The Zoo Story
“The zoo story” is an American play written by Edward Albee. The author analyzes various themes in the play. For instance, he analyzes the themes of loneness and isolation. He also analyzes social disparity and dehumanization in the world. The main characters in the play are peter and Jerry. Peter is a middle class man having a wide, two cats and parakeets. He is also a publishing executive. Peter does not consider his outside world important and he ignores everything outside his life. On the other hand, Jerry is an isolated man. Jerry lives in a boarding house and he does not have a good life like Peter. The two meet in the New York City’s central park. Jerry is desperate and wants to talk with another person. This forces him to talk to interfere with peters comfort.
For instance, Jerry starts interrogating peter and forcing him to listen to the conversation. Like other authors, the author of the zoo story has used dramatic action to convey the message to the reader. Dramatic action in a play happens when one action leads to another. The action can alter the normal functioning of a person in different ways. In dramatic actions, the actions do not happen as the audience expected. The unfolding of the dramatic action in the play “the zoo story” starts at the beginning of the story. This is evidenced by Jerry’s action. At the beginning of the play, Jerry decides to talk to peter when the two meet in the park as stated. Peter does not have any interest in listening to Jerry, but jerry forces him to listen. Jerry forces peter to listen to his life stories. He also forces him to listen to “the story of jerry and the dog” and why they had gone to the zoo. Then Peter decides to listen to Jerry. After sometimes, peter decides to go home. Jerry does not agree with peters decisions and forces him to continue listening to the conversation. This is evidenced by peters comment “…must be going home…”.As a result, Jerry starts to irritate peter and peter agrees to listen to the conversation. Peter asks Jerry to explain what occurred at the zoo (Albee 2009).
Peter listens carefully, but Jerry starts to push him off the bench. This leads to a fight as peter and Jerry fight for their space on the bench. In addition, Jerry tries to defend himself and he pulls a knife and directs it towards peter. Jerry uses different tactics to provoke peter. For instance, jerry drops the knife to provoke peter to fight back. Then things happen as jerry had planned as peter picks the knife to defend himself. In turn, Jerry pierces himself on the knife. After the accident, Jerry tries to explain what happened in the zoo. He tries to link what happened in the story with the present. For instance, he questions himself if he planned all what happened in the zoo. Additionally, Jerry denies having planned all what happened in the zoo. This is shown by his comments “No…no, I couldn’t have..”. Though jerry doubts having planned the actions that transpired in the park, he actually agrees he did. For instance, he claims that he did as shown by his words “I think I did”. Jerry’s death is a result of being desperate. He did not have any one to talk to and this forced him to look for some one to talk to. In this case, the audience expected peter to get hurt, but instead Jerry gets hurt (Albee 2009).
In this case, Jerry might have planned all the actions that happened in the zoo. This is because at the beginning of the play, Jerry wanted to bring peter into the same level as him. This implies that Jerry might have wanted to hurt peter and make him desperate and lower his social; class. Hence, jerry decides to force peter to listen to him. In addition, also jerry plans to harm peter as he pushes him from the bench and also uses the knife to kill himself. Though, Jerry expects peter to die in the process or to become desperate as him. Peter does not. This is because Jerry pierces himself using the knife.
A dramatic action always has more harm to the characters or causes disturbances to their life. In this case, Jerry is affected by the dramatic action as he later dies as shown by his words “oh… my…God”. Peter is not affected by the incident, but he runs away from Jerry (Albee 2009).The dramatic action has an implication on the contemporary life. For instance, the story shows the effect of isolation in real life. In the play, Jerry is isolated from other people and he finds it difficulty to talk to any one. This makes him become desperate. It also makes him becomes jealousy and this compels him to look for ways to solve his problems. For instance, he forces peter to talk to him and help him solve his problems.
Social isolation affects human life differently. For example, it forces people to commit suicide. Moreover, the dramatic action shows the social disparity in the society and its effect. The two characters in the play are from different social classes. For example, peter is a middle class man who has a job and he is comfortable. On the other hand, Jerry is poor and has no job. The social disparities in the play are evidenced in the real life as there is a great gap between the rich and the poor. Most of the poor people find it hard to meet their emotional needs and social needs and this forces them to commit crime like murder. For example, jerry is unable to meet his needs and takes away his life. Peter remains comfortable and he does not sympathize with Jerry even during his death, but he runs away (Albee 2009).
Further, the dramatic action in the play shows dehumanization. This involves seeing someone not important. Jerry sees himself less important due to the challenges he faces in life and he decides to take away his life. Most people in the world have felt they are not important once in their life. This can have negative effect on ones life if not corrected as evidenced by Jerry’s action. In conclusion, the actions evidenced in the play are applicable in real life (Albee 2009).
Reference
Albee,E.At Home at the Zoo.Dramatist’s Play Service, 2009
Is this your assignment or some part of it?
We can do it for you! Click to Order!
