The opening minutes of The Zoo Story are mostly focused on

characterization. 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 plays characters, and establish the
contrasts between them.
Peters 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 dialogue of The Zoo Story will emphasize that Peter and Jerry come
from different socio-economic backgrounds, and Albees stage directions convey
this right away by describing the characters attitudes rather than their
physical appearances. the differences between Peter and Jerry will be conveyed
by acting rather than by costumes.
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 persons 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 plays title is a double meaning. It refers
not only to Jerrys visit to the Central Park Zoo, but also to Jerry and Peters
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.
Jerrys list of his possessions efficiently reveals much about his personality and
life. Many of the objects in Jerrys apartment the can-opener, the small amount
of dishware, the pornography connote that he is not only single, but lonely. He
clearly does not interact often with people, and eats most of his meals alone. Of
course, Jerry established this in the previous section when he explained that most
of his interactions with others are superficial. Provided he is telling the truth, his

social isolation is overwhelming. . The empty picture frames and the "searounded rocks" from his childhood have no practical purpose, but they suggest that
Jerry maintains a strong sense of nostalgia for his early life, despite how traumatic
it was. Jerry is not simply a crazy, lonely man. He clearly has a sentimental,
emotional side that makes the tragedy of his life greater, and the strangeness of his
behavior more unsettling.
The empty picture frames are especially notable because they can be interpreted in
several different ways. They could imply that Jerry has lost people who are
important to him. However, they could also indicate hope for the future: Jerry
might be saving the frames for pictures of the friends and family he hopes to later
meet.
Jerrys account of his life informs Peter and the audience of a tragic past;
however, it also shows that Jerry has a very literary sensibility and sees the
world in poetic terms. His monologue is rich with wordplay and figurative
languages. He compares his family life to a vaudeville show, and uses his mothers
death as an opportunity to relate his views about death in general.
this speech and others reveal a poetic element to his character.
Jerrys brief question about Peters literary tastes provides further insight into both
men's respective personalities and worldviews. Jerry assumes that Peter reads both
Baudelaire and J.P. Marquand that he is engaged with both high and low
culture. Peter confirms that he reads both authors, but his fumbling answer
suggests that he is more concerned about being diplomatic than he is about
confessing passion for literature. Jerry, who asked the question, seems to have
much stronger opinions about art, which reinforces the critical, literary sensibilities
that he revealed in his description of his apartment.
Jerry clearly suffers from mental instability, but his approach to Peter
suggests a deliberateness of purpose, not the ramblings of a nutcase. The fact that
he continues to ask questions about areas in which Peter's life is different than his
suggests that he is trying to unsettle Peter, to force the latter man to confront his
pre-conceived notions and then suffer in the face of them. At this point in the play,
we may not know Jerry's exact objective, but we begin to understand that he picked

Peter precisely because the man seemed so different than him, and now wishes to
exploit those differences to achieve his effect.
the delayed introduction also signals a turning point in Jerry and Peters
relationship. After some resistance from Peter, they have finally both conceded that
they are having a substantive, meaningful conversation that warrants an
introduction. Now, Jerry's real game begins. Jerrys story about his neighbors dog
is the culmination of the animal motif that runs throughout The Zoo Story. Earlier
in the play, Jerry showed great fascination with Peters pets. He inferred a great
deal about the power dynamic in Peters marriage based on the fact that he has cats
instead of dogs. Here, Jerry once again observes a parallel between humans
relationships with animals and their relationships with each other.
In telling Peter his life story, Jerry reveals that he is poor, socially isolated, and
haunted by a traumatic past three factors that, then as now, put individuals at
risk for suicide. He also demonstrates rapid mood swings and a high level of
impulsiveness. These qualities are evident most prominently in the dog story, in
which Jerry rapidly shifted from liking the dog to wanting to murder it, but they
manifest throughout the story, including when he insists that Peter fight him for
space on the bench.
He sacrifices himself to teach Peter an unforgettable lesson about the importance of
human connection in the alienating urban environment. Jerrys death also ties into
the animal motif that appears throughout the play. The act of violent savagery
reinforces Albees suggestion that people are more animalistic than they initially
appear. The motifs and themes are prominent enough, and yet this short play
invites so many interpretations that it is can seem strangely oblique. And yet
familiarity with Albee's work (and that of his absurdist theatre peers) reveals that
such ambiguity is exactly what he treasures

