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Rhinoceroses
The Housewife’s cat is the first casualty once rhinoceritis takes hold of Berenger’s provincial French town, and its death highlights how easy it is to rationalize violence when the victim is somehow less than human. While Berenger and the café-goers are certainly sad for the Housewife’s loss, they ignore her cries that her cat was kind, gentle, and almost like a real person—and the Grocer’s Wife even offers to give her one of her cats to replace the dead one, as if the cat were expendable. Their unwillingness to truly empathize and see the cat as a victim worthy of respect and concern represents, more broadly, the way that fascism and other totalitarian systems begin by targeting the most vulnerable of a population, especially those that can’t advocate for themselves.
The Cat Quotes in Rhinoceros
The Rhinoceros quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Cat. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Act 1, Scene 1
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Logician: That would be unjust, and therefore not logical.
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Old Gentleman: […] Not logical?
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Logician: […] Because Logic means Justice.
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Old Gentleman: What can you do, dear lady—cats are only mortal.
Logician: What do you expect, madam? All cats are mortal. One must accept that.
Housewife: (Lamenting.) My little cat, my poor little cat.
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Grocer: —it may be logical, but are we going to stand for our cats being run down under our very eyes by one-horned rhinoceroses or two, whether they’re Asiatic or African?
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Act 1, Scene 2
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Botard: You call that precise? And what, pray, does it mean by “pachyderm”? What does the editor of a dead cats column understand by a pachyderm? He doesn’t say. And what does he mean by a cat?
Dudard: Everybody knows what a cat is.
Botard: Does it concern a male cat or a female? What breed is it? And what color? The color bar is something I feel strongly about. I hate it.
Papillon: What has the color bar has to do with it, Mr. Botard? It’s quite beside the point.
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Get the entire Rhinoceros LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Cat Symbol Timeline in Rhinoceros
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Cat appears in Rhinoceros. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1, Scene 1
...the shop next door. A Housewife walks past with a basket of groceries and her cat, but she turns away when she sees the Grocer’s Wife. The Grocer’s Wife complains about...
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...street. Berenger remains seated and disinterested, while the Housewife sits down and sooths her scared cat. Everyone but Berenger says, “Well, of all things!” Berenger blows his nose and agrees that...
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...irrational. The Old Gentleman introduces the Housewife to the Logician, and the Logician accepts the cat while the Housewife purchases wine from the Grocer and then begins to repack her basket....
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...meowing, and the Housewife cries. She runs to the café cradling her dead and bloody cat. The rhinoceros ran it over. The Grocer, the Old Gentleman, Daisy, and the Logician comfort...
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...to hide in the restroom. The Old Gentleman and the Logician remind the Housewife that cats are mortal and she should’ve expected this, while the Proprietor demands that the Waitress pay...
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...though the brandy will cure her grief, but the Housewife continues to grieve for her cat. Berenger insists that the rhinoceros wasn’t running in a position conducive to seeing its horns,...
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The Housewife continues to cry over her cat as Jean accuses Berenger of having two horns and calls him an “Asiatic Mongoloid.” As...
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...in any case, Jean’s face is bright red. The Housewife continues to sob over her cat and Jean quickly leaves. The Old Gentleman tells the Grocer that Asian people have skin...
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The Waitress and Daisy gently help the Housewife into the café to put her cat in a box. The Grocer, the Grocer’s Wife, and the Proprietor all agree that the...
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...the real question is if they’re all going to allow rhinoceroses to run down their cats, whether they’re Asian or African. The Housewife, Daisy, and the Waitress come out of the...
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Act 1, Scene 2
...reads the one-line article. It says that in the church square, a pachyderm trampled a cat to death. Botard says he doesn’t believe journalists because they lie. As a former teacher,...
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...precise—“pachyderm” can refer to many things, and the author doesn’t say what they mean by “cat.” The cat could be male or female, and it doesn’t say what breed or color...
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...is a myth, just like flying saucers, and ignores Mr. Papillon. Dudard insists that a cat was trampled in front of witnesses and motions to Berenger, but Botard says that Berenger...
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