Jerry’s Suicidal Plan in The Zoo Story: An Option to Face the Human Feeling of Absurd
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.lyl.n72a06Keywords:
social alienation, the theater of the absurd, the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behavior, the sense of thwarted belongingness, the myth of SisyphusAbstract
This article describes Jerry’s suicidal mind in Edward Albee’s most celebrated play The Zoo Story, a work having features of the theater of the absurd written in 1958. The article argues that Jerry’s social alienation in a meaningless capitalistic society leads him to plan his own suicide cautiously. The interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behavior and Camus’s philosophical notion of suicide were implemented to examine Jerry’s gradual desire to die by suicide. It can be observed that Jerry creates three interdependent states of mind: a sense of thwarted belongingness, a sense of burdensomeness, and the acquired capacity to commit suicide.
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