Roach Rhino Redux: Revisiting Parallels in Kafka and Ionesco

Fifty years after doing a college thesis comparing Kafka's short story The Metamorphosis and Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, Ethan Hirsh takes a lively look at how the two works have withstood the test of time, with surprising results from around the world-- new adaptations, new media, and new reasons for their ongoing and growing popularity. The author's original thesis from 1967 is included in its entirety and endures as a valid and entertaining work of literary criticism, analyzing how the two writers used the device of physical transformation to achieve their parallel goals. Hirsh supplements his recent research with a "Coda for Conservation" that examines the dire plight of endangered rhinos in the wild.