I'd like to describe these two roles as they appear at the end of the play, as their conflict is most visible there. Obviously, Berenger is the protagonist and his primary motivation is to save the human kind. He stands against the group of rhinoceroses, whose behavior has probably no motivation at all. Thinking about the conflict they face, the rhinos are not the ones that should be blamed for it. Deep inside, they are good and they don't mean any harm. It seems that they just want to live normally, without problems. Berenger is actually the only one who feels some kind of tension. He is the one to start the conflict because he feels endangered by the animals.
..A strange thought has just entered my mind... Having considered the fact that Berenger starts the conflict whereas the rhinos live peacefully side by side, shouldn't we say that Berenger is antagonist and the rhinos are protagonists; and not vice versa??
As it is written in the book: "Who can say where the normal starts and the abnormal begins? Can you personally define the conceptions of normality?" (p. 84) And I am asking: Who can say which side is good and which is bad? Can I personally define the conceptions of goodness and badness? Do I say that the human Berenger is the protagonist just because I am human, too? Why do I think that something which is normal is also good? Why do I think the rhinos are antagonists, just because their existence is something I would call 'abnormal'? Finally, maybe they are the heroes of the play!
It's getting too complicated and this article gives more questions than answers... But I am desperate - As I now incline to the rhino side, am I the same as all the other people in the play? Does it indicate that in that situation, I would also become a rhinoceros?
Somebody help me! Who is the good one and who is the bad one in this play??!!
Well, I think there is no correct answer. As you mentioned, everything depends on which side you incline. It is really difficult to be the only human and have only rhinoceros around you.
ReplyDeleteIf you look to the historical events the minorities were usually expelled, or even worst, exterminated by the majority.
Don´t you think that if the play continued Berenger would be finally smashed by a pack of rhinoceros?
Humankind is so week from the physical side and if you are week you loose. Partially it is an evolution...rhinoceros are much stronger.
Sure, I think Berenger would either become Rhinoceros himself or he would be smashed by the others.. I am now much calmer now, as you mention the evolution -- at least I can feel that it is natural that the rhinos survive and the humans disappear; and that there is nothing bad in it =))
ReplyDeleteYou bring up quite a conundrum -- first, I have discovered through questioning that everyone defines "normal" as whatever it is that they do; therefore, each individual is normal, because that is how everyone defines it. Second, this idea was explored quite deeply in "I, Legend" (the original -- Hollywood, of course, changed the ending and thereby deleted the entire point of the book). The premise is that some sort of pandemic has changed almost everyone on the planet into a sort of zombie-like vampire species which can only come out at night. The one "human" left, as we would define human, considers them to be a pestilence, monsters, as they are antagonistic to humanity, and spends his days hunting and killing them. In the end he is captured and before the execute him, they explain that he terrifies them -- he is what they use to scare their children with at night. He is their monster. He has become the legend -- to the vampires, he is the vampire. He realizes what he has become in a world which he is no longer compatible with. So the question then arises: not what is normal, but what is human?
ReplyDeleteInteresting way of looking at the problem! And it's even more interesting to see how the same idea appears again and again in different stories. It seems to me that "I, Legend" and "Rhinoceros" are basically about the same thing and I am sure that there are even more stories like these...
ReplyDeleteFantastic blog Adela, and you are raising a lot of cool questions. I have always had a big problem understanding 'normality', it has an effect on everything we do and say. I don't like it much but without these ideas, how would we function in normal ('normal') life?
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