While the play as a whole is a grand metaphor for fascism in all its horrors, Berenger takes issue primarily with what he sees as the immorality of rhinoceritis. The rhinoceroses start out as innocuous as a hoard of animals running rampant through a town can be—while they do drown out all attempts at conversation, they cause no real harm at first. This quickly changes, however, as the rhinoceroses move on to destroying pets and property. By comparing the morality of the rhinoceroses with the way that Berenger’s friends, lovers, and peers assign moral value to Berenger and his actions, Ionesco insists that all of these vices are ultimately forms of escapism. Thus, it’s silly and fruitless to compare individual failings like Berenger’s alcoholism, which only affects one person, to something like fascism and violence, which affect entire communities and bring dire consequences.
It’s important to keep in mind that throughout the play, Ionesco never directly condemns Berenger for his alcoholism—it’s a topic on which the author remains fairly neutral, despite the fact that many in Berenger’s life take issue with it. Berenger manages to be a reasonably attentive friend and employee despite his love of brandy, and even Daisy insists that it’s untrue that she’s in love with the successful Dudard—she has feelings for the flawed Berenger rather than the stereotypically ideal young professional. All of this begins to suggest that people’s personal problems, such as alcoholism, are perhaps not worth critiquing or moralizing. This is especially true once Berenger and Jean begin to find that Berenger’s reasons for drinking are very similar to Jean and Dudard’s reasons for becoming rhinoceroses. Both alcohol and rhinoceritis, the characters suggest, are a means of escape.
Berenger fears that his life is pointless and means nothing. Alcohol helps him feel less afraid and, though Jean refuses to accept it, helps Berenger get through the day and be a reasonably successful and functional participant in society. As rhinoceritis grips the town, both Jean and Dudard suggest that becoming a rhinoceros is a way to relax and throw off the shackles of having a professional life—which is, in many respects, the exact same thing that Berenger tries to achieve by drinking. Escaping as espoused by the rhinoceroses, however, quickly begins to look sinister. While the first rhinoceros does nothing but make it impossible for people to hear each other, subsequent rhinoceroses kill a pet cat and then begin destroying property with impunity. This impresses upon Berenger that the rhinoceroses are immoral—they’re actively hurting others, something that Berenger’s reliance on alcohol doesn’t do.
When Berenger and Daisy discover that they’re the last two humans in their town, Berenger is, notably, still an alcoholic—he just makes more of an effort to hide this from Daisy and Dudard. Despite this possible moral failing, however, Berenger also begins to see that it’s his and Daisy’s moral responsibility to try to fix what happened by having children and repopulating the world with responsible, rational, and moral people. When Daisy refuses to go along with this, Berenger experiences a brief moment in which he descends into rhinoceros-like violence by slapping her—which, while maybe not the defining factor in Daisy’s decision to join the rhinoceroses, certainly helps her decide to leave Berenger. Berenger is then left as the last man standing: a morally complex individual who drinks and occasionally becomes violent, but who nevertheless refuses to ignore the rampant violence of the rhinoceroses. Through this characterization, Ionesco makes the case that while morality may exist on a spectrum in some cases or be arguable in others, it’s still absolutely necessary to carefully interrogate the morality of something when it includes violence.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Escapism, Violence, and Morality ThemeTracker
Escapism, Violence, and Morality Quotes in Rhinoceros
Berenger: Listen, Jean. There are so few distractions in this town—I get so bored. I’m not made for the work I’m doing—every day at the office, eight hours a day—and only three weeks’ holiday a year. When Saturday night comes round I feel exhausted and so—you know how it is—just to relax…
Jean: I just can’t get over it!
Berenger: Yes, I can see you can’t. Well, it was a rhinoceros—all right, so it was a rhinoceros. It’s miles away by now—miles away.
Jean: But you must see it’s fantastic! A rhinoceros loose in the town, and you don’t bat an eyelid. It shouldn’t be allowed. (Berenger yawns.) Put your hand in front of your mouth.
