The Zoo Story - Two Plays by Edward Albee

Edward Albee

Samuel French Ltd

1998

32 páginas

1h 4m

ISBN-13: 9780573042225

One-act play by Edward Albee, produced and published in 1959, about an isolated young man desperate to interact with other people. As the play opens, Peter (a publishing executive who is reading in New York City's Central Park) is approached by a stranger named Jerry. Announcing "I've been to the zoo!" Jerry proceeds to probe deep into Peter's life. He relates details from his own life--his stay in a rooming house with a bizarre landlady and her repulsive dog and his unsuccessful attempt to poison the dog. Peter grows increasingly agitated by this encounter. Jerry becomes abusive, tosses Peter a knife, provokes him into a fight, and impales himself on the knife.

Resenhas (4)

2 (Razoável)

The American dream and the zoo story

Once, my English teacher from school told me that if I wanted to read an English book, the experience needed to be emotionally connected to my interests and preferences to be effective and useful for improving my skills the English language. However, the book “The American dream and The zoo story” didn’t work for me, so it wasn’t a good choice. This book is written by Edward Albee and it has two different plays 1) The Zoo Story; 2) The American Dream.
The first play, The Zoo Story, is about Jerry that is a really lonely and unhappy man who really wants to talk to someone, but then one day he meets Peter, a quiet and peaceful man, and starts asking him many questions (very uncomfortable and inconvenient questions to be honest), and also forcing him to listen to randomly stories about his life and why he went to the zoo (something that I really want to know 🙄 to not say the opposite). The play makes us think about important topics like feeling alone, the differences between social classes, and how people can become distant in a world that values material things more than human connections.
The second play, The American Dream, envolves an elderly woman (Grandma) who constantly complains about everything. But honestly, that play I found it the most frustrating and uninteresting of the entire book. Although my complains, It’s a very important topic to be aware of and really necessary in a literature.