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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Zoo Story, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Alienation and Understanding
Civilization and Humans vs. Instinct and Animals
Simple Categorization vs. Messy Reality
Masculinity, Insecurity, and Violence
Logic vs. Faith
Summary
Analysis
Peter, a middle-aged man who is apparently average in every way—“neither fat nor gaunt, neither handsome nor homely”—is spending his Sunday afternoon reading on a bench in Central Park. A disheveled stranger named Jerry, with an air of “great weariness” about him, approaches Peter.
Peter initially embodies modern, urban life: he’s an average man sitting on a park bench reading a book, a perfectly normal pastime for a middle class, midcentury New Yorker. Right away, then, this opening establishes contrast: Peter is almost stereotypically civilized, whereas Jerry is chaotic and erratic. Peter lives a sheltered life, while Jerry is world-weary.
Themes
Jerry tells Peter that he has “been to the zoo.” Not understanding that Jerry is speaking to him, Peter does not look up, causing Jerry to repeat himself and grow frustrated. When Peter does look up, Jerry asks Peter where they are in the park and tries to figure out what direction he has been walking in—while Peter, uncomfortable and confused, attempts to go back to reading. Jerry hopes he has been walking due north, and Peter confirms that he has been walking not due north but “northerly.”
This opening line introduces the audience to Jerry’s seemingly nonsensical way of acting; it's odd behavior to approach a complete stranger in the park and tell him, out of nowhere, that you’ve been to the zoo. The fact that he’s been to the zoo is also telling; while the zoo is emblematic of the separation between humanity and nature (humans control nature in a zoo and go there to observe it, suggesting that animals are categorically different than people), Jerry is not exactly acting like a civilized person in this scene, so the difference between humanity and animals is a little blurred. Crucially, Jerry’s focus on the exact direction he has been walking—“northerly” instead of north—also foreshadows his refusal to ever accept simplified, imprecise answers.
Themes
Peter prepares a pipe, prompting Jerry to mention all the different kinds of cancer that smoking can give you, and he mentions the medical device given to Freud after he had some of his jaw cut away because of cancer. Peter helps Jerry recall the word “prosthesis,” prompting Jerry to remark that he thinks Peter is a very “educated man.” Jerry tries to start up a conversation, but Peter still attempts to focus on his book.
Themes
Even though he’s aware that Peter would rather read, Jerry presses Peter to have a conversation with him. Once again, Jerry announces that he has been to the zoo and mysteriously tells Peter that he will see it on TV or read about it in the newspaper tomorrow.
Themes
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Jerry now presses Peter for information about himself. Peter reveals that he is married and has two daughters. Jerry asks if Peter wanted sons, and Peter admits that he did, although Jerry assumes (correctly) that Peter will not have any more children. Peter snaps at Jerry for his invasive questions, but then apologizes for his outburst. Peter tries to understand what Jerry has been saying about the zoo, but Jerry brushes him off.
Themes
When Jerry asks about Peter’s pets, he learns that Peter—who loves dogs—has two cats because that is what his wife and daughters want. Peter also reveals that he has two parakeets in cages, and Jerry wonders if the parakeets are sick; if they were, he tells Peter, “you could set them loose in the house and the cats could eat them and die, maybe.”
Themes
Jerry asks Peter what he does for a living, and Peter replies that he works as a textbook publisher. Jerry then asks how much money Peter makes and what his address is, causing Peter to worry that Jerry is going to rob him. Peter tells Jerry that he is normally “reticent” and all of these questions are unnerving to him, but he does reveal his salary and the general location of his home. Peter asks Jerry—who has been standing the entire time—to sit down, but Jerry refuses.
Themes
Peter again asks about the zoo, but Jerry seems confused by the reference. Out of nowhere, he asks Peter: “what’s the dividing line between upper-middle-middle-class and lower-upper-middle-class?” When Peter is annoyed by the question, Jerry accuses him of being “patronizing.” Peter apologizes for his inability to express himself, joking that “I’m in publishing, not writing.” Jerry then responds that, in fact, it was he himself who was being patronizing.
Themes
Beginning to slowly pace the stage, Jerry tells Peter that, before going to the zoo, he walked all the way uptown from Washington Square. Peter assumes (with some excitement) that Jerry lives in the West Village, but Jerry retorts that he in fact lives on the Upper West Side and he “took the subway down to the Village so I could walk all the way up,” because “sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out his way to come back a short way correctly.” Peter is disappointed that Jerry, who seems like someone who would live in the Village, actually lives somewhere else.
