Jerry s Problems In Edward Albee s The Zoo Story, Jerry has trouble distinguishing between emotions of love and anger, because of his unhappy childhood. This is shown repeatedly throughout the story in both is words and actions. His inability to organize his feelings is what ultimately causes his own death. When Jerry tells the story of the dog, he says he first fed the dog hamburgers in order to gain its trust, and allow him free passage throughout his apartment. When this didn t change his relationship with the animal, he fed it a poisoned hamburger in an attempt to kill. Later in his story he tells Peter that I didn t want the dog to die.
I didn t, and not just because I d poisoned him (18).
He reaffirms this again in the story when he says I loved the dog now, and I wanted him to love me (19).
At first, he showed the dog love with un-poisoned hamburgers. Then his emotions changed to hate, and he attempted to kill the dog with a poisoned burger. And finally, he felt love for the dog again. These types of mood swings are characteristic of someone with a serious mental disorder.
It is not surprising to see Jerry have the same sort of mood swings toward the end of the play. Jerry wants to connect with Peter, and relates to him much in the same way as he did with the dog. At first, Jerry is friendly and benign as he talks with Jerry about his family. Then Jerry tells the story of the dog, and afterward his emotions change to anger and hate. He punches Peter in the arm and demands the bench to himself, which astounds Peter. He does not understand why Jerry is acting in his schizophrenic way, even though it was told to him through the dog story.
The Essay on Ind Aff Story Love Peter
El Paso Community College English 1302 Research and critical writing Dr. Ted E. Johnston Feb. 23 2001 Juan Sebastian Royo Garcia 634. 46. 9222 SHORT STORY PROJECT: IND AFF THEME ANALYSIS Extreme relationships often tend to be abusive in some way from one of the partners towards the other. Very marked age differences some times show a sense of immaturity or a parenting feeling, it is hard to ...
Then Jerry pulls out a knife, and ends up falling on it and mortally wounding himself. After this, he calms down and feels love for Peter, an says I came unto you, and you have comforted me. Dear Peter (27).
His temper finally caught up with Jerry, and he paid with his life.
The reason for Jerry s emotional problems go back to his childhood. He tells Peter early in the story that his mother died when he was ten and a half years old, and his father followed a few weeks later. He moved in with his aunt, and she died a several years later. This would have a terrible emotional impact on any child, and explains the erratic behavior exhibited by Jerry. This also affected Jerry s sex life. I never see the pretty little ladies more than once, he says (12).
This is because of his inability to connect with people. He also expresses his confusion during his speech about the dog; And, was trying to feed the dog an act of love And, perhaps, was the dog s attempt to bite me not an act of love If we can so misunderstand, well then, why have we invented the word love in the first place (20).
This excerpt shows Jerry s inability to distinguish between love and hate. He questions whether his feeding of the dog was showing love. If he doesn t understand the emotions behind his own actions when dealing with animals, it will be difficult for him to apply them to human interaction. Jerry has problems connecting to others people, resulting from an unhappy childhood.
Because of his mixed up emotions, he misunderstands the ideas of love and hate. It is this confusion that ultimately causes his fight with Peter and his own death.
