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The Zoo Story

to fight for the bench, but when Jerry clicks open a knife and tosses it at him,Peter refuses to
pick it up. Jerry rushes over, grabs him by the collar, slaps him,spits on his face, and forces
Peter to dart for the knife. Then, sighing heavily,Jerry charges Peter and impales himself on the
knife. As Jerry crumbles backonto the bench, with his eyes and mouth wide in agony, his
voice acquires aneerie remoteness. Peter is transfixed as Jerry, with faint laughter, tries
tosummarize in broken, disjointed sentences his knowledge of his own actions.The world, he
has found, is a zoo, and he thanks Peter for ending his anguishedlife. Slowly wiping clean the
knife handle with his own handkerchief, Jerry urgesPeter to hurry away. The play ends when
Peter groan he feel trouble thenrepeats oh my God in many times. As Peter retreats with a
pitiable howl, Jerryends the play with a combination of scornful mockery and a
desperatesupplication to the God who failed to give him a cure for his desperate alienation.,
after that Jerry dies
 PETER: [off stage, a pitiful howl] OH MY GOD! JERRY: [his eyes still closed,
he shakes his head and speak;a combination of scornful mimicry and supplication]
Oh « my «God. [He is dead.]

Characters and language: 

Here we have a clearly delineated characters as they resemble normal American citizens of
the period. There are two main characters that perform inthe play. However, the
actions of a third is introduced, of the illusive landlady.The first character we hear from is Jerry
who is the only willing-to-talk character in the play. Peter, on the other hand prefers his books
than his fellow humanintruding. Peter represents the upper middle-class of New York, the
biggest cityin the world. Jerry belongs to a lower class. The two characters differ or
evencontrast from the very beginning in their ideas, interests, behaviour or evenappearance.
Peter: A man in his early forties, neither fat nor gaunt, neither handsome nor
homely.He wears tweeds, smokes a pipe, carries horn-rimmed glasses. Although
he is movinginto middle age, his dress and his manner would suggest a man
younger.
Jerry: A man in his late thirties, not poorly dressed, but carelessly. What was once
atrim and lightly muscled body has begun to go to fat; and while he is no
longer handsome, it is evident that he once was. His fall from physical grace
should notsuggest debauchery; he has, to come closest to it, a great weariness.
Throughout the play, Jerry was trying to transmit a message to Peter. Heuses many techniques
involving repetition in each. He first tells him about thevisit to the zoo, then questions him
about his life, the way that irritated Peter. Hetells stories of his miseries in life, his lusty
landlady, the fierce dog, hisneighbours. When all that failed, he paid his life as a price to
complete hismessage. The people Jerry described are of real Americans that Albee wants
tobring lights on or critics.
 
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The Zoo Story

 Albee uses language as a magician depicting pictures of a real human beingthat

one will no doubt about it being a friend, a relative, a man in the news or even
oneself with the language that suits the content. The first tactic used by Albee is repetition
as the opening line repeats itself ³I¶ve been to the zoo´. Jerry¶scentre of speech is
³what happened in the zoo´ as he repeats this type of motivating story to get Peter involved in a
conversation. Peter is obviously theweaker link in that line. He tries over and over to show
ignorance, annoyance or rejection. The beginning goes on a slowed pattern with short
sentences. Jerryasks all the questions, Peter reluctantly comments ³I don¶t want to hear
anymore´ says Peter. This happens while Jerry tries to know and hack into Peter¶slife. The
pace is quickened as Jerry tells his stories about the landlady and thedog. Thence the speech is
prolonged and the repetition is present, as in thewhole play.

Setting: 
It is Central Park; a Sunday afternoon in summer; the present. There are twopark benches, one
toward either side of the stage; they both face the audience.Behind them: foliage, trees, sky. At
the beginning, Peter is seated on one of thebenches. Near the end, Jerry will produce a knife
and a site of blood follows.We also have a worded picture of the four-storey rooming-house
where Jerrylives, with its inhabitants and some of their daily routine. He describes the roomsof
every floor and their inhabitants. Jerry and his neighbours are of the sameclass and share the
same sufferings of badly-off live. This place is described indetail. Peter gives a brief
description of his home set-up.

Themes: 

The Zoo Story is Albee's first masterpiece and the beginning of his greatcareer as a dramatist.
In this play, he introduced many themes like that of illusionand Reality in modern society,
isolation of human existence in a world withoutGod, lack of communication between
individuals and the recurring theme of repetition. Albee has constructed a short but multi-
levelled play dealing withissues of human isolation, loneliness, class differences, and the
dangers of inaction within American society.The first theme that appears in the play is
repetition, one that recurs over andover the play, with the Jerry¶s phrase ³I¶ve been to the zoo´
that is repeated threetimes in the first page. This indicates from the very first beginning the
techniques Albee will be using to escalate actions. Albee follows the pattern of
intensificationthrough repetition. Jerry throughout the play tells some sort of personal
lifestories as an introduction to the awaited ³zoo story´, ³After I tell you about thedog,´ says
Jerry to Peter, ³do you know what then?... I¶ll tell you what happenedat the zoo.´ a story that is
never told in word in the play. The conversation followsthe same sequence of repetition in the
sequence of isolation, intrusion, attentionthen isolation as the cycle repeats itself.Peter stands
for the average successful American. He leads a comfortable lifein the better side of New
York. He has a wife, two daughters, two cats, twotelevision sets and two parakeets. On the
other hand, Jerry¶s appearanceindicates his disillusion in life. He lives on the other side of the
city and of the
 
