Rhinoceros Fate and Free Will Quotes

Jean believes that the power to change oneself can only come from within. He’s like a motivational speaker or a very serious yoga instructor. He believes that a man’s will dictates what a man does. It’ll take Berenger a while to come around on that idea.

So sometimes Jean can switch pretty quick from the zen-happy yoga instructor to the boot-camp dude who screams at you until you get to 70 pushups. He seems to think that using your free will and tapping into your will power is like an exercise. Who knows, maybe he’s right. It just seems a little silly at the time, like someone yelling, “Come on, be better at math!”

Now that we’re onto how it affects the whole rhinoceroses epidemic and not just whether Berenger orders another drink, this whole fate and free will thing is getting interesting. Jean and Berenger argue about Boeuf’s transformation into a rhinoceros, and for the first time the idea that the transformation might have been a choice comes up. This aspect of the fate/free will argument will come to dominate the play.