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Plot synopsis

This piece is divided into three acts, each showing a stage in the onset of rhinoceritis.

Act I

Loose rhinos cause the first shock and surprise the characters. Jean can't believe what he saw was real and states "it should not exist." The grocer lets out a cry of fury when he sees the housekeeper leave with her bloodied cat: "We can not allow our cats to be crushed by rhinos or anything else." As with the start of any extremist movement, people are initially afraid.

Act II

People are beginning to turn into rhinos and to follow the rhinoceritis movement. This is where the first opposition is clearly made, as Botard remarks that it is "a nonsense story," "It is a shameful machination". He does not believe that rhinoceritis is real . Yet, he too will turn into a rhino despite these prejudices, saying that even the most resistant are misled by the rhetoric of the dictatorship. People are starting to turn into rhinoceros: in the case of Mr. Bœuf, followed by his wife: "I can not leave him like that," she said to justify herself. The firefighters are overwhelmed by the increasing number of rhinos in the city.

Jean, at first concerned and disturbed by the presence of rhinos in the city, transforms into a rhino under the desperate eyes of his friend Bérenger. Thus we witness the metamorphosis of a human being into a rhino. Jean is at first sick and pale, he grows a bump on his forehead, breathes loudly and has a tendency to growl. He then gets greener and greener and his skin begins to harden, his veins become prominent, his voice becomes hoarse, and his bump grows into a horn. Jean stops his friend from calling a doctor, he paces in his room like a caged beast, his voice becomes more and more hoarse and he starts bellowing. According to him, there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that Bœuf had become a rhinoceros, "After all, rhinos are creatures like us, who have a right to life just like us". He who was so learned, so well-read, suddenly proclaims "Humanism has expired! You are an old ridiculous sentimentalist."

Act III

Finally, everyone becomes a rhinoceros, including Daisy Dudard (a co-worker and a "scientist"). Bérenger is the only one not to find rhinoceritis normal. He panics and revolts against rhinoceritis. Dudard trivializes the transformation and she becomes a rhino because her duty is "to follow [her] leaders and [her] peers, for better or for worse." Daisy refuses to "save the world" and follows the rhinos, suddenly finding them beautiful, as she admires their enthusiasm and energy. After much hesitation, Bérenger decides not to surrender: "I am the last man, I will stay till the end! I do not give up!"