LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 18:7 July 2018
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

Language in India www.languageinindia.com is included in the UGC Approved List of Journals. Serial Number 49042.

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The Malady Called Indifference in The Zoo Story

Dr. J. Arul Anand


Courtesy: https://www.amazon.com/American-Dream-Zoo-Story/dp/0452278899

The Zoo Story

Indifference is one of the many maladies normally inflicted on the drifters of any society. Many unfortunate individuals are forced to feel so alienated even from their own people. Edward Albee, one of the towering personalities of the 20th Century American Theater, had effectively captured the badly nurtured lives of such estranged multitudes of his society in his many trend-setting and controversially stirring presentations on the stage. Gabbard in his work Edward Albee’s Triptych on Abandonment asserts that Edward Albee’s plays “ring with rage at society’s disregard for its outcasts”. Albee used his plays to delineate the painful life of such disturbed persons. The Zoo Story is one such play wherein Albee brought to light the plight of Jerry, a victim of the indifferent attitude of a decomposing society. Driven to madness, and thereby driven to a Zoo to learn how the caged animals co-exist, Jerry walked northerly to reach a Central Park only to miserably fail in his yet another attempt to clinch a conversation with a fellow human being, leading to his own suicide-murder. Though what happened at the Central Park, or the plot of this one-act play, seems unrealistic, Jerry’s appalling death shocks not only Peter, whose indifference finally forced Jerry to commit the heinous crime of suicide, but also the complacent theater-goers of an ailing society. This paper attempts to stress on the importance on the need of a remedy for the ego-centric malady called indifference.

Keywords:

Many Turn Neurotic - Deterioration

In the past, individuals turn romantic to wander lonely as clouds to converse with the captivating codes of Nature. In the modern world, many troubled individuals turn neurotic unable to cope up with the excruciating modes of torture. Deprived of all basic needs, these poor creatures creep deep into the caves of solitude only to erupt emotional, and, at times, violent. In many such cases, the individuals are not to blame. Many factors contribute to the distasteful deterioration. Playwrights of the twentieth century endeavor to lay bare the deterioration and its causes. The plays of Edward Albee too “portray alienated individuals who suffer as a result of unjust social, moral, and religious strictures...” (CLC 113)

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. J. Arul Anand
Associate Professor of English
English Wing, DDE, Annamalai University
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