I think that Fefu's discussion of worms here lends itself to, and is analogous to, the larger discussions and implications about the oppression and repression that women experience in the play. I personally felt like the discussion of the differences between the interior and the exterior were extremely applicable to the ways in which women discuss the ways they can present themselves, what they can and can't do, and the ways they talk about and experience their own oppression. Throughout the play, the women either talk, or in some way demonstrate something, about sex and sexuality, their relationship to men as women, the expectations that they hold for each other and themselves (as well as society's role in establishing those expectations), and the way they are treated when those presentations deviate from the kind of women men or society want to see (ex. the issues surrounding hysteria and the discussion where they say every woman was sent to see a psychiatrist). I think that the worms here indicate the women's interiority and how that interiority has to be recognized and acknowledged by each of the women, because if they continue to repress their interior desires or aspirations in favor of presenting as a "proper" woman, they will be consumed and succumb to the psychological impacts associated with inhibited freedom or autonomy. This passage then might also speak to the idea of internalized misogyny, and how women must dismantle their own internalized misogyny before "it eats [them]" and causes great detriment to not only themselves, but the women they surround themselves with as well.

Tobias' emotions in the scene following these stage directions/descriptions fluctuate and shift very rapidly, often shifting from one extreme to the other. I think this is possibly an attempt at a kind, perhaps a different definition or type, of balance; a balance in which Tobias experiences both emotions equally rather than settling somewhere in the middle or controlling his emotions as we might expect balance or the definition of balance to appear. I think that this scene also opposes balance altogether though, and specifically opposes the ability of Tobias to perform or create balance, which speaks to the way that actual balance, or a normative definition of balance, is hard to come by throughout the play. The rest of the characters seem to rely on Tobias to balance out tensions and be the balancing factor in mediating conflicts, which he is repetitively unable to do. His inability to perform these balances seems to eliminate the idea of any character in the play being the fulcrum altogether, as he is relied on to balance Agnes out (although she claims to be the fulcrum, she simultaneously seems out of control of her emotions and is unable, or unwilling, to smooth things over in the house), nor can he balance out anything else in the end since the ultimate decision to preserve the balance on the house is really made by Harry.

In this instance, knowledge and the power to simply know the details of one's surroundings becomes a type of hidden space in the play. Here, Gus acknowledges that he has no power over knowing where he is nor is he able to really know, or see, the outside world; which can perhaps be interpreted as the world beyond his very limited life or this very narrowed view of his perception. This lack of power in being able to determine his circumstances and surroundings is reflective of a similar lack of power that both men have in their professional life through the work they're doing. They are completely controlled by the forces of a world completely outside of, and unseeable to, them and seem to be powerless to make decisions of their own. Hidden spaces in this way then, throughout the play, seem to suggest Gus and Ben's larger relationship to, and overall lack of, power and how they lack the power of perception and being able to place themselves within the context of a location or action, suspended in a kind of helplessness that they seem somewhat aware of, but unable to change or acknowledge.

At this moment, the Judge begins to look "into" the Executioner as a kind of mirror in which to see himself or, rather, the self that he wishes to be and wishes to be seen as. He tries to draft the positioning of the Executioner in front of him as a reflection of himself and the strength and power his own image exudes, but it is actually him observing the qualities within the Executioner, and his role, that the Judge himself would like to exhibit, and trying to project them back onto himself through this mirror-like positioning or stance of the two characters. This speaks to the seeming purpose of the brothel in general as it's clients use the services provided to experience and embody, for at least a brief amount of time, a projected version of themselves; a dreamlike position of control or power, or a self, that they would like to occupy or mirror in their actual lives. This becomes even further illuminated in the work in Scene 5 with the arrival of the Chief of Police and his desire to be the object of desire or projected ideal vision of a person of power and control that the clients who come to the brothel center their fantasies on.

In this scene, Berenger and Jean have both gone inside the bathroom. So while the audience can still hear their conversation, their voices are entirely disconnected from their bodies. I think this creates an interesting effect with the audience as it forces them to register the importance that sound has in the play overall, and not solely in this scene. The rhinoceros noises are clearly important in the play, and often occur in the later acts without the actual images or total visual representation of the rhinoceroses themselves. This scene complicates that as it further removes sound from a concrete location in a body by taking away all the visual representations of humanity altogether. It seems to almost suggest a stripping of humanity's physical presence in the play which we see occurring through "rhinoceritis" at alarming rates later on. In that way, I think this scene prepares the audience for the intensification of sound and the lack of human bodies on stage that come after this scene. This dividing of sound from bodies/humanity does create an absurd or "wrong" feeling, but I think that absurdity serves to emphasize how important sound is in Rhinoceros. The absurdity that arises in this scene serves its purpose in setting the stage for sound to become simultaneously melodious and slightly overwhelming in the final act of the play as it surrounds and envelops not only Berenger, but the audience itself.

Each time that the rhinoceroses appear in Act One, the characters seem to be talking about some kind of universal discipline that one has, or duty that one adheres to, that indicates a person's superiority. Right before the first rhino appearance, Jean has just finished saying that "The superior man is the man who fulfills his duty.. as an employee," and right before the second appearance here, Jean is criticizing Berenger's drinking and saying that there is something that sets Berenger's drinking apart from his. This seems to suggest that there is some kind of coherence or relationship between Berenger's sort of outcast status and the appearance or state of the rhinoceroses. To add to this idea of a contrast between Berenger and the rhinoceroses, the actual appearance of the rhinos tends to unify the other characters as they respond in unison with the exact same words to the situation whereas Berenger also has a distinctive individual response. The scenes of the rhinos "appearing" were also very intriguing in terms of how the rhinoceroses aren't described in great physical detail and seem to pass by quicker than the characters can even catch a glimpse, as though there is some kind of invisible force wreaking havoc onstage and while everyone else has a group response to this kind of invisible force, Berenger doesn't. (This annotation was meant to extend to the top of page 25 up until where Jean says "it's not the same thing at all," but it wouldn't let me do an annotation with the text spanning across two pages.)

