These Footnotes accompany our episode on Ionesco’s absurdist satire, Rhinoceros, and include observations on the limits of logic as outlined by the character of the logician in the play, and the process and reasoning that people go through in choosing to join the herd.

Not listened to the episode yet? You’ll find it here.

A one-horned Asiatic rhinoceros

Joining the herd
It is interesting to observe throughout the play the process and reasoning that characters go through as they choose to join the herd. The rhinoceros is a strikingly effective metaphor for the merging of individuals into the mass. First, the word rhinoceros itself can be both singular and plural. And then of course the individual characters all begin to be undifferentiable once they adopt their animal form.

The pressure on individuals to conform mounts as the size of the herd increases. When Berenger suggests that the rhinoceros are in the minority, Daisy counters that “they’re a pretty big minority, and getting bigger all the time…maybe a quarter of the whole town.” She further points out that “everyone has a close relative or a friend among them, and that would make it even more difficult” to condemn or resist them.

Dudard picks up on this sentiment during the course of his rationalisations. He admits that initially he was surprised by the developments but that is he now “getting used to it”. He counsels Berenger to accept the situation for what it is, advising him to simply stay out of their way – “If you leave them alone, they just ignore you.”  He goes further, believing that it is his duty to stick by his colleagues and friends. And finally he espouses the classic compromise that “if you’re going to criticize, it’s better to do so from the inside.”

Daisy also ultimately cannot hold out against the mass. Piqued by a momentary frustration with Berenger, she decides that the majority must be right – that Berenger’s claim to be different must be “presumptuous”. Intriguingly she is also attracted by the sheer power of the mass, the “ardour and tremendous energy emanating from these creatures”.

It is a power that Berenger’s friend Jean is also drawn to. Even before his transformation, Jean has demonstrated traits of character that might suggest that he would naturally fit in with the authoritarian herd. He has been self-righteous and patronising toward his supposed friend, Berenger. He is inclined to endorse the established social order, pontificating that “the superior man is the man who fulfils his duty.” We witness Jean express the ironic rationalisation that the rhinoceros are “not as bad as all that” and avowing tolerance for their difference: “they’ve got as much right to life as we have.” Berenger nails the spurious logic of that, with “As long as they don’t destroy ours in the process.” In the argument that ensues, Jean dismisses human moral standards, championing a return to nature’s own laws. There is an element of regression in Jean’s mantras, such as “We must get back to primeval integrity”, which echoes some of the rhetoric we hear today about returning to a better, simpler time. I hazard that Jean might have voted for Brexit, and would certainly be anti-woke.

Then there is the example of Botard, who initially calls the advent of the rhinoceros fake news, dreamed up by the media to sell papers. Like a conspiracy theorist, he thinks the whole thing is a propagandist hoax, a gigantic capitalist plot, even claiming that he knows who is behind the plot, without providing evidence. He rails that people are in the grip of a “collective psychosis”, like an opiate of the masses, a label that could be applied to popular movements in any time.

Once he sees a rhino for himself, however, Botard is forced to admit its existence, though in true fake news fashion, he denies that he ever claimed otherwise. Ultimately having seen the way the wind was blowing, Botard makes the self-serving, pragmatic choice to join the crowd, saying “we must move with the times”. This is not a surprise, given his bluster betrays a cavalier commitment to truth, a characteristic all too readily on display in public posturing today.

Finally, Berenger also finds it difficult not to join the herd. As we described in the podcast, he wishes he could be like them, and he castigates himself for not having joined them earlier. Of course, as he finds himself so outnumbered, it becomes harder and more dangerous for him to be different. It is easy for us to be critical of those who capitulate as we read the play metaphorically. In fact, Berenger has a wonderful speech about how much easier it would be to come to the correct conclusion with the luxury of distance or detachment, for example if these events were happening elsewhere, a privileged perspective we have as the audience. But as he laments, “when you’re involved yourself, when you suddenly find yourself up against brutal facts, you can’t help feeling directly concerned—the shock is too violent for you to stay detached.” How would we reply to the trumpeting call of the herd?