Analyse the evidence to suggest that Rhinoc ros is not only a commentary on the Second
In order to analyse the above statement, this essay will focus primarily on showing that Ionesco condemned indoctrination through his play Rhinocéros, by allegorically implying that the characters, which turn into rhinoceroses when they relinquish their personal beliefs in order to conform to a more ordered society, were based not only on 19th century fascists but can be attributed to any period in history. In order to discuss and analyse the statement on which this essay is based, it is firstly important to understand it and what it is asking. Many theories about the links with 1930s fascism, and the right-wing set of beliefs that this encompasses, and the Second World War have been expressed over the years but is this really all that the play is about? I hope to provide evidence through analysis and interpretation of the play, that this is not true. ... Rhinocéros is a play that is set in a small village in France. ... History has shown us during the last quarter of a century that people thus, transformed not only to resemble rhinos, but really become rhinoceroses.’ Being born in Romania and spending his adolescence there, Ionesco quickly developed a hatred for the Brown Shirts and the Romanian conservatism and anti-Semitic ways that they stood for and he mentions in his autobiography that the inspiration for Rhinocéros came when he felt himself ‘pulled into the Nazi orbit at a mass rally and had to struggle to keep from developing rhinoceritis’. ... However, although Rhinocéros was written in the 1950s it can be said to be relevant to any society as no time frame is given.