What Happened In The Zoo Language Analysis

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The play starts on a Sunday afternoon in Central Park where a man named Jerry starts to talk to another man named Peter. Peter works as a publishing executive who has a wife, two daughters, two cats and two parakeets. Jerry is a damaged man and a recluse who is desperate to converse with another human being. He interrupts Peter’s routine and proceeds to tell him about his life, questions peter about his, and keeps on vaguely mentioning his trip to the zoo. Eventually, when Peter starts to leave, Jerry starts to push Peter off the bench and to fight for the bench. Then, all of a sudden, Jerry gives Peter a knife and tells him to defend his “manhood” leading to Jerry getting stabbed and being left there to die. Albee’s play is classified as …show more content…

Sometimes, Jerry’s speech does not make sense, and his actions and words are sometimes very vague. He keeps on telling Peter that he is going to tell him what happened in the zoo, yet by the end of the play; the audience has no knowledge of what happened in the zoo. Albee uses repetition as throughout the play, Jerry keeps mentioning “the zoo” and “what happened in the zoo”. Albee also uses fragmentation which is a feature in both 20th century plays and absurdist plays as at one point jerry says “Boy, I 'm glad that 's Fifth Avenue there”, then he says “I don 't like the west side of the park much” out of the blue . One moment Jerry is telling Peter “Oh, come on; stay a while longer”, and the next; he is tickling him until he starts to “laugh hysterically “. Jerry’s dialogue also shifts between past and present on more than one occasion. Finally, Albee’s play ended without giving the audience any sense of closure. Jerry loses his life, and the audience does not know what happens to Peter; whether he is arrested or he continues to live his life normally. This play is left open to different interpretations and provokes the reader to draw his own conclusion which are techniques that are true to both the Theatre of the Absurd and 20th Century

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