Irony of Human Condition in Edward Albee's Play The Zoo Story

Abstract

This research is a study of irony in general human condition in modern American society in Edward Albee’s play The Zoo Story. The irony in the life of Jerry, a social outcast alienated in the society due to factors like class, sexuality and orphanage are singled out. The selfish, lonely and irrational circumstance in which Jerry is living makes him compare human society with zoo and his condition can be equated to general human condition. The difference in saying and the actual meaning of saying is seen frequently fulfilling the basic condition in which irony operates.Jerry’s failure to establish fruitful contact and communication with the society desperately, even with the dog of his landlady, marks the irony of the so-called civilized society. This play can also be read as allegory of the modern society as it has turned a human zoo with all the irrationality and animal-like behaviors pervading it. Jerry’s suicide at the end of the play marks the resistance to the miserable life devoid of any fruitful communication that underscores the need of social correction, one of the major functions of irony in Hutcheon’s terms. So as to discuss various facets of irony, the theorists of irony like Colebrook, Muecke, Hutcheon and Paul de Man are brought into debate.