A Powerful Zoo Story

The Zoo Story: An absurdist play that I highly recommend for you to read.

At first read,

the vision of the world presented in the 1958 one act play, The Zoo Story, by three time Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Albee, seemed unrelatable to my own life experiences. But after thinking about it, Albee has opened my eyes to struggles many people face, perhaps even some people close to me. This is why I highly recommend for you to read the play.

The play presents a conversation between two strangers in Central Park.

The first stranger is named Jerry. He is on the verge of suicide. He is isolated because he is poor, unmarried, friendless, and unemployed. His lack of social skills, anger problems, and suicidal thoughts are a result of his depression.

The other stranger is named Peter. Peter is a wealthy husband and father. He loves his family.

Peter is enjoying a quiet picnic on a park bench when Jerry, who is having an emotional breakdown after visiting the zoo, walks by, desperately needing to talk to somebody. Jerry chooses Peter to be his listening ear.

However, Peter has little interest as Jerry rambles maniacally. He rejects Jerry’s plea for someone to listen to him, and becomes increasingly unfriendly during their encounter; so much so that Peter begins to remind Jerry of people that have excluded him in the past.

The Zoo reminds me that people can be isolated in many ways, even when they are surrounded by others. Jerry compares his feeling of isolation with a crowd of people looking at animals in the zoo. The more isolated one feels, the farther they move back in the crowd. Although Jerry is in a crowd, he is at the very back. He can’t see any of the animals. He is in the back with a crowd of “nobody’s.” He is in the lowest class of all.

Through Jerry’s absurd dialogue, readers see Jerry’s vision of the world as a lonely, depressing, and isolating place.

“JERRY: It's just ... it's just that ... [JERRY is abnormally tense, now.] ... it's just that if you can't deal with people, you have to make a start somewhere. WITH ANIMALS ! [Much faster now, and like a conspirator] Don't you see.? A person has to have some way of dealing with SOMETHING. If not with people ... SOMETHING. With a bed, with a cockroach, with a mirror ... no, that's too hard, that's one of the last steps. With a cockroach, with a ... with a ... with a carpet, a roll of toilet paper ... no, not that, either ... that's a mirror, too; always check bleeding. You see how hard it is to find things ? With a street corner, and too many lights, all colours reflecting on the oily-wet streets ... with a wisp of smoke, a wisp ... of smoke ... with ... with porno. graphic playing cards, with a strong-box . . . WITHOUT A LOCK ... with love, with vomiting, with crying, with fury because the pretty little ladies aren't pretty little ladies, with making money with your body which is an act of love and I could prove it, with howling because you're alive; with God. How about that?”

In my own life, I initially didn’t think I knew anyone who demonstrated the type of extreme loneliness that Jerry vocalizes. I have always assumed that the feeling of being alone can be fixed easily by surrounding oneself with others. But then I thought about my grandma, who lives alone. She is divorced and widowed. She struggles to make friends at her retirement home. She gets irritated and sad often. Sadly, I believe that she has a little bit of Jerry in her, even though she is quiet about it.

Reading about the world through Jerry’s lens has taught me to not make assumptions about people. You never know what challenges someone else is experiencing. I hope that we can make the world a more inclusive, welcoming, and less lonely place. The world is complicated and people feel isolated in more ways than one. Sometimes, it is not literally just about having someone next to you, it is also about sharing something with someone, which is sometimes hard to do. We can all be better listeners, less judgemental, and more respectful.

Here is a link to The Zoo Story.