Symbols Alexandra Petri's US History Alexandra Petri

The Rhinoceros Disguise in Alexandra Petri's US History

Introduction

In chapter 37 of Alexandra Petri’s satirical history, two rhinoceroses adopt household disguises—a coatrack and a hassock—inside Theodore Roosevelt’s home. Their mission is to prevent any further distress in Roosevelt’s life, because every setback he suffers leads him to embark on large-game hunting expeditions that slaughter their relatives and friends. The rhinoceros disguise symbolises the invisible collateral damage of charismatic leadership: the beings whose lives are sacrificed to sustain a public figure’s emotional and political adventures. This analysis examines what the disguise literally involves, where the symbol recurs, how its meaning shifts over time, and its connections to key characters and themes in the book.

What Is the Rhinoceros Disguise?

The rhinoceros disguise is a literal, absurdist conceit. Two rhinos—Artaxerxes and Rhadamanthus—volunteer to infiltrate Roosevelt’s household by pretending to be furniture. Artaxerxes poses as a coatrack, Rhadamanthus as a hassock (an ottoman). They are sent by a council of rhinos who have noticed “a distressing pattern”: whenever Roosevelt experiences a personal loss or political frustration, his only emotional outlet is to go kill large volumes of big game. The rhinos calculate that if they can keep his life smooth and successful, he will not need to hunt, and their species will be spared.

Their disguise relies on the absurdity that humans rarely look closely at furniture. They are surrounded by actual mounted rhino heads—trophies from Roosevelt’s earlier kills—which serve as grim reminders of their fallen kin. The chapter treats their mission with deadpan seriousness, mixing mundane details (cigar burns, a bent horn from ramming a monument) with dark humour (suggesting they helped assassinate President McKinley to get Roosevelt into the White House faster). The disguise is therefore a survival strategy, a form of protest, and a way to shape history from the shadows.

Where the Symbol Recurs

The rhinoceros disguise appears almost exclusively in chapter 37, “We’re the Rhinoceroses Trying to Keep Teddy Roosevelt’s Life Together.” The chapter is structured as a series of dated entries from 1897 to 1912, charting the rhinos’ long undercover operation. Despite being confined to one chapter, the symbol echoes thematically throughout the book. For instance, the theme of [[myth-making and selective memory]] appears in how Roosevelt’s heroic image erases the rhinos’ suffering. The theme of [[greed and exploitation]] connects to the hunting sprees themselves, which are driven by Roosevelt’s need to consume nature for emotional release. The rhinos also embody the [[satire of historical authority and construction]]—their first-person account challenges the official narrative of Roosevelt’s presidency by centering the victims.

Beyond chapter 37, the rhinos are mentioned in the apocalyptic [[Ragnarok in the Hall of Presidents]] (chapter 75), where Roosevelt fights with berserk fury, but no rhinos appear there. Their absence in that scene underscores how even in a final judgment, the collateral damage remains invisible. The symbol thus recurs less as a repeated object and more as a persistent critique of who gets to tell history.

How the Symbol’s Meaning Evolves

Over the chapter’s fifteen-year span, the rhinoceros disguise undergoes a profound transformation from hopeful service to exhausted disillusionment.

Early optimism (1897–1900) : Artaxerxes arrives full of conviction. He accepts the mission because “now is not the time to be timid.” The disguise seems manageable, and he feels he can influence events. He and Rhadamanthus suffer minor indignities (being sat on, having cigars extinguished on their hides), but they believe their sacrifice matters.
Growing strain (1901–1905) : The rhinos become more desperate. They fear Roosevelt’s vice presidency will bore him, so they resort to drastic measures—the McKinley assassination hint. Their ethical boundaries blur. They also physically intervene by hoisting Roosevelt’s daughter Alice onto the roof to stop her smoking indoors, showing they are willing to harmlessly manipulate domestic life. Yet their efforts feel increasingly futile.
Collapse (1906–1912) : After Roosevelt leaves the presidency and embarks on a Smithsonian hunting expedition that kills 11,000 specimens, the rhinos lose close family members—Rhadamanthus’s mother, Artaxerxes’s two nieces. Their disguise becomes a burden; Rhadamanthus’s hide sags, making him a poor hassock. Artaxerxes contemplates assassinating Roosevelt himself but fails when the bullet is stopped by the speech text. The chapter ends with the narrator going home, implying surrender. The disguise no longer signifies agency but powerlessness.