I think that it's easy to lose this line in the scheme of the more obvious hidden elements of this play (because of how it seems to be the Old Man simply dismissing his wife), but I think that every line in this play is very intentional, so it's important to consider that the "tea" the Old Man is referencing is invisible to the audience. As an audience member, I think that initially this line just strikes you as odd and unsettling, since there obviously isn't any tea, or something that would be reminiscent of tea, onstage. It also gives the impression that there is something off or different about the way that normal behaviors or activities, such as that of drinking tea or having guests over, take shape in the world of this play. Deeper than that though, I think the invisibility of the tea here grows more complex considering the interaction it stems from and the fact that the Old Man repeats I believe twice more for the Old Woman to drink said invisible tea. This order and it's inability to be fulfilled (or perhaps the Old Woman's unwillingness to fulfill it) points to the greater dynamic and relationship between the couple and almost divides them; which is interesting to consider in terms of how other invisibilities in the play quite literally separate and drive the couple apart. I also thought that the naming of the Old Woman, on the part of the Old Man, as Semiramis while the Old Man went unnamed was also interesting and a further kind of invisibility as the name has some hidden context which isn't directly revealed to us or referenced during the work.

Here, Hamm refers to the outside world and nature, or rather whatever lies beyond the walls of their shelter, as "hell." This typifying of the outside world as a kind of hell is interesting in terms of how it creates such stark contrast between exterior and interior and dichotomizes space as well as how the "hell" of the natural world produces a violent reaction in Hamm. Denoting nature and the world outside of the shelter as a "hell" immediately casts the interior of the shelter as a kind of "heaven" space, although we know that ultimately to be untrue. I think that this tracks with Hamm's personality and what he sets out to do in the shelter, as he desires to exert total control over his surroundings. The outside world then would be hell for Hamm as he is unable to control it; unlike the sort of power he has ruling over the interior of the house, he has no control over the exterior elements, and never has had that control, even when there was anything other than "Zero" beyond its walls. I think this manifests as an anxiety about power and control, but also an ecological anxiety directly linked to power and control; the idea that we as Hamm are powerless to completely control and preside over a natural world that is turning against and away from us (even though we have done damage unto it), that we have an extreme vulnerability that is nearly impossible to cope with in the external world that we've forced upon ourselves.

This seems like a "tragic" moment to me in terms of how this could potentially serve as a moment of intense introspection and self-recognition. This moment seems to indicate that an abrupt, if short lived, recognition is occurring for Estragon about of state and nature of he and Vladimir's lives. Although the recognition is fleeting, he seems to step out of the suspension and stupor of the continual waiting he and Vladimir are doing and be able to look in on their actions from an outside perspective. For a moment he recognizes that everyone that they encounter changes over time, but he and Vladimir can never seem to undergo any transformation. He recognizes briefly here that only he and Vladimir are stuck in stasis, suspended by this waiting, and the statement seems to carry a tone of related hopelessness or resignation. Although this moment of recognition seems to pass, as Estragon seems to slide back into the natural dialogue/rapport that he and Vladimir engage in, and there is no reversal, I still think there's something tragic in this moment as there is both a recognition and a kind of stepping out of the time and flow of the play.

I see an example of the "theatrum mundi" at work here in the way the audience is addressed by the Fortune Teller and thus roped into the play. When the Fortune Teller is "looking out to sea" in this instance, she is really looking out into the audience as well as into the theater itself. This action of looking and gesturing to the audience casts them, and the entirety of the theater for that matter, into the world of the play. This essentially creates an extension of the stage that the actors view as a stage in itself for what is brought upon their sight in their world. The Fortune Teller's invocation that there is now "A new world to make" also creates this "theatrum mundi" effect as she gestures to the theater and the very real world; offering both the characters in the play and the audience not only a world to imagine as their own, but a world that they may also choose to shape in a very real sense as the stage and the possibilities offered in the theater extend into the audience's stage of reality.

I think that Churchill gives us important clues into the play's world here in terms of space. Not only do we get an idea about external and internal space (such as the stars, the house, etc.), but we also get a new idea and sense about hidden and unseen spaces here. In a very direct sense, hidden space here is obviously in the sky/galaxy, the things we can't see behind the stars and which are hidden in the darkness that envelops this world at night, but this line also alludes to hidden spaces that take on more indirect and metaphysical meanings. the "little bit of space" that Harper tells Joan they're placed in gives form to the idea that there are many little bits of space throughout the play that are areas where sense and meaning are retained. But, when the characters step outside of these "safe" places, the world of the play changes drastically, with sense being lost or driven out of the picture entirely. For example, Harper tells Joan that the house is a place of safety, sense and rightness, and when Joan left the house and observed the actions performed by her uncle in the lorry and the shed, it threw the reality of the play (or at least Joan's reality of the play) into precarity. The same holds true for older Joan and Todd. When they step outside the little bit of space, where their jobs are simply a mechanical action which they perform, and face the absurdity of what they're doing, the death they decorate, and the real corruption they are complicit in, the entire world of the play descends into chaos. The very next scene after they decide to take a stand outlines a world that seems at war with itself in a very physical sense, as even the environment and natural elements are fighting. This passage outlines then the ways in which the world of this play has unseen and undefined spaces where reality is determined; spaces that denote the sensical from the nonsensical and that continually frame and shape the characters perception of reality.