Absurdity and Reality

The first Iheme of The Zoo Story has to do with absurdity and reality. During the beginning of the play, Jerry initiates the conversation with Peter and carefully chooses topics with which Peter will be familiar, such as family and career. However, Jerry soon begins to insert strange comments and questions into what is on the surface a conversation between two strangers trying to get to know each other. This is apparent during the moment when Jerry, assuming that Peter does not like his daughters' cats, asks if Peter's birds are diseased. Peter says that he does not believe so and Jerry replies:

"That's too bad. If they did you could set them loose in the house and the cats couid eat them and die, maybe." These unreasonable and ridiculous, or absurd, moments in the play begin to shake Peter's sense of reality and place. However...