in the street, which are not his business.In Act I of Rhinoceros, a cat is the only victim, and Berenger (even less imposing, with hangover, dishevelled clothing, shy modesty) is more concerned about his quarrel with his friend Jean than by rhinoceroses As distressed as Berenger is by the Killer's activities, it is only after Dany's death that he resolves to act, to apprehend the Killer. Moreover, the Killer does not strike at those who are protected by the Administration Dany is killed when and because she leaves the Administration in protest against its tacit acceptance of murder. But although Berenger himself may be hoodwinked by the seemingly benevolent, bureaucratic dictatorship of the Architect, Ionesco carefully links the Architect to Berenger's friend Edward to a nameless old (127) 128 MODERN DRAMA September man to the demogogic Mother Peep to the Killer, by means of the identical kind of brief case they all carry-the brief case that contains the incipient deadliness of the Killer's knife.
Berenger of The Killer is more innocent than Berenger of Rhinoceros, for he is blinded by the radiant city, incapable of realizing that artificially planned cities are the inevitable prey of killers. In each play Act I contains the exposition and rising action that reveal protagonist and antagonist-Berenger vs. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:īERENGER, PROTAGONIST OF AN ANTI-PLAYWRIGHT IONESCO HAS WRITTEN FOUR PLAYS about a protagonist named Berenger: The Killer, Rhinoceros, Le Pitton de began writing for the theater." In spite of the unprepossessing appearance of the protagonists, both Berengers emerge as heroic figures battling powerful forces, the deadly killer and the more ambiguously menacing rhinoceritis.