Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco - Theater of the Absurd

Rhinoceros

Eugene Ionesco

Q. Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco emphasizes the qualities of the "Theater of the Absurd” – Discuss.

Answer: The term "Theater of the Absurd", coined by Martin Esslin in 1960, was created in response to the spread of Soviet-style authoritarianism throughout Europe after World War II, known as the "Iron Curtain". With the liberation of Paris in 1944, Eugene Ionesco joined the scene in the lively intellectual and artistic avant-garde group of many Eastern Europeans. They began to focus on a new kind of political satire related to the modern human condition. However, Martin Esslin, in his essay "Theater of the Absurd", focuses on the drama of Ionesco along with the plays of Arthur Adamov and Samuel Beckett, arguing that their works are philosophical that responses to the meaninglessness of life and dramatic responses to realism that try to live with structure and clarity.

Although critics perceive the Theater of the Absurd, as separate from Existentialism, the two movements express concern with a philosophical understanding of the purpose of life and what the meaning of life can have. Unrealistic dramas use nonsense to suggest basic questions in surprising, unusual ways. Most of the time, most people don’t live in the horrors of World War II and they often lead their normal lives without facing the basic questions. Unrealistic dramas often shake us and remind people of our strange isolation despite being surrounded by society and culture.

In Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, composed in 1959 and first produced in 1960, for example, what begins as a ridiculous phenomenon of males turning into rhinos becomes frustrating, even taking on horrific shapes as each man (except one) turns into a horrible creature. In conventional jokes or tragedies the listener is in a mood or laughing or crying. But rhinos and other irrational acts are circulating among the audience somewhere, more aware of the bizarre complexities of life but not sure what to do or think about it.

Absurd theaters also rejected traditional plot structures, following artistic trends in the early twentieth century (although the unconventional plot structures of that generation were not new). Absurd theater confuses audiences by enjoying the more absurd concept. This movement is often associated with Dadaism, a cultural movement that developed in Europe after World War II and celebrated chaos and irrationality. Unrealistic playwrights express similar concerns because they develop characters that are often lost in the intelligible world. Scenes often repeat (e.g. Ionesco’s Bald Soprano) and often repeat language (as his rhinoceros).

Many works centered on the idea of unsolved mystery or immaturity. In Ionesco's The Chairs, for example, an elderly couple throws a party for guests in their home that is invisible to the audience. Traditional dramatic techniques that rely on a plot of forward motion, a play can rarely survive, so plays have at least some direction and connection. Yet, unrealistic dramas confuse audiences by destroying most basic theatrical expectations.

Although unrealistic elements continue to emerge in modern theater, critics tend to tie the first generation of such dramas together as a movement of a particular time and place. The movement was a significant innovation in the theater, centered in Paris and usually ending in the 1960s, when the playwrights annoyed their audiences, broke with tradition, and ruined the design of their own art. As the atrocities of World Wars and the anxieties of the Cold War faded into Western memory, the issues that people face are no less critical.

In fact, Eugene Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros represents irrational, painless, and repetitive dialogue, lack of character inspiration and development, and impossible and improbable events, which raises fundamental questions about the irrational and conflicting nature of human existence.

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