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Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros: Play Analysis

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Originally written as a short story published in 1957 and first performed in Paris,France at the Odeon Theatre, Rhinoceros remains one of Eugene Ionesco’s most commonly produced plays. The popularity has not worn off since and there are many criticisms that can be applied to Ionesco’s work, such as biographical criticism and New Historical criticism. There are many parallels of Ionesco’s biography in his fictional story created in Rhinoceros. The play is also used as a mirror to reflect the society and its issues that it was made in at the time. Given Eugene Ionesco was a Franco-Romanian at the time of fascism sweeping Europe, these criticisms are credible. The combination of the play’s absurdity, while also displaying a powerful message make Rhinoceros one of Ionesco’s most captivating and meaningful works. Published in …show more content…

Ionesco’s play does just that. For example, the following states “The play intimates the perils associated with the mass contagion of fascist ideology not only in Romania and France but also in Italy, Germany, and every other country seduced by fascism in the 1930s”(Quinney). The play Rhinoceros has many details that correctly reflect what was happening at the time in Europe and its society. This is shown in the novel in act 2 when Daisy decides to capitulate and go with the rhinoceroses(Ionesco,Act 2). Ionesco is criticizing society at the time in that they capitulated far too easily when the Germans invaded Europe and they embraced fascism rather than condemning it and fighting it, because everyone else was doing it and it was the easier thing to do. This is much like what Daisy does when she capitulates to the rhinos. She and Berenger are the only two humans left, and rather than fight for humanity together, she follows Dudard into the compelling nature of the fascist rhinoceroses. Ionesco uses the play as way to represent the farcical nature of society at the time. Another example

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