics, or is it an understandable response to the condition it replaces—human form essentially devoid of humanness?

In the first place, it must be made clear that Bérenger is not a spokesman for any real-life notion of humanity, nor is Ionesco's version of rhinoceritis a pragmatic phenomenon suitable for the research projects of social scientists. Rhinocéros, like any significant literary work, does offer its audience an implied analogy with human experience. But analogy is never identity. Bérenger exists only in the text. He has no knowledge of the struggles of the individual in our society…. Those who insist on treating Bérenger as an advocate of a historical concept of humanity must decide at the outset which concept they will have him defend and which collective threat they will have him attack. Since the play does not answer these important questions, partisans of this approach to literature find themselves free to mold Bérenger like a lump of soft modeling clay: Bérenger the anti-fascist today; Bérenger the anti-Communist tomorrow…. Playing the parlor game of pin-the-parable-on-the-personage may be intellectual fun, but as a substitute for critical method it is a pastime too undisciplined to be illuminating. (p. 209)

From the outset we find little in Bérenger's life that would appear to be worth defending…. Since Bérenger has failed in his own life to achieve a full and rewarding sense of humanness, we should not be surprised to discover that he does not manage to plead the cause of humanity persuasively or even coherently when pachyderms replace human beings as the norm in his world. (p. 210)

Bérenger does try to argue the cause of the human race. But he is an ineffectual debater. An important scene in this regard is the second tableau of act II, in which Bérenger witnesses Jean's metamorphosis from man into rhino. Jean is fully prepared to make this transition. He looks forward to living in the jungle. His new life will permit him to rediscover what he calls "l'intégrité primordiale" [the primordial integrity] of existence. Those who would join Georges Versini in asserting that Rhinocéros is a "violente satire de l'instinct grégaire" [violent satire of the gregarious instinct] must rely largely on a set of expectations drawn from the socio-physical world that we inhabit. From Jean's perspective, given the apparent inevitability of the physiological and emotional changes he is experiencing (and given especially how little he has to lose), this attitude is rooted in terre-à-terre pragmatism. Bérenger is incapable, however, of considering these new circumstances from Jean's point of view. He chooses instead to counter with a platitude about human values…. This is at best Edenic nostalgia. In truth, no such value system operates in Rhinocéros. All that remains of human civilization in the play is an almost unintelligible human-like verbal debris, unconnected fragments of logic, hollow figures posing as human beings. (p. 212)

If we analyze Rhinocéros on its own terms, the play's ultimate lesson might indeed be that individualism in defense of non-humanity is no virtue, and that bestial conformism as an alternative to unreasoning human existence is no vice. (p. 214)

G. Richard Danner, "Bérenger's Dubious Defense of Humanity in 'Rhinocéros'," in The French Review (copyright 1979 by the American Association of Teachers of French), Vol. LIII, No. 2, December, 1979, pp. 207-14.

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