As in part one of Act I, Ionesco utilizes parallel dialogue again to simulate collective consciousness, but the tone of Ionesco's play is more attention- grabbing in this section. He grounds Rhinoceros in absurdist comedy that examines profound ideas in a comic light. For instance, the Logician's proof examines the limits of logic and its inversions while pleasing the audience with its low comedy of misunderstanding. More obvious is one of Jean's suggestions to Berenger for cultural exercises—seeing one of Ionesco's plays. Breaking the "fourth wall" of the theater to address the audience directly forces the audience members to recognize the production before them as a play. Ionesco does not allow the audience to forget itself in the play. A new dramatic technique of postwar theater was for the actor to be aware of himself as an actor, to draw attention to the artifice of the play. This self-consciousness extended to entire productions, and in Rhinoceros, Ionesco clearly discards conventional reality, both in the absurdist subject matter and in the stagecraft that relies on imagination. The rhinos never appear on stage in full form, and when they do show up, it is as back-lit projections of rhino-heads. These non- realistic touches force the audience to recognize the play as a performed piece, but not as an escapist spectacle that shuts out the external world. In the same vein, Ionesco's self-referential joke helps the audience affirm its commitment to the play's ideas after they leave the theater. The collapse of the fourth wall (not to mention the fact that numerous stage walls actually fall in the play) implies that there should be no "before" or "after" the play, but that the play is as much a part of their "real lives" as their post-theater dinner will be.

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