Around 1967-68, I was in a college production of Eugène Ionesco's "Rhinoceros," which was written around 1960. Existentialist philosophy and Theater of the Absurd was all the rage then. It hasn't held up very well, has it?

Anyway, our working hypothesis was that the rhinoceroses represented Nazis. Why, you might ask, was it necessary to resort to allegory when writing about Nazis in 1960? I'm wondering the same thing right now, and I don't have an answer.