“Ionesco's plays require that the audience find themselves jolted into seeing their world and themselves through the perspective of the fictional world created on stage” (quigley). discuss with reference to rhinocéros
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“Ionesco's plays require that the audience find themselves jolted into seeing their world and themselves through the perspective of the fictional world created on stage” (Quigley). Discuss with reference to Rhinocéros and at least one other French example (not necessarily by Ionesco) of the Theatre of the Absurd.Ionesco has labelled his plays as inherently anti-ideological, as he explains that ’if art functioned as an ideology it would no longer be a work of art, that is to say an autonomous creation, an independent universe with its own life and its own laws’.[1] In this way, if a work of art if compelled simply to illustrate ideology, it is no longer a creative process, action and surprise; it is known in advance.[2] Instead, Ionesco advocates the ‘testimony’ that playwrights can offer other kinds of knowledge in other worlds, encouraging the enlightenment of audience members through the presentation and exploration of often-overlooked elements of the reality of the world off-stage. Furthermore, this reality with which Ionesco’s plays are concerned is a deep psychological reality, the reality of dreams which are not constrained by logic or rationalism, a reality which is not in the audience’s extent of verisimilitude or comfort. And so, the narrative of Ionesco’s plays is an evocation of dream and nightmare sequences; exploration of phobias rather than physical realities. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as Ionesco sees it. Esslin notes that ‘it is a challenge to his audience to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world’.[3] The play requires that the audience move through the same progression as the fictional characters on-stage in order to release themselves from