BLOG POST #11- "The Zoo Story" by Edward Albee
BLOG POST #11 [10 Points]"The Zoo Story" by Edward Albee
On page 35 (after the dog story) Jerry says:
I have learned that neither kindness nor cruelty by themselves, independent of each other, creates any effect beyond themselves; and I have learned that the two combined, together, at the same time, are the teaching emotion.
How does "The Zoo Story" in its totality embody this concept laid out by Jerry? Is it a notion that appears to be as crazed as Jerry?
posted by Tim Kahl @ Monday, October 30, 2006
2 Comments:
Also from "radioactivemutantchristian"
I'm not sure I understand "The Zoo Story" and would like to hear more about what you think about it. I don't understand what Jerry's purpose was in killing himself. It doesn't seem like an effective role reversal. It just seems like his scoial statement was a red herring because he was unhappy...maybe I just haven't learned much about social conditions. Is it Jerry's teaching emotion that gets Peter to stay at the bench; a mixture of curiosity and pity on Peter's behalf? Or do I just throw it all up to fiction? Some of your insight would be appreciated. I'd have asked this in class, except I hadn't read it yet.
My response:
Interesting points. I’m not sure it’s entirely productive to ascribe “real” motivations to the characters who are part of the “theater of the absurd.” But if we did, I think it could be that Jerry was a man who was bent on killing himself, a suicide through the mad compulsion of driving someone else to do it.
It seems absurd that someone should put “teaching a point” above one’s own life, but was Martin Luther King any different? Perhaps his aim and scale were different, but he was essentially a martyr, an idealist.
Should Socrates have let himself be killed in order to illustrate that the “laws about corrupting the Greek youth” were absurd? Most would find his response critically flawed.
Perhaps, though, this is because we are asking the wrong question. In our assessment, we tend to put emphasis on an a priori philosophical question of “What is the meaning of life?” Such a question presumes that there is something inherently meaningful. Perhaps Camus’ primary philosophical question is more appropriate for this setting: Is life worth living?
Jerry’s answer to this question seems most undeniably no. Perhaps it was Camus’ answer too, who died mysteriously in a car crash as a still middle-aged man in 1959, a year after he had won the Nobel Prize.
Jerry was unhappy, but his discourse marks him as someone who is relatively thoughtful and observant as well. Is he too caught up in the absurdity of it all? Those who are better-adjusted would say he is for sure. But I hope I never run into such people or run into them only occasionally.
As for Peter’s motivation, it too is beguiling. But to wrap it up in a manner that is nearly understandable. I’d say that Albee is illustrating the perfunctory behavior of the genteel bourgeoisie, who never stands contrary to much of anything. Certainly being agreeable is the key to such a person’s success rather than being seen as objectionable.
I’m sure this hasn’t helped at all, but it has made me feel better.
A follow-up from Radioactivemutantchristian:
But what of the social war? Is Jerry's position in the lower class what drives him to suicide or is it his messed up childhood?
my response:
I’d say that depends whether you’re a Marxist (who blames class consciousness and all of its trappings on the way a person’s class constructs his/her consciousness) or whether you’re a psychologist (and the trouble lies deep within). As for me, I’m more of social realist/Marxist, so I look to the outside world (more often than not) for explanations. Again, there is a huge difference between these two schools.
Does his realization at the Zoo trigger his death wish, or had he already known the answer as he left. It seems to me he was just forcing his point by having Peter kill him. I think he got angry when he realized man can only coexist with animals when their are boundaries, or cages, to hide behind. Jerry tried to cross that boundary and "love" his land lady's dog but couldn't. Was he merely breaking down a wall with Peter to prove his point and is that why he wipes the blade. It seems that he knows his point is flawed and doesn't want Peter to suffer for it.
My response:
I’m not sure that wiping off the blade illustrates that his point is flawed. He has already proved his point about removing the wall (between the civilized response and the uncivilized response) in Peter. He has proven his point, but I agree he is cagily aware of how the consequences of this point may affect Peter. Perhaps though one may look as another underscoring of his point in that after he has compelled Peter to take his life in an animal-like brawl, he still has the presence of mind (that civilizing intent) to do what is “right,” thus underscoring that there is very little room between being animal and not animal.
As for whether he is being sincere when he implies that the idea came into his head as he was at the zoo, I think that Albee is depicting Jerry as someone who is highly motivated by his ideals even though they may be inappropriately acted upon in a social setting.
Perhaps the struggle you are having with Jerry is that you feel he is whacked out to such an extent that he can be dismissed as crazy and that is that. However, to the extent that you are having to construct the possibility that he may be crazy like a fox, in a way, disrupts your mental categories of where to put people. Indeed, I suspect this is Albee’s intention all the time. He sees himself, I suppose, as tweaking the conscience of the middle class. What does one do with someone who has the capability to think and act rationally, to go along with the program, but who resists that and lets his/her more basic instincts override? Is this the heart of the enmity that the middle class has towards underclass? To the extent that he can get you to reconsider where that boundary should be drawn, I think Albee is doing his job (of writing a thoroughly engaging piece meant to have us examine our preconceptions about the world). I think this project of his will become clearer as you read “The American Dream.”
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