Gergen's Concepts

Analiz Castillo
October 24, 2012
Professor Arnesen

Analysis of Gergen’s concepts and how they apply to the play Rhinoceros
After reading Gergen’s and Ionesco’s book there is this question about how are these literary works related to one another. Although it might be really hard to correlate them, this essay shows that there is a way to connect them and at the same time not only learnabout the relation between both books, but furthermore to understand more about our own selves. One can understand about the characters in the play, Rhinoceros and also about human nature by applying specific concepts that Gergen’s uses in his book, The Saturated Self. Social saturation is the first concept that will be explained to analyze the reason why human beings convert into rhinos in theplay. Gergen’s concepts of romanticism and modernism help the reader to analyze Jean and Berenger, two of the main characters in Rhinoceros. Finally, post-modernism will enable the reader to understand Ionesco’s idea of a new culture where humans do not exist anymore.
Gergen describes social saturation as the way humanity change their way of behaving and thinking to adapt themselves to the changesthat take place in the world over the time. He uses an exact terminology for his explanation which is the “social saturation” Gergen’s term and real life examples can be used to explain why people change into rhinos in the play, Rhinoceros and why human is constantly changing in real life. Gergen begins describing an anecdote from work in which he realizes that technology has changed a lot ofthings, especially the way we communicate. Nowadays, we are able to maintain strong social connections and communicate with others in seconds. Then he talks about his neighbor explanation of how she communicated with people in her childhood. According to Gergen’s neighbor friends relationships were in face to face basis. Having a phone was the best communication technology that one could have.(Gergen, 3) When reading this excerpt of The saturated self, one could infer a real life example of how the play Rhinoceros try to portray in the reader’s understanding of the book. In the play Ionesco changes the people into rhinos. This according to Gergen’s term means that people are still human beings, but that technology and environment makes them change their mind and the way they behave changesover the time.
The author of The Saturated Self explains the concept of romanticism and modernism and later he uses examples to make them more understandable to the reader. By doing this Gergen helps one to understand where the characters of Rhinoceros fit in his concepts and why they behave the way they do. From his point of view humans are borne with a romantic character which he describes asthe person’s inside depth, as their feelings. In contrast modernism which began in the early twentieth century is described as the person ability to think in a rational way and use it to make their decisions rather than their inside depth. (Gergen, 6) In the second chapter of Gergen’s book, he uses everyday life examples to clarify his concepts of romanticism and modernism. He explains thatthree people of his examples have a modernism character due to the fact that they think rationally and make decisions according to what is smarter and predictable. In the other hand the other three people of his example are romantics because they make decisions based on what they feel and what makes them joyful (Gergen, 19) and these concepts and examples help us to have a better understanding aboutthe difference between Berenger and Jean, two principal characters of Ionesco’s play.
Jean one of Rhinoceros’ main character in the 1st and 3rd scene of the play, can best be described as a modern character according Gergen’s concept of modernism. One of the things that best describe him as a modernist is the way he expresses himself. Jean is more likely to be practical and say things that do...