William Golding
The conflict between the two instincts is explored through the dissolution of the
young English boys civilized, moral, disciplined behavior as they accustom
themselves to a wild, brutal, barbaric life in the jungle. Lord of the Flies is an
allegorical novel, which means that Golding conveys many of his main ideas and
themes through symbolic characters and objects. He represents the conflict
between civilization and savagery in the conflict between the novels two main
characters: Ralph, the protagonist, who represents order and leadership; and Jack,
the antagonist, who represents savagery and the desire for power.
Generally, however, Golding implies that the instinct of savagery is far more
primal and fundamental to the human psyche than the instinct of civilization.

Golding sees moral behavior, in many cases, as something that civilization forces
upon the individual rather than a natural expression of human individuality. When
left to their own devices, Golding implies, people naturally revert to cruelty,
savagery, and barbarism.
As the boys on the island progress from well-behaved, orderly children longing for
rescue to cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no desire to return to civilization,
they naturally lose the sense of innocence that they possessed at the beginning of
the novel
beast has disrupted the paradise that existed beforea powerful symbol of innate
human evil disrupting childhood innocence.
Many critics have characterized Lord of the Flies as a retelling of episodes from
the Bible the novel does echo certain Christian images and themes. these biblical
parallels function as a kind of subtle motif in the novel, adding thematic resonance
to the main ideas of the story. The island itself, particularly Simons glade in the
forest, recalls the Garden of Eden in its status as an originally pristine place that is
corrupted by the introduction of evil. Similarly, we may see the Lord of the Flies as
a representation of the devil, for it works to promote evil among humankind.
The Conch Shell
Ralph and Piggy discover the conch shell on the beach at the start of the novel and
use it to summon the boys together after the crash separates them
the conch shell becomes a powerful symbol of civilization and order in the novel.
The shell effectively governs the boys meetings, for the boy who holds the shell
holds the right to speak. In this regard, the shell is more than a symbol
. As the island civilization erodes and the boys descend into savagery, the conch
shell loses its power and influence among them. Ralph clutches the shell
desperately when he talks about his role in murdering Simon. Later, the other boys
ignore Ralph and throw stones at him when he attempts to blow the conch in Jacks
camp. . As a result, the signal fire becomes a barometer of the boys connection to
civilization. In the early parts of the novel, the fact that the boys maintain the fire is

a sign that they want to be rescued and return to society. When the fire burns low
or goes out, we realize that the boys have lost sight of their desire to be rescued
and have accepted their savage lives on the island.
The imaginary beast that frightens all the boys stands for the primal instinct of
savagery that exists within all human beings. The boys are afraid of the beast, but
only Simon reaches the realization that they fear the beast because it exists within
each of them. As the boys grow more savage, their belief in the beast grows
stronger. By the end of the novel, the boys are leaving it sacrifices and treating it as
a totemic god. The boys behavior is what brings the beast into existence, so the
more savagely the boys act, the more real the beast seems to become.
The Lord of the Flies is the bloody, severed sows head that Jack impales on a
stake in the forest glade as an offering to the beast. This complicated symbol
becomes the most important image in the novel when Simon confronts the sows
head in the glade and it seems to speak to him, telling him that evil lies within
every human heart and promising to have some fun with him. (This fun
foreshadows Simons death in the following chapter.) In this way, the Lord of the
Flies becomes both a physical manifestation of the beast, a symbol of the power of
evil
Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel, and many of its characters signify
important ideas or themes. Ralph represents order, leadership, and civilization.
Piggy represents the scientific and intellectual aspects of civilization. Jack
represents unbridled savagery and the desire for power. Simon represents natural
human goodness. Roger represents brutality and bloodlust at their most extreme
civilized boys like Ralph and Simon use their power to protect the younger boys
and advance the good of the group; savage boys like Jack and Roger use their
power to gratify their own desires, treating the littler boys as objects for their own
amusement.

confined to the microcosm of a group of boys, it resounds with implications far

beyond the bounds of the small island and explores problems and questions
universal to the human experience.