Rhinocerus!!!

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C5818
From: catlady_de_los_angeles
Subject: Re: Rhinocerus!!!
Reply To: [Yahoo! #5695] Chapter 4 (gof spoilers) discussion...
Date: 8/5/00 5:00 am  (ET)

> as though there had been a warning about an escaped rhinoceros." Could
this be a literary allusion to Ionesco's _Rhinoceros_?

That's what flashed into my head when I read that line, too! If you're
crazy, then we are crazy together.

Of course, even if JKR had not consciously intended any reference to
Ionesco, she might have picked a rhinocerus as her metaphor because the
'rhinocerus' thoughtprints in her mind were still warm from having thought
recently of the Ionesco play (or of the rhinocerus at the local zoo,
or the word 'rhinocerus' turning up in a Scrabble game).