In a long monologue, Jerry accuses Peter of trying to “pigeonhole” him. He explains that he actually lives on the top floor of a boarding house in a “laughably” small room. On one side of him lives a Black, gay man who frequently uses the bathroom; on the other side of him lives a Puerto Rican family that throws a lot of parties. Peter comments that this boarding house seems like an unpleasant place to live.
Themes
Jerry lists all of his possessions, from his hot plate to his “pornographic playing cards.” He mentions that he keeps a variety of letters, many of which are asking him to reply or to come somewhere. He also informs Peter that he has two empty picture frames because he doesn’t have “anyone to put in them.”
Themes
Peter suggests Jerry might put pictures of his parents or “a girlfriend” in the frames—but Jerry announces that both of his parents are dead, so he does not want to see them all “neat and framed.” Jerry’s mother left his father and engaged in a series of adulterous affairs when Jerry was only ten, and Jerry’s father killed himself soon after. Jerry then moved in with his mother’s sister, who was generally a dour person and died on the day of his high school graduation.
Themes
Jerry asks Peter his name, and the two men introduce themselves for the first time in the play. Jerry then circles back to the picture frame conversation, explaining that he does not have a girlfriend because he has never had sex with anybody more than once. The only exception was his eleven-day fling with a Greek boy at fifteen, at a time when Jerry understood himself to be “queer, queer, queer.” Now he only sleeps with female prostitutes.
Themes
After hearing Jerry’s description of his life, Peter declares that it “it seems perfectly simple to me.” Jerry then accuses Peter of wanting everyone to live his kind of domestic life, at which point Peter gets angry and tries to end the conversation. Jerry apologizes and Peter calms down.
Themes
Jerry again mentions his pornographic playing cards. Peter jokes that he himself is familiar with the cards from his youth, prompting Jerry to claim that there is a big difference between looking at such things as a child versus looking at them as an adult. “When you’re a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience,” Jerry muses, “and when you’re older you use real experience as a substitute for fantasy.”
Jerry brings the zoo up again, and Peter is enthusiastic to hear about what happened there (though he is embarrassed by his own excitement). But instead of talking about what happened at the zoo, Jerry tells Peter more about his boardinghouse. In particular, Jerry focuses on the landlady—who he describes as an “unwashed, misanthropic, cheap, drunken bag of garbage”—and her dog. Together, Jerry sees this pair as the “gatekeepers” to his home.
Themes
Jerry explains that the landlady is constantly “spying” on him from the hallway. When she is drunk she comes onto him, which is “disgusting” to Jerry. But he figures out that he can always get rid of her by claiming that they had sex the day before. This makes her “giggle and groan” with imagined pleasure.
Themes
Repulsed by Jerry’s description of the landlady, Peter muses that it’s “hard to believe” people like that really exist. Mockingly, Jerry suggests that, for Peter, people like the landlady are merely “for reading about.” Jerry announces that he will tell Peter about the dog—and then he promises that if Peter stays on the bench, he will tell him about the zoo.
Jerry describes the dog as old and black, with bloodshot eyes, open wounds, and a permanent erection. Though normally animals are indifferent to Jerry, the dog has always snarled at him; sometimes, the dog even runs at him as if to bite him. Jerry speculates that the other roomers do not experience this because “it had to do only with me.” Jerry tells Peter that he had formed a plan: he would try befriending the dog, and if that did not work, he would kill it instead.
Themes
Jerry bought a bunch of hamburger meat and offered it to the dog. The dog then tore into the meat with fervor, “making sounds in his throat like a woman,” a memory Jerry reenacts for Peter. Jerry recalls that when the dog finished the meat, he smiled, which Jerry found “gratifying”—until the dog snarled and jumped at him again. Jerry tried to feed the dog in this way for five days, but it never made him friendlier; the dog always smiled and then jumped at him.
Themes
When Jerry announces that he attempted to murder the dog, Peter is horrified—but Jerry tells he can calm down, since the attempt failed. Jerry bought a single hamburger with the idea of covering it in rat poison. When he purchased this single hamburger without a roll, the man at the register asked if it was for his cat. To keep things simple, he said it was, but in a way that drew inadvertent attention to himself. He tells Peter that “it always happens when I try to simplify things: people look up.”
Themes
When Jerry brought home the poisoned meat, the dog—which he describes as “malevolence with an erection”—scarfed it down. He then approached Jerry with a smile (which made Jerry feel awful), and jumped at him. Jerry escaped as usual and knew soon after that the dog had then fallen deathly ill, because it no longer disrupted him as it entered the building and because the landlady sobered up with concern.
