The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

  • Submitted By: hayet31
  • Date Submitted: 05/20/2010 1:35 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1031
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 1

The Zoo Story
It is a play by Edward Albee; its characters are Peter and Jerry. Peter is a married man, he has a job, a woman, money, and a home, so he represents the upper class. Therefore, the lower class was represented by Jerry who was single and jobless; his envy was emulating peters situation. The only mistake he made was showing his sensitiveness to Peter (the upper class).
The idea of this play is the social envy. America is a consumer society, and the Americans’ Dream is to be rich. This led Jerry to attack his peer because of his jealousy. A battle triggered off: ‘to have or to not have’. The division of the society into classes created the conflict.
Jealousy pushed Jerry to reject culture, nation, and even God. Jerry was angry against the fact of being abandoned by his nation. He claimed that God turns his back toward people sometimes. It was a western philosophy: there is no God to care of them. For Jerry, values are reversed; man is dog’s best friend. In fact, he preferred animals rather than men; it is a social Darwinism.
Peter, after some time, realised that his conversation with Jerry is not normal. He compared the social constitution to the Zoo, where some are people and others are animals.
In modern tragedy, the hero dies because of his own deals; it is an obscured theatre because of the obscured victims, such as fighting for a wooden bench. There is irrational illegal speech.
Peter was very ridiculous because he had every thing. It was a public bench but the upper class considered it as if it belonged to them, as if it was and still it is their properties.
Jerry died because he could not take his properties even symbolically. It was not Peter who killed Jerry, but it was Jerry himself, he committed a suicide.
The zoo story is a social aspect of American Dream, where Albee tackles the social aspect of the quality and justice.
 Where is this American Dream?
That all Americans are brothers and sisters. The problem is power corrupt...

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