Comparison with Waiting For Godot and Der Steppenwolf

There are two works of literature that spring to my mind when I try to draw a line of comparison between The Zoo Story and something of a similar atmosphere. Those two are Waiting For Godot (a classic example of an Absurdist play) and Herman Hesse`s Der Steppenwolf, where the metaphor of the Magic Theatre is embarked on, a Theatre of an elite nature – “For Madmen only”. To my mind, Jerry and Harry Haller have things in common, like the environment they’re found in – their “cages” (although Harry`s housing is somewhat more to the Philistine side – and that is one of his biggest peeves (there`s the clash of classes issue for you again)) or their analytical theories concerning the nature of man – rather bluntly dividing, in Jerry`s case, the humanity in whole, and in Harry`s, concentrating on his own soul, into “animals” and “vegetables”. In Harry`s case, the animal is called “Wolf of the Steppes”, “Der Steppenwolf”, and the calm, peaceful, feeling-at-ease, polite-to-a-toenail side is not given a particular allegorical name and just called Harry Haller instead. Like Jerry, Harry fails to find sense in the polite and heavily clichéd word patterns that are at everyone’s convenience to use. The hero is beset with reflections on his being ill-suited for the world of "everybody", the regular people. The world of prim, clean little flower pots, of flats where the great Goethe is nothing more than a tiny picture ornamenting the host`s table, of marriages of disturbing properness and cages everywhere one has to look. Harry seeks real contact, closing up from the outer world at the same time, becoming too self-conceited. He gets reprimanded by a mysterious author, a certain “engineer of souls” who appears to know Harry better than the man himself does. Harry embarks on the truth – in a book about himself- greedily, and learns that his “two-sided man” theory is also but a cage, and that he, in fact, possesses millions of souls and can live millions of lives.( This aspect of the theory put forward by Hesse has given way to many contradictory interpretations; Hesse himself mentioned that the multifaceted nature of human soul is a Buddhist concept, one not easily digested by the European world revolving around the individual).
Harry is helped in his quest by a mysterious young woman named Hermine – a girl free of barriers – but also stuck in just one life, trying to wave her miserable state of mind off, turning away from her own pains by trying to “cure”, or, rather, anesthetize Harry, who remains self-centered – erecting a wall to separate himself from the Philistine, “empty souls” – the gate leading to the Magic Theatre placed in a fragment of a once sturdy, strong wall stands as a metaphor for this self-imposed seclusion. In The Zoo Story, seclusion becomes isolation that Jerry strives to break out of, but the same problem of people uninterested in each other’s souls, only taking in each other`s labels is viewed in both the play and Hesse`s novel. In the end, Harry is led to the “Magic Theater”, where conservative notions about his soul disintegrate, and Harry participates in several fantastic episodes, culminating with him killing Hermine with a knife, apparently fulfilling her own earlier request but really showing his continuing ignorance. Harry is consequently judged by Mozart, who condemns him to "listen to the radio music of life", challenging him at the same time to "reverence the spirit behind it".
The archetype that comes to my mind is that of a loner, an outsider, with a touch of the character of the “little man” who sees deeper into the diseases of his time, though is seriously infected himself and does not have the power or the light to uncover the kernel of truth in the debris of absurdity that impersonates order. Who could serve as a better example for this type of man than Pechorin? As for American literature – it is extremely rich in providing us with images of individuals lost in humongous, monster-like cities, loveless and devoid of warmness of soul. The suffocating effect of the city bustle and the bars that keep people apart is explored by Herman Melville in his “Bartleby the Scrivener”.
The “oddball” archetype is closely related to the “Rioter” or the “Fool” archetype, and that goes on to intertwine with the image of the Prophet. The person whom these characteristics evolve around is, of course, Jerry. His absurd way of holding a conversation, though, has definite logical reasons behind it, as we have already discovered. He tries to pull Peter out of his comfortable cage, or frame, by means of a kind of a “shock therapy”. Jerry actually clearly needs similar treatment himself, as he’s showing signs of a psychological, perhaps even psychiatric (schizophrenia?) illness. This feature brings us to an association with the characters of One Flew Over The Cuckoo`s Nest, of which Chief Bromden provides a vivid example of an oddball, though not as aggressive and active as Jerry, but he gets his own way in the end of the story. Both Jerry and Albee himself play the role of rioters, sharing their wisdom and prophecies in the forms of parables, seemingly random actions and phrases, irony. Jerry even tickles Peter in a desperate try to get response. The function of prophesizing is what makes Jerry`s image correspond with that of Jesus Christ, a fact that was dwelled on earlier in my paper.
Like The Zoo Story, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett revolves around two characters whose often hilariously funny conversations and behavior hint at mysterious forces and surface realism and coexist with expressionistic, metaphorically pungent drama. The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend their days reliving their past trying to make sense of their existence, and even contemplate suicide as a form of escape. They are absurdist figures who remain detached from the audience, and their vaudeville mannerisms create a comic effect even when contemplating such serious matters as hanging themselves. There is a similarity to The Zoo Story in the way that class difference is also shown clearly, by introducing the characters of Pozzo and Lucky into the play. Vladimir, like Jerry, is in mental anguish, but he is a calmer sort of a person, the more resilient of the pair. Estragon is preoccupied with mundane things, like where to get food. Those two characters could not be any more different, but they belong together, they share a conspicuous form of understanding each other while experiencing communication problems from time to time. Waiting for Godot, as well as The Zoo Story, touches upon the topics existentialists dealt with. Both plays have Christian symbols incorporated into their fabric (The Cerberus – like dog in The Zoo Story- goatherds and shepherds, the story of the two thieves and the possible interpretation of the enigmatic Godot as the God Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for).