1

Theme of alienation in Albee’s ‘The Zoo Story’

Big cities provide a picture of urbanite people who are physically

embedded in a tight web of others yet who may feel
psychologically almost totally alienated. Living in a big
metropolitan city is living in a world of strangers (Lyn Lofland
qtd. In Krupat, 1985:59). There are a lot of people coming from
many different ethnic and social backgrounds with many
distinctive ways of life. Everyday people pass one another on the
street, yet they do not know each other, and generally these
people do not make any effort to enter into relationships. Many
people in metropolitan cities seems to have lost the sense of
communal life as these people are occupied by their personal
businesses. As such, social relationships weaken and this creates
a barrier to establishing contact with others. The barrier to
contact becomes wider when there is social disparity in the
society. Most relationships are based on the functions in their
lives. If the relationship is functional then people would be willing
to maintain it. Otherwise, many people tend to avoid it.
Consequently, there is a sense of alienation among the people.
The problem of alienation has marked the condition of modern
man, and this problem has become a great concern in some
areas of cultural activity such as in sociology, philosophy, and
literature. The broad attention that is focused on the condition of
alienation indicates that the world is now faced with the
symptoms of social sickness (Novack 1973: 5-6). Alienation has
been used to describe various social phenomena that include the
feelings of loneliness, powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation,
and separation and discontent with society. Alienation is a sense
of not belonging.

This article attempts to reveal the problems of alienation in

American society, especially in big American cities, in the mid-
twentieth century as seen in Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story. The

CC-2.3
 2

problems of alienation, as experienced by Jerry, is a consequence

of modernism and social disparity in the society. To illustrate the
point the analysis of the play makes reference to the social
relations of people living in big American cities.

“Isolation ,loneliness and frustration are , in fact , major subjects

in this realistic and symbolic drama of a lonely outcast who tries
to make contact with another human being and who finally binds
himself to that other in death”( X.J.Kennedy).

The play presents characters who suffer from lack of tangible

human relationships, the sense of loneliness, and from being
alienated and isolated from the other members of their own
society. This suffering leads majorly to agonizing life experiences
and finally to the death of the main character. This paper tries to
reveal the reasons out of which the characters’ alienation springs
and at the same time the consequences to which these reasons
lead.

There are three types of alienation – alienation from oneself,

from other people and from the world in which one lives, and
these three forms of alienation are interrelated (Pappenheim,
2002).The problems of alienation in big American cities and the
development of the American economy after World War II had
stimulated the physical development of the country. At that time,
there was a vast development in American cities both in terms of
infrastructure and population. This condition determined the
patterns of social relations of the people, as people living in big
cities have different social attitudes from those living in rural
areas. For many people, big cities offer great opportunities for
advancement and become a symbol of limitless hope. As such,
there are a great number of people moving to big cities with the
hope that they can realize their dreams. However, for many other
people, especially those who are trapped in the decaying inner
cities, living in big cities means living in poverty, fear, isolation

CC-2.3
 3

and disappointment. Big cities are also characterized by modern,

competitive and impersonal atmosphere. Krupat states:

“City people were seen as untrusting, but often interesting, often

lonely and often liberal, and most often not intruding in others’
affairs” (Krupat 1985: 40-1).

The heterogeneity of the population in big cities weakens the

social relationships of the people, and it creates a barrier to
communication. Lyn Lofland acknowledges that to live in a city is
to live in a world of strangers (qtd. in Krupat 1985: 59).
Encyclopedia of Marxism defines alienation as follows Alienation
is the process whereby people become foreign to the world they
are living in. The concept of alienation is deeply embedded in all
the great religions and social and political theories of the civilized
epoch, namely, the idea that sometime in the past people lived in
harmony, and then there was some kind of rupture which left
people feeling like foreigners in the world, but some in the future
this alienation would be overcome and humanity would again live
in harmony with itself and nature. The quotation above indicates
that alienation denotes the estrangement of individuals from
themselves and from others.

