In Only the Animals, zoos symbolize humans’ power over animals. The various animals in the collection who live in zoos, such as Red Peter, the black bear, and the elephants Castor and Pollux, all find themselves at the mercy of their human caretakers. The chimp Red Peter, for instance, lives in a “zoo without bars,” even in the story’s present when he’s learned enough to be considered human. In many ways, he’s still a zoo animal—he visits the zoo to lecture, which draws visitors, in addition to lecturing in other venues around Hamburg—even though he lives a life that seems shockingly human. But as World War I grips Germany and Hamburg’s residents begin to suffer from famine, Red Peter cannot continue to pass for human. He ultimately ends up back behind bars in the laboratory at the zoo, destined to become dinner for his starving human lover, Evelyn. Peter’s story suggests that even if he considered himself human and no longer a zoo attraction, he never actually stopped being a zoo animal in other people’s eyes—and therefore, he can never escape the power that humans have over him.
Other zoo animals in the collection experience similar fates. Zoo animals like Castor, Pollux, and the bears in the Sarajevo zoo are prized members of their communities until war and famine strike. And at that point, animals find themselves either starving (many people in the stories can’t justify feeding animals when there are hungry people) or slaughtered to feed those hungry people. Zoos, then, encapsulate the idea that animals in the care of people are powerless.
Zoos Quotes in Only the Animals
“A zoo,” she said to them, “is a very dangerous place for an animal in wartime, for it can mean the difference between life and death for the human inhabitants of a city. But it was not the poor who ate the zoo animals in Paris.”
“I’m waiting for her to die so I can eat her.” He chewed at the bread.
“Why wait?” asked the witch.
“People would stop risking their lives, dodging sniper bullets to bring me bread, if they thought I had no heart, eating her while she’s still half alive,” the bear said.
It was dark in the zoo by now, darker than it had ever been before the siege started, for the city of Sarajevo no longer relied on electricity. It had become medieval, lightless, its citizens forced to fetch water from underground springs and to wash by candlelight. And the zoo was no longer a modern thoroughfare for the ogling masses. Now the few who dared visit brought sacred offerings of food. The two last remaining animals had become central to the city’s very survival, to the idea of the city’s survival.
“But you must see what sort of position this would put us in. Smuggling two bears out of Sarajevo in a food-relief convoy—what does that say to the people left behind? Why bears, not babies? I mean, a busload of children trying to get out of the city was fired on, and we’re spending time worrying about these wild animals? We can’t allow it, I’m afraid.” He was the only one who had not brought stale bread in his pockets for the bears.
Zoos Symbol Timeline in Only the Animals