Themes
The landlady had asked Jerry to pray for the dog, and then had accused Jerry of wanting the dog to die. Jerry denied it, and he explains to Peter that his denial was true: he actually did not want the dog to die, because he wanted to see “what our new relationship might come to.” Peter is repulsed by the entire story at this point, but Jerry insists that “we have to know the effects of our actions.”
Themes
Jerry informs Peter that the dog eventually recovered and the landlady went back to drinking. To Peter’s scoffing disgust, Jerry describes the dog as his “friend” and discusses his “heart-shattering” anxiety at seeing the dog again after the whole ordeal.
Themes
When he did once again meet the dog in the hallway, Jerry and the dog stared into each other’s faces and “made contact.” Now, Jerry felt that he loved the dog and wanted the feeling to be reciprocated. After trying first to love and then to kill and finding that “both had been unsuccessful by themselves,” Jerry wanted to be “understood” by the dog. Peter is “hypnotized” by this part of the story.
Themes
Jerry becomes agitated and tells Peter, “if you can’t deal with people, you have to make a start somewhere.” Jerry wonders where he can “make a start,” and he goes through a laundry list of possibilities (“a bed, a carpet, a cockroach…”). Jerry at one point thinks about whether it is possible to make a start with “a mirror,” but he decides that would be too hard. He finally wonders if he can make a start with god—he speculates that god might exist in some of the other people in the boarding house, and then he comments that he's been told that in fact god has abandoned “the whole thing some time ago.”
Jerry tells Peter that he believes that the building’s entrance hall, with the dog—“man’s best friend”—was the best possible place to “make a beginning…to understand and just possibly be understood.” Jerry is suddenly overcome with exhaustion, but he still finishes his story: he informs Peter that he and the dog now “feign indifference” whenever they encounter each other. “It’s very sad,” Jerry tells Peter, “but you’ll have to admit that we have an understanding. We had made many attempts at connecting, and we had failed.”
Jerry tries to articulate his sense of sadness at having gained “free passage” into his apartment without being attacked by the dog (which is what he initially claimed to want). “We neither love nor hurt because we do not try to reach each other,” Jerry says of the dog, and laments how easy it is to “misunderstand each other.” When he finishes his monologue, Jerry sits down—for the first time in the entire play—on the same bench as Peter.
A “suddenly cheerful” Jerry asks Peter if Peter thinks he could sell the story of the dog to Reader’s Digest. Peter, deeply troubled and on the verge of tears, says he does not “understand” the story. Jerry accuses Peter of lying about not understanding, and he insists that he “slowly” explained everything Peter could possibly need to understand.
Themes
Peter says he does not want to hear any more about the landlady or her dog. This upsets Jerry, who has convinced himself that the dog belongs to him, although he quickly admits that that the dog in fact does belong to the landlady. After a moment of confusion, Jerry resigns himself to the idea that he and Peter are too different to understand each other: “I don’t live on your block,” he sighs, “I’m not married to two parakeets.” Seeing Jerry’s sadness, Peter apologizes.
Themes
Jokingly, Jerry suggests that Peter does not know what to make of him; Peter jokes back that “we get all kinds in publishing.” Jerry asks Peter, “do I annoy you or confuse you?” Peter explains that he was not at all expecting to have such an eventful afternoon, to which Jerry replies: “but I’m here, and I’m not leaving.”
Themes
Peter checks his watch and moves to get up from the bench as he starts to say that he has to get going, but Jerry begins to tickle him. Peter is very ticklish, and he squirms, pleading with Jerry to stop in a “falsetto.” Through his laughter, Peter jokes about the cats and the parakeets preparing dinner and setting the table. Jerry stops tickling Peter, but Peter is still laughing “hysterically.” Jerry watches Peter laugh with a “curious fixed smile.”
Now very calm, Jerry asks Peter if he wants to hear about what happened at the zoo. Peter, coming out of his laughing attack, tells Jerry he is very eager to hear. Jerry explains that he went to the zoo to learn about how people and animals “exist with each other,” but “it probably wasn’t a fair test, what with everyone separated by bars from everyone else.” Jerry pokes Peter and tells him to “move over” on the bench.
Peter moves over, and Jerry continues to describe the zoo. But every few sentences, Jerry pokes Peter increasingly hard—until he has almost the entire bench and Peter, annoyed, is crowded into a corner. Jerry begins to explain how the lion tamer at the zoo went into the cages to feed the lions. However, he interrupts himself, punching Peter on the arm and shouting “MOVE OVER!” Peter tells Jerry he cannot move over anymore, but Jerry continues to hit him.