Albee is one of the great American playwrights who follow

Ionesco in writing Absurd plays in other words, both of them
write plays about man’s isolation and aloneness. Edward Albee
emerges as one of the most controversial and, consequently one
of the most read contemporary playwrights. His works are
considered well-crafted and often unsympathetic examinations of
the modern condition. Alienation is not a new theme presented in
American drama, nor is it a twentieth century phenomenon, it is
found in literature from Beowulf to the modern fiction. Alienation
is one of the main thematic strands presented in the The Zoo
Story. That is why the play is considered as the first successful
play written by Albee. Michael Stapleton states that “Albee
achieved his first success as a dramatist with the one-act The Zoo

CC-2.3
 4

Story.” Thus one may assert that isolation, loneliness, and

frustration are, in fact, major subjects in this realistic and
symbolic drama. It is a play about contact. The play contains two
main characters: Jerry and Peter. Jerry is one of the only two
characters in the play who greatly suffers from alienation. Albee
makes it obvious that Jerry’s sense of alienation springs from
multiple reasons. Digging deeply into the nature of this
character, one can perceive that these causes may be private or
personal conditions, i.e. they are related to Jerry himself, and
may be social conditions related to the social atmosphere in
which this character lives. In other words, society as a whole
imposes a sense of alienation upon its members.

In The Zoo Story Albee tries to portray the problem of

alienation that has already become a symptom of social sickness
in the United States in the mid-twentieth century. The problem of
alienation that marks the modern life of the mid-twentieth
century is presented through Jerry, one of the two characters in
the play. Jerry is portrayed as a young man living in an
apartment on the upper West Side between Columbus Avenue
and Central Park West in New York City. In the mid-twentieth
century New York City was very crowded as the result of the
immigration and the internal migration that happened until after
World War II. In The Zoo Story Albee portrays this phenomenon in
American society through Jerry’s relationship with the people in
the apartment and with Peter. Jerry comes from low-class
society. In the apartment Jerry lives with many other people,
among others are a black transvestite, a Puerto Rican family with
many children, an anonymous crying woman, a person whom he
has never seen, and the landlady. Even though Jerry lives
together with these people he has no contact with them, except
with the drunken landlady who tries to seduce him and for whom
Jerry feels disgust. Jerry does not try to maintain contact with
any people in the roominghouse. The fact that Jerry is
unconcerned about these people is shown by the fact that he has

CC-2.3
 5

never tried to talk with them. These people are physically

connected to each other as they live under the same roof, but the
formation of close relationships is difficult to maintain. Even
though the landlady tries to approach and make contact with
Jerry, her concern is very selfish, as she does not want to
maintain real contact with Jerry. Here, the landlady only wants
to show her personal sexual desires. The absence of personal
contact among the people in the roominghouse reflects the
problem of alienation and impersonality of modern and urbanite
big cities. Jerry even describes the apartment as “a humiliating
excuse of jail” (Albee, 1960:35).

The description of the apartment as “a humiliating excuse of

jail” already foreshadows the significance of the title of the play.
Living in a jail is like living in a zoo. People are locked in rooms,
and have no chance to maintain contact with others. The
rooming house is described as a jail, thus it is similar to the
image of a zoo. The bars that separate these people indicate that
the isolation of human being is very apparent. As has been
mentioned in chapter three, the zoo is a metaphor for social
relationship in modern society. In describing the situation of the
roominghouse, Albee chooses the phrase in order to emphasize
the sickening condition of the apartment and the feeling of the
residents. Later, Albee also uses an ironical tone to show two
contrasting conditions in American society when Jerry articulates
“…my house is the sickening roominghouses in New York City,
which is the greatest city in the world. Amen.” Here Albee tries to
emphasize the two contrasting conditions that could be found in
big American cities, in this case in New York City. As has been
mentioned in chapter three, there is a contrast between Jerry’s
sickening apartment and the expensive apartments and elegant
buildings nearby. Jerry is a kind of person who does not have an
ideal family in his life. His mother left him when he was ten and a
half years old. His parents did reunite, but they died not long
after that. Then Jerry lived with his aunt, who also died when he

CC-2.3
 6

graduated from high school. His feeling of emptiness is also

shown by the fact that he keeps two empty picture frames.

From the outset of the play, Jerry intrudes upon Peter’s

quiet sitting and isolation. It should be stated that Albee makes
use of conversation and dialogue more than action to shed light
on the two different characters in the play. Jerry, for example,
repeats the word, “the zoo” more than seventeen times
throughout the play mainly to provoke Peter and make him
respond. In addition, this word “zoo” is of high importance in the
sense that Albee uses it as a title in his play in order to show that
people in America live just like animals in the sense that they are
barred by complacency, self-interest, and indifference to one
another. Animals in the zoo are barred by bars, but Americans
are separated from one another by the absence of real human
relationships. From such a horrible milieu emerges the notion of
alienation that Jerry as an American suffers from.

