Summary
The whole play is set near a bench in New York City's Central Park.
Peter, a clean-cut man in his mid-forties, sits on the bench, reading
and smoking a pipe. He is approached by Jerry, a carelessly dressed man
characterized by his “great weariness” (1). Without any provocation,
Jerry states that he is coming from the zoo, and asks Peter to confirm
that he is going north.
Peter complies, clearly uninterested in conversation. Nevertheless,
Jerry continues to talk to him, and warns that Peter will probably get
cancer from the pipe he is smoking. As Jerry expounds on this prognosis,
he cannot find the word he is looking for. Peter suggests ‘prosthesis’,
which leads Jerry to the conclusion that Peter is educated.
Jerry asks Peter if they can talk. Peter reluctantly agrees, and has to
insist on his willingness when Jerry notices his reluctance. Jerry
immediately tells Peter again that he has come from the zoo. Though
Jerry converses awkwardly and seems to be ignoring Peter's small-talk,
Peter makes his best effort to stay amiable. We learn that Peter has a
wife, two daughters, and two parakeets, and that he seems to enjoy a
normal upper-middle class life. Jerry asks whether Peter would prefer
having sons, and Peter admits that he would. However, he quickly becomes
offended when Jerry insinuates that Peter cannot have any more
children, without any evidence on which to base that assumption.
Peter soon realizes that he has let Jerry get under his skin, and he
forces himself to calm down. Jerry confides that he rarely talks to
other people, but that he loves to know everything about people he does
talk to. This admission makes Peter distinctly uncomfortable.
The conversation turns to Peter’s pets; Jerry implies that Peter has
been emasculated by his wife and daughters' insistence on having cats
instead of dogs.
Analysis
The opening minutes of The Zoo Story are mostly focused on
characterization. Considering that the play is centered around only two
characters, however, this is quite important. Although Albee only gives
the audience a small amount of information about Peter and Jerry, the
details he chooses to include are carefully chosen. They tell us what we
need to know about the play’s characters, and establish the contrasts
between them.
Albee’s directions about costumes and acting are quite precise. For a
reading experience, they can be useful since they give the audience
hints about what to expect from the characters. Peter’s costume — which
includes tweeds, a pipe, and horn-rimmed glasses — suggests that he is a
stereotypical intellectual, perhaps a professor. Of course, as we later
find out, he is actually a businessman. The fact that Peter chooses to
dress like a member of a different profession in his free time implies
that there might be some truth to Jerry’s later speculation that he is
unhappy with his job. Albee’s note that Peter’s “dress and his manner
suggest a man younger” is also salient (1). Again, that contrast
suggests that Peter is unhappy with himself, and is trying to be someone
else. This interpretation certainly helps to understand his quick
reaction when Jerry suggests he cannot have children - such an
assumption draws attention to his age, and perhaps to the true
personality he works to disguise even from himself. And of course, this
desire to look "younger" foreshadows Peter’s childish reaction when
Jerry invades his personal space at the end of the play.
Albee’s initial description of Jerry also provides valuable insight into
the character. In Peter’s description, Albee emphasized the physical
details of the costume; in Jerry’s description, the character's actual
appearance is emphasized less than is the sense that he has been beaten
down in life by “a great weariness” (1). In many ways, he lacks the
luxury to redefine himself as Peter has. The dialogue of The Zoo Story
will emphasize that Peter and Jerry come from different socioeconomic
backgrounds, and Albee’s stage directions convey this right away by
describing the characters’ attitudes rather than their physical
appearances. Indeed, Albee even notes that Jerry should not be dressed
poorly; instead, he seems to hope that the differences between Peter and
Jerry will be conveyed by acting rather than by costumes.
