Previous Next

Although he appears only in the first act, the Logician, as his name suggests, represents the other rationalist characters (Jean, Botard, Dudard) and one of the underlying premises of the play and existentialist philosophy, that logic cannot explain everything. In fact, Ionesco severely mocks the Logician's circular, comic train of thought, which focuses on all the wrong questions and ends up with completely incorrect answers or answers that re-pose the original question. We must recognize the universe as absurd and nonsensical, Ionesco believes, in order to take any meaning from it; the Logician and other characters resist this, though they often succeed only in proving themselves absurd.

Previous section Rhinoceroses Next section Daisy

Popular pages: Rhinoceros

Take a Study Break