The Zoo Story Summary

The entire play is set on a park bench in Central Park.

One Sunday afternoon, Peter, an upper-middle-class family man and publishing executive in his
mid-forties, is reading a book on a bench. Jerry, a sloppily dressed transient in his late thirties,
approaches and announces that he is coming from the Central Park Zoo. Despite Peter’s apparent
reluctance to chat, Jerry strikes up a conversation. Jerry’s forward personality quickly begins to
annoy Peter – he points out that Peter will likely get cancer from smoking, and implies that Peter
is emasculated because he has cats instead of dogs.
Jerry continues to ask Peter questions about his life, his job, and his interests. When Peter finally
begins to return Jerry’s questions, Jerry tells him about his miserable apartment in a flophouse on
the Upper West Side. He describes his unsavory neighbors and the junk that comprises his
possessions – including two empty picture frames. When Peter asks him about the picture
frames, Jerry explains that he is completely alone in life. His parents died when he was young,
and his only significant romantic relationship was a short liaison he had with another boy when
he was a teenager.

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Jerry promises to tell Peter about his trip to the zoo, but is sidetracked into telling Peter about his
landlady, a drunken woman who constantly propositions him. When she got a dog, Jerry tried to
befriend it, but the dog responded only by attacking him. After repeated and repudiated attempts
at friendship, Jerry decided to murder the dog by feeding it a poisoned hamburger patty.
Although this sickened the dog, it eventually recovered and began to simply leave him alone.
Peter finds this story extremely disturbing, and wonders why Jerry told it to him. Jerry explains
that he tries to befriend animals as a gateway to befriending other people.

Peter tries to excuse himself, but Jerry tickles him to keep him from leaving. He then tries to
force Peter to move from the bench, and punches him when he refuses. Although Peter initially
realizes that Jerry’s behavior is absurd, he gradually becomes more possessive of the bench.

Jerry pulls a knife and insists the men fight for it. This shocks Peter, who refuses to fight. As a
gesture of peace, Jerry gives the knife to Peter, who holds the knife out to protect himself.
Suddenly, Jerry charges Peter and impales himself on the knife.

Although he is initially hysterical, Jerry soon calms down and accepts his death. He even thanks
Peter, using his last energy to wipe Peter’s fingerprints off the knife handle so that Peter will not
be accused of his murder. Peter takes his book and dashes off before passers-by notice that Jerry
is dying.

The Zoo Story

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The Zoo Story
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the Zoo story

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The Zoo Story
The Zoo Story

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The Zoo Story

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The Zoo Story
What are the Biblical references found in this play?

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The Zoo Story
Significance of the story about Jerry and the dog?

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who is Jerry?

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What is significant about the story the zoo story?

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The Zoo Story
How does this concept relate to philosophical “absurdity”?
How does Jerry’s unorthodox concept of love contribute to
his emergence as a specifically Modernist character?
Edward Franklin Albee III (/ˈɔːlbiː/ AWL-bee; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an
American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), and A Delicate Balance (1966). Three of his plays won the Pulitzer
Prize for Drama, and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play.
His works are often considered as frank examinations of the modern condition. His early works
reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by
European playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet.
His middle period comprised plays that explored the psychology of maturing, marriage, and sexual
relationships. Younger American playwrights, such as Paula Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of
theatricality and biting dialogue with helping to reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early
1960s. Later in his life, Albee continued to experiment in works such as The Goat, or Who Is
Sylvia?(2002).