A Critique of The Zoo Story, a One-Act by Edward Albee

A Critique of The Zoo Story, a One-Act by Edward Albee Social Commentary Essay on Drama: The Zoo Story and Alienation Albee’s â€Å"The Zoo Story† portrays a fairly decent example of alienation of the absolute lower class versus the upper-middle and middle class. The two obviously have completely different backgrounds, which have brought them to their current points in life. Although they are both roughly the same age, Peter is displayed as an average man with average characteristics and mannerisms by describing him as â€Å"neither handsome or homely† and â€Å"†¦ wears tweeds, smokes a piepe, and carries horn-rimmed glasses† . He was likely the definition of middle class for his era. Jerry, on the other hand, seemed complacent about his looks and characteristics with a description of â€Å"†¦ not poorly dressed, but carelessly† . The play exemplifies the division of social status and class through Peter’s reaction to Jerry’s mostly incoherent speech, or his random sharing of his life story. The play starts by introducing and describing Peter and Jerry, the two main characters. It then starts with Jerry trying to create dialogue between the two, but Peter trying to avoid conversation with the stage direction of â€Å"[anxious to get back to his reading]† . This very start, along with their disagreement about smoking, shows the difference in the norms for their social statuses. Jerry continues on trying to force the conversation by asking about the direction he travelled from and the potential cancer from smoking. Eventually, he asks Peter if he would like to talk, but Peter responds slightly disinterested until Jerry forces his hand. The middle of the play is pretty much Jerry asking questions, Peter answering the questions, and then Jerry monologuing. The question and answer phase of Jerry and Peters shows the distance between the two of them, and, by essence, exemplifies the difference between social classes. For instance, Jerry keeps getting more personal as a specific conversation goes in, such as when he asks if Peter’s wife is the reason they can’t have any more children. Interestingly, the fact that Jerry keeps saying that he’ll tell Peter about the zoo but never actually tells Peter can be seen as the false promises between the classes. Jerry keeps asking Jerry personal questions and then eventually peer pressures him into answering. Jerry then goes into phases of monologuing about his life and thinks that Peter is patronizing him. Throughout the last portion of the middle of the play, Jerry goes on an extremely long story about a dog, how he tried to poison the dog, and how he keep s failing. At the end of the story, Jerry randomly tries to take the whole bench from Peter by force. However, Peter was being stubborn about his spot. The sudden change of character can easily be foreshadowed by his story of trying to poison a dog. However, Peter wasn’t going to let it slide Peter tells Jerry â€Å"You can’t have everything you want.† Eventually, Jerry gets heated and pulls out a knife. Peter instantly misunderstands the action, as anyone would but his misunderstanding is also a show of the misunderstanding between social classes. Strangely enough, Jerry gives Peter the knife. Peter tries to get Jerry to leave him alone, but Jerry ends up killing himself on the knife that Peter was holding defensively. I’m not sure I comprehend this part of the play, but Jerry thanks Peter and says that Peter comforted him. Perhaps, Jerry was confused and wanted a way out of life after holding a conversation. Either way, as he ends up dying, he tells Peter to get aw ay from the scene. In conclusion, Peter’s confusion throughout the play and Jerry’s constant monologuing shows misunderstandings throughout the whole play. With that being said, Jerry, or the lower classes, keeps putting Peter into awkward situations. Peter, or the upper-middle/upper class tries to keep to himself but Jerry keeps bringing him back in. Jerry tells Peter his life story, similar to how the lower class tries to convince the aforementioned classes to change. However, the less well off class (it’s not necessarily always the lower class that is less well off, but more than likely it is) in any civilization tends to end up creating conflict. That conflict ends in the death of the foolish actions of Jerry.