The meaning shifts from a clever undercover operation to a tragic symbol of how the oppressed, in trying to protect themselves, become complicit in the systems that harm them.

Connections to Characters and Themes

Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt is the central figure around whom the symbol revolves. He is portrayed as a man of immense energy who “wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.” His need for action and recognition drives the rhinos’ mission. They see him as both a threat and a project: if they can keep him happy, everyone survives. The chapter satirises the [[political hypocrisy]] of a leader who speaks of conservation while shooting rhinos. In [[Ragnarok in the Hall of Presidents]], Roosevelt fights uncontrollably, confirming that he cannot be contained even in myth.

The Rhinoceroses (Artaxerxes and Rhadamanthus)

They function as a collective character: the unsung, voiceless victims of American exceptionalism. Their names—Artaxerxes (a Persian king) and Rhadamanthus (a judge of the dead in Greek myth)—invert expectations: these are not lowly animals but figures of regal and moral authority, now reduced to furniture. Their interiority (grief, exhaustion, guilt) humanises them and forces readers to reckon with the cost of Roosevelt’s legacy.

Themes

[[Greed and exploitation]] : The rhinos’ deaths are a direct result of Roosevelt’s insatiable need to conquer nature. The chapter links personal grief to imperial exploitation.
[[Satire of historical authority and construction]] : By giving the rhinos a voice, Petri rewrites history from a subaltern perspective. The official record (Roosevelt’s speeches, national parks) is shown to be built on bones.
[[Myth-making and selective memory]] : Roosevelt is remembered as a conservationist who set aside parks. The rhinos’ account reveals that those parks were set aside partly because the land was deemed dangerous (chapter 38), and partly because Roosevelt’s violence required cover. The [[gender roles and domesticity]] theme is less prominent, though the rhinos’ domestic disguise hints at how women and invisible workers sustain public men.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why do the rhinoceroses decide to disguise themselves as furniture rather than confront Roosevelt directly?

Answer: The rhinos recognise that direct confrontation would be suicidal—Roosevelt has already killed many of their kind and displays their heads as trophies. Disguise allows them to stay close to him and influence his life from within. They hope that by preventing any stress, they will remove his motivation to hunt. The furniture disguise also satirises the way domestic spaces are assumed to be passive and apolitical, masking the resistance happening within them.

2. What does the phrase “the butcher’s bill” mean in the context of the chapter, and how does it reflect the symbol’s meaning?

Answer: Artaxerxes uses “the butcher’s bill” to refer to the tally of dead rhinos after Roosevelt’s hunting expeditions. It literalises the cost of Roosevelt’s emotional life: each setback causes a slaughter. The phrase reframes Roosevelt not as a heroic hunter but as a butcher, and the rhinos as casualties of a one‑man war. The symbol of the disguise thus stands for the hidden accounting that history books omit.

3. How does the rhinos’ relationship with their own disguise change over time?

Answer: Initially, the disguise is a source of pride and purpose—a clever tactic. As years pass, it becomes a prison. Rhadamanthus develops a cough from sitting in smoke‑filled rooms; his hide sags from exhaustion. Artaxerxes’s eyes grow glassy from pretending to be a coatrack. By the end, the disguise no longer protects them; it only reminds them of their powerlessness and complicity. The chapter ends with Artaxerxes abandoning the disguise entirely, suggesting that assimilation into the system ultimately destroys the oppressed.

4. In what ways does the rhinoceros disguise connect to the book’s broader critique of historical narratives?

Answer: The chapter is written as a secret document left behind by the rhinos—an unofficial record. This mirrors the book’s method of fabricating “important American documents” (chapter 1) to expose how official histories are constructed. The rhinos’ voice challenges the masculine, heroic arc of Roosevelt’s biography. Their failure to prevent the Smithsonian slaughter (which was funded by the state) shows how institutions of knowledge collection (museums) are complicit in violence. The disguise symbol thus becomes a lens through which readers question who gets to speak in history and whose suffering is made invisible.