THE “CARNIVAL” IN EDWARD ALBEE’S THE ZOO STORY
THE “CARNIVAL” IN EDWARD ALBEE’S THE ZOO STORY

Summary/Abstract: The Zoo Story (1959) by Edward Albee depicts the grotesqueness of mankind and humans’ struggle for communication to survive. The play portrays the conflicting lives of the protagonists, Peter and Jerry, and how they (re)shape each other’s lives with a bizarre but effective means of (lack of) communication, creating a dialogic relationship in a carnival-like setting. Thus, the Central Park becomes more significant in terms of spatiality as it welcomes both Peter representing the official culture and Jerry the un-official. Their dialogic relationship starts when Jerry consciously disturbs Peter trying to find his own existence and meaning(lessness) of life, which is also the way for Peter to show an awareness of his own life. Moreover, their meeting and (lack of) communication in the Central Park, spatially constructs the carnivalesque atmosphere in which Jerry enthusiastically celebrates the collapse of social boundaries via Peter, who shockingly witnesses this process. Therefore, the aim of this essay is to study Edward Albee’s play The Zoo Story from the Bakhtinian perspective, focusing on the concepts of chronotope, carnival and dialogism to have a better understanding of disconnected yet interdependent characters struggling to survive by trying to find the meaning(lessness) of their lives.

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