Rhinoceros Identity Quotes

She doesn’t know it, but the grocer’s wife just dropped one of the key lines in the play. The need to be different—or the refusal to conform—becomes the controlling idea of Rhinoceros. She sees being different as a bad thing now, but a little difference might have kept her human in the end.

It’s amazing, but people will identify themselves with groups based on just about anything: where they’re from, what sports teams they root for, where they went to school, etc. It’s this sentiment that makes it all too easy for them to join up with everybody else. In a way, they’ve already linked their identities to others. Maybe that’s why Raiders fans are literally the worst.

Nothing like a little existential debate about rhinoceroses to get you going in the workplace. Daisy is talking to Botard here, and she’s really just trying to get him to come to terms with the fact that there are rhinoceroses on the loose. In doing so, though, she raises a larger identity question. How do we know what truly exists? Do we really exist, or are we some computer program? Throw in Keanu and some awesome Kung Fu and we could turn this thing into a horny beast version of The Matrix.

Mrs. Boeuf shouts this when she gets a good look at rhino-Boeuf. While this whole scene is a bit ludicrous, this is actually a nice comment on identity. It suggests that we are more than our appearance and our voice—that there is something about us that transcends the physical. You know, like all the times when Doctor Who regenerates, but deep down he’s still the Doctor.

If Mrs. Boeuf could recognize her husband as a full-on rhinoceros, but Jean and Berenger can’t recognize each other well before Jean’s transformation is complete, what does that say about these two bosom buds? Are they really that good of friends? That’s something to think about when it comes to the power of identity. Maybe the connection between two people helps define who each of those people is. Or maybe not. Or maybe it's just because of how self-centered these two are.

Take this out of context, and you might think you’re listening to a former nice guy take the step to becoming a comic book super-villain. It sounds like someone justifying something bad they’re about to do. Even as Jean changes, he still claims that he’s no different than he was in the past. He has identified himself as a man who is calm and clear in thought, and he still sees himself that way even as he changes into a rhino.

This is the old “you think you know somebody and then they go transform into a rhinoceros” moment—kind of like the “he was a nice quiet person” moment on the news when they interview the neighbors of someone who has done something even worse than turn into a rhinoceros. Jean’s point is that we can never truly know someone. Deep down, everyone’s identity is his or her own, and what they show the world is not who they really are.

Once you put on that uniform or that badge the government assigns you, you are no longer an individual. That is what Ionesco seems to be saying. The coming of the rhinoceroses (or the Fascists, if you want to get more symbolic) means the death of individuality and identity.

This seems like a great time to talk about werewolf transformations (we know, it’s always a good time to talk about those). In a lot of movies and TV shows the transformation from human to wolf is incredibly violent and painful. There’s a lot of yelling and things happening to bones that just looks gnarly. In a way, this is the pain that comes with losing your identity and becoming someone (or thing) else. This is what Berenger fears and what he refuses to do. He is himself, and he will not give that up. He will not undergo the transformation. He will never howl at the moon!

This is it—Berenger’s final claim to his humanness, his individuality, and his identity. He is the only one willing to hold on to who he is. This has put him in an impossible spot, but one that Ionesco seems to suggest is necessary. Without the Berengers of the world, mankind can get swept up into the kind of mass hysteria that leads to war, death, and destruction on a global scale.