Analysis of The Drama

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

Group 9
Member of the group:

1. Nurin Fitria Putri Andini - 205110100111011

2. Cinta Rahma Hasari - 205110100111013
3. Wahyu Taqiuddin Zuhdi - 205110101111008

Theme
The Zoo Story covers important themes such as loneliness, absurdity, and mental
health. Loneliness unites Jerry and Peter. They are lonely in their own unique way. Jerry
desperately wanted to escape from his loneliness. Peter has a wife and children and an
expensive house with many pets. Loneliness unites Peter and Jerry before destroying their
lives in an unexpected and violent way. Peter is fascinated by Jerry who expresses the idea of
loneliness that Peter feels but cannot voice. The absurdity of The Zoo Story when Peter's
boring life is turned upside down with Jerry's arrival. Jerry tells a long, complicated story that
stops and starts with no real relevance to anything Peter is saying. Peter can't handle the
absurdity of Jerry's story and finds himself in the middle of his final anecdote. Jerry's
outspoken honesty is contrasted with Peter's rigid doubts. Jerry's apparent absurdity is a
critique of the absurd nature of an oppressed and isolated society. One of the awkwardness
between Peter and Jerry is the big difference in their social class. While Peter enjoys a high
salary and a stable family life, Jerry is jobless and characterizes himself as "permanent."
Characters
Peter is a publishing executive as well as an upper-middle class man in his early
forties. He is married, has one wife, two daughters, and two parakeets. He lives with his
family in a nice apartment on the Upper East Side of New York. He is calm at first, but
eventually passionate, irrational, and violent. Peter is sitting in one of the benches in Central
Park while reading when Jerry comes. His physical appearance is neither fat nor gaunt,
neither handsome nor homely. He wears tweeds, smokes a pipe, and carries horn-rimmed
glasses. He is younger than his actual age based on his dress and his manner.
Jerry is an eccentric man in his late thirties. He is much less wealthy than Peter, lives
alone in a run-down boarding-house on the Upper West Side, and does not have a family. He
is a rude and talkative person. He tells Peter (a stranger) many things about his life and is able
to deduce a lot about Peter’s life although after spending only a few moments with him.
Jerry’s physical appearance is fat but once he has a trim and lightly muscled body and he is
no longer handsome. Instead of poorly dressed, he is dressed carelessly.
Setting
The author describes the setting of the drama by mentioning it directly in the
beginning of the scene. The Zoo Story is set in a quiet part of Central Park on Sunday
afternoon in the summer. The staging for the play consists of two park benches which both
face the audience, with foliage, trees, and sky behind them. It is also mentioned by the actors
that the day is nice, the sun is warm, the birds are trilling, and the seals are barking. The place
never changes and the action of the play happens in the present.
The situation of the drama frequently changes due to the behavior and the interaction
between the characters. For example, the situation that the character describes in the dialogue
is lonely since he mentions he has no one to live with. He said that he only has stuff in where
he lives. The next is when Jerry tells a story about his landlady and her dog, the situation is
tense because after that Peter starts to argue with Jerry. Peter might be shocked as he heard
Jerry’s dark story that starts with Jerry’s will to poison the dog. The last part of the drama
after Peter and Jerry fight for the bench, the situation is miserable and frustrated as suddenly
Jerry impales himself on the knife and slowly dies. It is also mentioned in the drama Jerry
thanks Peter and hurries him away for his own safety.
Plot
A middle-aged executive sits on a bench in Central Park to read a book. He is
interrupted by a younger man named Jerry who appears disheveled. Jerry's parents are dead,
but he refuses to feel sorry about their deaths because they did not provide him with a loving
upbringing.
Peter asks Jerry what he thinks about society's relationship with sex and Jerry admits
that he struggles to form meaningful relationships with people. The landlady of his building
regularly propositions him for sex, but he declines because he loathes her. He launches into
an extended story about how he tried to poison his landlord's dog after it kept attacking him.
Jerry and Peter begin to argue over who gets to sit on the bench next to each other.
Jerry pushes Peter to the corner of the bench, and then deliberately drops a knife on him.
Peter picks up the knife and mortally wounds himself. Jerry thanks Peter for killing him and
encourages him to run away before anyone finds out. Peter leaves and Jerry dies alone on the
park bench.
Message
The Zoo Story deals with modernism, social differences, and the economy in the
social life of America that leads many people to get loneliness and mental problems.
Loneliness is an inevitable phenomenon in modern society. These two characters portray it
clearly. For example, Jerry is a lonely man who lives alone, without family or love interest,
and Peter is a stereotypical intellectual man who seems to be unhappy with his work. Peter
and Jerry are victims of society, one due to poverty and alienation, and the other due to
interpellation and brainwashing.
The Zoo Story also reflects how the world is meaningless. That is why it is an absurd
drama. The characterization, symbolism, and language helps Albee to convey the message of
the meaningless of life.
How absurdism is portrayed in the drama
The Zoo Story is an absurd drama that portrays absurdity by showing the behavior of
the characters. The whole action is in the form of a conversation between them. The Zoo
Story begins with a meeting between two characters, Jerry and Peter. They want to know
what happened at the zoo but the situation changes frustratedly. This makes them filled with
despair.
However, the audiences reading the beginning of the story, will expect the well played of the
realistic characters. Our expectation at first is the drama has witty dialogue and has the causal
plots clearly from the beginnings until the ends. But eventually, the drama of the absurd ruins
these expectations at every turn. There are some unexpected events in this drama. It suddenly
ends with a sad ending that is mentioned in the drama about Jerry’s death.