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The Zoo Story

society. Jerry¶s possessions look pathetic compared to those of Peter¶s. Theybelong to two
different worlds. The theme of isolation marks both characters asPeter never likes the idea of
paying attention to any other thing rather than hisbook and bench. Jerry lives in a place where
every room is an isolated island.The only interaction he ever mentioned with his neighbours is
not of a socialnature, but rather of an offender¶s. This lack of communication is a
dominatingtheme in the play. The lack of communication between Peter and Jerry, Jerry
andhis neighbours, and even Jerry and the dog. ³The story of Jerry and the dog´ is aclear image
of what he meant by the reality zoo. The dog used to attack him andbite him in his way to
stairs. That is the only way they used to communicate andthat is the same way Peter
answered Jerry at the beginning. The landlady hasthat same manner of attacking. Jerry tries to
build some apparentlycommunication means by offering hamburger to the dog, but in fact it
never wasan act of kindness, but rather a plot to kill the dog. This resulted in both
partiestreating each other with mutual indifference. That same way is the one Jerryused as a
last option to connect with Peter, a way that costs him his life.The landlady is taken in by
the illusion of love, the dog is never deceived. For Jerry, in order to keep his peace, He
is able to convince her of an illusion
But I have found a way to keep her off ... I merely say; but love; wasn¶t
yesterdayenough for you, and the day before?. Then she puzzles . . . a simple-
minded smile begins to form on her unthinkable face, and she giggles and groans
as she thinksabout yesterday and the day before; as she believes and relives what
never happened ... And I am safe until our next meeting.
Jerry convinces her and that she believes this ploy and is appeased with it. Thissuggests that, in
Albee¶s world, human contact is a mere lie and can be satisfiedwith delusion. Jerry overcame
the landlady¶s lust by giving her fantasy instead of real experience. But he tries to bribe the
dog with a poisoned gift and offer himdeath as a solution to his trouble. This is the same way
Jerry used to solve histroubled life by making a victim out of himself.
Though The Zoo Story ends with death, yet I think that it ends with a note of hope.Jerry
succeeded in build some sort of contact with Peter and open his eyes to theartificiality of his
life. Jerry and Peter are representatives of real human beings.Eventually, Peter
discovers that the zoo is nothing but the world they live in, in whichpeople live like animals,
isolated and unwilling to face their true conditions. Albee wantedto attract our attention in his
absurdist style to what is behind the masked lives we lead,to some of the bad traits we cannot
identify in ourselves in this modern world, namely;isolation of human beings and lack of
communication or even unwillingness; of theillusions that block our mind¶s eyes from seeing
the true life and our condition on it. He istrying to move us into a better society in a way one
wouldn¶t reject, a way that¶s notharsh to listen yet a fact that¶s hard to know so that we can do
something about it.

Language and caracter

Di sini kita memiliki karakter yang jelas digambarkan sebagai mereka menyerupai warga negara
Amerika yang normal periode. Ada dua karakter utama yang tampil di drama itu. Namun,
tindakan ketiga diperkenalkan, yang ilusif landlady.The karakter pertama yang kita dengar dari
adalah Jerry yang merupakan satu-satunya karakter yang bersedia-to-talk dalam bermain. Peter,
di sisi lain lebih suka buku-bukunya dari sesama mengganggu manusianya. Peter mewakili kelas
menengah atas New York, yang cityin terbesar dunia. Jerry milik kelas yang lebih rendah. Dua
karakter berbeda atau evencontrast dari awal dalam ide-ide mereka, minat, perilaku atau bahkan
penampilan
Peter: Seorang pria berusia empat puluhan awal, baik lemak atau kurus, tidak tampan atau homely.He
memakai pakaian wol, mengisap pipa, membawa kacamata berbingkai tanduk. Meskipun ia adalah
movinginto usia pertengahan, pakaian dan sikapnya akan menyarankan pria muda.
Jerry: Seorang pria berusia tiga puluhan, tidak berpakaian buruk, tapi asal-asalan. Apa yang tadinya
atrim dan tubuh berotot ringan sudah mulai pergi ke lemak, dan sementara ia tidak lagi tampan, jelas
bahwa dia dulu. Kejatuhannya dari kasih karunia fisik harus notsuggest pesta pora, ia memiliki, datang
paling dekat dengan itu, kelelahan yang besar.
Sepanjang bermain, Jerry mencoba untuk mengirimkan pesan kepada Peter. Heuses banyak teknik yang
melibatkan pengulangan di setiap. Dia pertama kali mengatakan kepadanya tentang thevisit ke kebun
binatang, kemudian pertanyaan kepadanya tentang hidupnya, cara yang jengkel Peter. Cerita Hetells
dari penderitaan dalam hidup, itu sehat