Rhinoceros

The play opens in the square of a small town on a Sunday near noon, to the sound of church bells. Jean, smartly dressed and giving instructions about everything, and dishevelled Béranger, who drank last night, meet at a café. Jean arrives ten minutes late because «I know you never come on time»; then he scolds Béranger: no tie, hair untidy, unshaven, shoes unpolished, suit covered in dust. He produces a tie, a comb and a mirror from his pockets. Béranger says briefly «I can't adapt to life»; Jean replies «a man must have will».

In the middle of the conversation wild animal noises come from far away, rapidly approaching: a rhinoceros passes through the square. Everyone — the grocer, his wife, the waitress, the café owner, the housewife with her cat, the logician, the old gentleman — cries «Oh! A rhinoceros!» together and follows it through the dust. Only Béranger hears nothing and sits indifferent. After the animal has gone, the crowd begins to talk about wine, the cat and «logic»; the event seems to become the most ordinary thing.

Jean «still cannot believe it». Béranger suggests the animal may have escaped from a zoo; Jean says «there has been no zoo in town since the animals died of plague, and no circus comes either», and the conversation quickly returns to Béranger's drinking. Béranger confesses: «I seem to be afraid of something, I drink so the fear goes away; living isn't natural». Jean tells him «arm yourself, be cultured, go to museums and the theatre», and first mentions Ionesco's plays.

At the back table the logician teaches the old gentleman a «syllogism»: «The cat has four paws. Sarman and Tekir have four paws too. So Sarman and Tekir are cats», «All cats are mortal. Socrates is mortal. So Socrates is a cat». The lines run in parallel with the same sentences between Jean–Béranger and logician–old gentleman, overlapping; the logic is correct in form and meaningless in sense. Meanwhile Béranger's fondness for Daisy (a typist at his office) and his confession about his rival Dudard come up.

• In the first act everyday detail (café, grocer, woman and cat) is broken by the sudden roar of the rhinoceros: the absurd bursts out of reality
• The logician's and the old gentleman's syllogism is a parallel mirror of the Jean–Béranger conversation: the same sentences are repeated in both pairs
• The crowd saying the same words at the same moment before the rhinoceros shows the herd reflex
• Béranger's indifference is built as a visible difference on stage that sets him apart from the crowd