Although Albee’s stage directions minimize the class and education
differences between Peter and Jerry, these differences are a very
important component of the characters’ dynamic. Early in the play, Jerry
confronts Peter about their differences in background by observing that
Peter is probably educated, based on his vocabulary and his reading
habits. He further pushes social boundaries by asking Peter about his
salary. Indeed, many of Jerry’s breaches in etiquette are directly
related to this difference in class. By confronting Peter about his
income, Jerry makes him self-conscious and forces him to acknowledge his
privilege. One can understand this play's arc as a movement towards
awareness; Jerry wants Peter to see himself the way that others (like
Jerry) see him, not as the man he dresses himself up to be.
Even in the opening minutes of the play, observant audience members will
notice Peter’s evolving attitude toward Jerry. Peter frequently becomes
annoyed by Jerry’s overbearing behavior. Each time, he immediately
quells his irritation by reminding himself that it is illogical to
become upset by Jerry’s conversational jabs. Yet each time Peter becomes
upset, his reactions become more extreme. His attitude changes quickly
from amusement to fury. Although Jerry’s behavior suggests that he is
mentally ill, Peter’s rapid mood changes suggest that he may not
entirely stable himself. Further, it is possible to think that Jerry is
far more deliberate than he seems. In other words, he might not be
asking random questions, but in fact asking questions designed to
irritate and anger the man he believes Peter to be. Peter's social
etiquette requires him to be compliant and polite. Jerry knows this, and
in fact makes Peter insist that he wants to talk. He forces Peter to
invite the confrontation, which Peter does not because he wants it, but
because he feels required to. So Jerry has engineered a situation by
exploiting Peter's gentility, precisely so he can then poke holes in
that gentility.
The first pages of The Zoo Story establish the animal motif that will
appear throughout the play. Jerry questions Peter extensively about his
pets, as Jerry clearly believes that a person’s relationship with
animals reveals important information about that person's character. He
expounds further on this connection later. However, the play also
suggests that humans have animalistic potential within. As the story
continues, Jerry and Peter reveal their own animalistic sides, until it
becomes clear that the play’s title is a double entendre. It refers not
only to Jerry’s visit to the Central Park Zoo, but also to Jerry and
Peter’s interaction. People, Albee seems to suggest, are nothing more
than animals, and the city, which keeps them in close contact, is
another kind of zoo. In a situation like this, different types of
animals are sure to cause trouble for one another if they are allowed to
interact; this is one way to understand the action of the play. Jerry
has been let into a cage with a totally different type of animal, and it
is his instinct to then wreak havoc for that more privileged beast.
Early critics frequently compared The Zoo Story with the work of Samuel
Beckett. In fact, when The Zoo Story was first performed in Berlin in
1960, it was part of a double bill with a Beckett one-act play — Krapp’s
Last Tape. Indeed, there are a number of important similarities between
The Zoo Story and Beckett’s best-known work, Waiting for Godot. Both
plays chronicle the relationship between two antagonistic characters who
are forced to spend time together, and more importantly, both plays are
absurdist in style. Absurdism is closely associated with existential
philosophy. In a typical absurdist story, characters must grapple with
the meaninglessness of their circumstances — and by extension, of life
in general. Absurdist plots are often driven by the emotions the
characters experience as they recognize and accept that their lives are
meaningless.
Beckett’s work lends itself well to an absurdist interpretation. In
Waiting for Godot, the characters are cartoonish and exaggerated, and
their predicament is contrived to make a philosophical point. The Zoo
Story, on the other hand, is much more realistic in its approach —
although it should be noted that realism and absurdism are not mutually
exclusive. Realism is a style, and absurdism is a philosophical
orientation. Peter and Jerry have quotidian nuanced personalities and
quotidian back stories, and the play’s plot, which revolves around an
awkward conversation between strangers, is drawn from a common situation
of urban life. It could be said, then, that Albee’s work is innovative
because it imports an absurdist outlook to the realist dramatic
tradition. That it does this with such seeming ease and naturalness is a
testament to its greatness.
Rabu, 24 Mei 2023
THE ZOO STORY BY EDWARD ALBEE
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