Berenger: I don’t like the taste of alcohol much. […] And yet if I don’t drink, I’m done for; it’s as if I’m frightened, and so I drink not to be frightened any longer.
Jean: Frightened of what?
Berenger: […] I don’t know exactly. It’s a sort of anguish difficult to describe. I feel out of place in life, among people, and so I take to drink. That calms me down and relaxes me so I can forget.
Jean: You try to escape from yourself.
Logician: That would be unjust, and therefore not logical.
[…]
Old Gentleman: […] Not logical?
[…]
Logician: […] Because Logic means Justice.
Old Gentleman: What can you do, dear lady—cats are only mortal.
Logician: What do you expect, madam? All cats are mortal. One must accept that.
Housewife: (Lamenting.) My little cat, my poor little cat.
Berenger: (To Jean.) I’m not Asiatic, either, And in any case, Asiatics are people the same as everyone else.
Waitress: Yes, Asiatics are people the same as we are.
Old Gentleman: (To the Proprietor.) That’s true!
Grocer: —it may be logical, but are we going to stand for our cats being run down under our very eyes by one-horned rhinoceroses or two, whether they’re Asiatic or African?
Botard: You call that precise? And what, pray, does it mean by “pachyderm”? What does the editor of a dead cats column understand by a pachyderm? He doesn’t say. And what does he mean by a cat?
Dudard: Everybody knows what a cat is.
Botard: Does it concern a male cat or a female? What breed is it? And what color? The color bar is something I feel strongly about. I hate it.
Papillon: What has the color bar has to do with it, Mr. Botard? It’s quite beside the point.
Jean: You always see the black side of everything. It obviously gave him great pleasure to turn into a rhinoceros. There’s nothing extraordinary in that.
Berenger: […] There’s nothing extraordinary in it, but I doubt if it gave him much pleasure.
Jean: And why not, pray?
Berenger: It’s hard to say exactly why; it’s just something you feel.
Jean: I tell you it’s not as bad as all that. […] After all, rhinoceroses are living creatures the same as us; they’ve got as much right to life as we have.
Berenger: As long as they don’t destroy ours in the process. You must admit the difference in mentality.
Jean: […] Are you under the impression— […] that our way of life is superior?
Berenger: Well, at any rate, we have our own moral standards which I consider incompatible with the standards of these animals.
Dudard: Perhaps he felt an urge for some fresh air, the country, the wide-open spaces—perhaps he felt a need to relax. I’m not saying that’s any excuse…
Berenger: I understand what you mean, at least I’m trying to. […]
Dudard: Why get upset over a few cases of rhinoceritis? Perhaps it’s just another disease.
Dudard: I consider it’s silly to get worked up because a few people decide to change their skins. They just didn’t feel happy in the ones they had. They’re free to do as they like.
Berenger: We must attack the evil at the roots.
Dudard: The evil! That’s just a phrase. Who knows what is evil and what is good? It’s just a question of personal preferences. […]
Berenger: There you are, you see. If our leaders and fellow citizens all think like you, they’ll never take any action.
Berenger: A rhinoceros! […] Mr. Papillon a rhinoceros! I can’t believe it. I don’t think it’s funny at all. […] Why did’t you tell me before?
Dudard: Well, you know you’ve no sense of humor. I didn’t want to tell you. […] I didn’t want to tell you because I knew very well you wouldn’t see the funny side, and it would upset you. You know how impressionable you are.
Berenger: I’m not very well up in philosophy. I’ve never studied; you’ve got all sorts of diplomas. That’s why you’re so at ease in discussion, whereas I never know what to answer—I’m so clumsy. […] But I do feel you’re in the wrong—I feel it instinctively—no, that’s not what I mean, it’s the rhinoceros which has instinct—I feel it intuitively, yes, that’s the word—intuitively.