Philosophers, psychologists and sociologists describe the

characteristics of alienation as an extra-ordinary variety of
anxious feelings, despair, loneliness, meaninglessness isolation
and the loss of values (in Eric and Mary Josephson 12-13). From
those statements it is obvious that alienation is an unavoidable
phenomenon in modern society. Alienated people experience the
many aspects of psycho-social disorder. These people feel isolated
and lonely even though they live among a crowd. They are in a
state of anxiety and despair and their life is meaningless as their
hope, belief, and values are fading away. In The Zoo Story the
behaviours of the people in the apartment portray the feeling of
anxiety and the dimming optimism of the American people.

Jerry’s suicide also reflects a psycho-social disorder as he is

in a state of hopelessness, anxiety and despair. Jerry shares the
same life condition as the other people in the roominghouse, and
his fatal deed shows that he has lost his reason to live. Jerry’s

CC-2.3
 7

sense of meaning and purpose of life have drained away. In order

to come to this opinion, however, is not easy because Jerry’s
suicide is so unpredictable. Here, the convention of the Absurd
appears in The Zoo Story. This play belongs to the Theatre of the
Absurd in which the spectators are faced with unpredictable and
unexpected happenings. Esslin puts it that “the happenings on
the stage are absurd, they yet remain recognizable as somehow
related to real life with its absurdity, so that eventually the
spectators are brought face to face with the irrational side of their
existence” (qtd. In Kostelanetz, 1964:207).

In The Zoo Story the meaning of the play can be seen from
the significance of the characters and their actions. This play
portrays a situation in which Jerry is in a state of loneliness and
alienation, but desperately tries to come into contact with other
people. Jerry lives in the age of affluence. Yet, he cannot enjoy
the prosperity that the country provided at that time. Jerry’s
suffering from the problem of alienation and social disparity has
actually become the hidden motivation to commit suicide.
However, on the superficial level there are no apparent reasons
that lead him to commit suicide. Peter and also the spectators
never expect that Jerry would take such an act. If his fatal deed
is caused by the quarrel about the bench, then, it is totally
unmotivated. In relation to suicidal behaviour, Albert Camus
mentions that people commit suicide because they judge that “life
is not worth living”. According to Camus, a reason for living is the
same as a reason for dying. People may kill themselves for the
ideas and illusions that give them the reason for living.
Newspapers often mention that personal problems such as deep
sorrows and miserable and acute illness may comprise the
primary reasons for committing suicide. Emile Durkheim also
says that suicide is stimulated by modernization. Modern
societies tend to have high rates of suicide because they lack
kinds of secure and interpersonal relationships. According to
Durkheim, the act of committing suicide is caused by a social
condition rather than by the personal temperament of the doer. A
high rate of suicide shown by a certain society indicates

CC-2.3
 8

weaknesses in the web of relationships among the members of

the society and not weaknesses of the personality of the people
(qtd. In Stark, 1998: 7). Based on these notions, it can be said
that Jerry’s suicide is caused by the impact of modernization in
American society. The problem of alienation that he suffers,
coupled with the dimming optimism of living in a modern society
have led him to commit such a fatal deed.

Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story portrays the problem of

alienation in big American cities especially in the mid-twentieth
century. Jerry is a low class proletariat who suffers from his
frustrating condition and feels alienated. The absence of personal
contact, feelings of loneliness, meaninglessness, isolation,
separation and discontent reflect the problems of alienation and
impersonality within modern big cities. In The Zoo Story Albee
stresses the need for man to break his self-alienation and
complacency and to make contact with his fellow men. For Albee,
true human relationships are very essential. Therefore, he tries to
attack the indifference and sterility of contemporary American
society. The Zoo Story carries a message for people living in
modern life who are bound within individual walls. All in all, this
play challenges not only American life in the mid-twentieth
century, but also the void of life in modern times. The absurdity
of life, as depicted in the play, can be overcome by building the
awareness that humans are social beings, therefore they need to
build positive and meaningful relationship with others. In order
to live in harmony, however, people need the nerve to break the
bars and walls limiting their lives.

CC-2.3
 9

Works Cited

http://www.literary-articles.com/2009/06/alienation-in-american-society-
in-mid.html

https://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=50455

J. Kennedy X. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.

New York: Longman, 1999.

CC-2.3