Themes
Peter asks Jerry why he is behaving like this, and Jerry declares “I’m crazy, you bastard.” Jerry explains that he wants this bench to himself, and if Peter wants to hear the rest of the story, he will have to sit on the other bench that’s on stage. Peter does not see why he should have to leave his original bench, especially because he sits on the same bench every Sunday.
Themes
Jerry insists that he wants the bench, and he scoffs when Peter tries to argue that people cannot get everything they want. Jerry calls Peter a “vegetable” and orders him to leave the bench and “lie down on the ground.” Peter again refuses, and he tells Jerry that he only spoke to him because he could tell Jerry “wanted to talk to somebody.” Jerry shouts that Peter’s “economical” way of putting things makes Jerry sick.
Themes
Jerry tells Peter to “give me my bench,” but Peter yells back that it is “MY BENCH.” When Jerry pushes Peter almost all of the way off the bench, Peter threatens to call the police, but Jerry says that all of the police officers are on the West side of the park, chasing and harassing gay men. Peter starts to scream for the police, but Jerry speculates that even if a policeman did come, he would think Peter is crazy and take him away.
Themes
Jerry threatens Peter, telling him that he will never again be able to sit on his “precious bench.” Peter, now furious, insists that he wants the bench even if it does not make any sense. Peter begins to scream at Jerry to “GET OFF MY BENCH,” but Jerry does not move; instead, he keeps repeating that Peter appears “ridiculous.”
Themes
Jerry asks Peter why he cares about the bench, since he already has “everything in the world you want, your home, and your family, and your own little zoo.” Jerry asks if the bench, “this iron and this wood,” is a question of honor for Peter—and Peter replies that Jerry “wouldn’t understand” even if it were a question of honor.
Jerry accuses Peter of not having any idea about “what other people need.” Peter insists that Jerry does not need the bench; Peter feels that he needs the bench because he has been coming to it for years and it has given him great pleasure as he sits on it and reads. Jerry tells Peter that if he wants the bench, he will need to “fight for it…like a man.”
Themes
Still sitting on the bench, Jerry muses that Peter has a “certain dignity” about him. Jerry then rises, agreeing to fight for the bench but warning Peter that “we’re not evenly matched.” Jerry pulls out a switchblade, and Peter panics, believing that Jerry is going to kill him—but Jerry throws the switchblade at Peter’s feet.
Themes
Horrified, Peter does not want to pick up the knife. Jerry grabs Peter by the collar, standing so close to him that their “faces almost touch,” and he orders Peter to take the switchblade and fight. Jerry questions Peter’s “manhood” again, calling him a “pathetic little vegetable” and mocking Peter’s inability to produce a male child. Peter picks up the knife, but he holds it in a defensive position and says he’ll give Jerry one more chance to leave him alone.
Themes
Jerry says “So be it!” and then runs onto the knife that Peter is now holding, impaling himself. In great pain, Jerry screams with “the sound of an infuriated and fatally wounded animal.” Peter begins to repeat the words “oh my god” over and over again.
Themes
As he dies, Jerry calmly thanks Peter and expresses his relief that he did not drive Peter away. Jerry finally tells Peter “what happened at the zoo”—at the zoo, Jerry decided he would walk “northerly” and find someone to talk to. Jerry wonders if he could have planned this whole thing, and he says both that he couldn’t have and that he thinks he did. Then he predicts that Peter will see Jerry’s face on TV that night. Jerry tells Peter that “I came unto you…and you have comforted me.”
Themes
Jerry warns Peter that he should leave before anyone comes and sees Peter with the knife. Peter, who is still only able to repeat “oh my god,” begins to cry. Jerry tells Peter that he has been “dispossessed”: he has lost his bench, but he has kept his honor. Jerry also murmurs that Peter is not “really a vegetable; it’s all right, you’re an animal. You’re an animal too.”
With great effort, Jerry uses his handkerchief to wipe Peter’s fingerprints off the switchblade. Jerry encourages Peter to run, and he reminds him to take his book. As Jerry loses breath, he whispers that the “parakeets are making the dinner…the cats are setting the table.” Peter, who has run off stage, lets out a final “pitiful howl” of the words “OH MY GOD.” As Jerry dies, he speaks in “a combination of scornful mimicry and supplication”—“Oh…My…God.”
Themes
