ABSTRACT
Peter and Jerry live in the same city and visit the same park, yet they inhabit different worlds. Transcending contrasts in social class and years of accumulated schooling, Peter and Jerry construct meaning in clearly distinct ways, each hanging in an evolutionary balance that gives rise to a different sense of personal identity and construction of the ‘reality’ of their chance afternoon meeting in Central Park. Peter makes meaning of his life and encounter with Peter through a conventional ‘law and order’ orientation. Life must be lived according to society’s rules, and Jerry’s disregard for the norms of social interchange and demand for Peter’s park bench bring the latter to the very edge of his evolutionary stability: ‘People can’t have everything they want. You should know that; it’s a rule; people can have some of the things they want, but they can’t have everything’ (Albee 1962: 136). Meanwhile Jerry has returned from the zoo, insistent upon telling this stranger his story: ‘I’ve been to the zoo. (Peter doesn’t notice.) I said, I’ve been to the zoo. MISTER I’VE BEEN TO THE ZOO!’ he opens, and slowly manipulates Peter into a relationship meeting his own desired purposes (Albee 1962: 113). Alongside Albee’s intended Zoo Story message regarding the violence lurking within the confines of both the literal and metaphorical zoos of the play, Kegan might argue that life is also a zoo in the colloquial sense of the term – in that experience of confusion which exists prior to the human activity of successful meaning-making.
