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In Only the Animals, zoos symbolize humans’ power over animals. The various animals in the collection who live in zoos, such as Red Peter, the black bear, and the elephants Castor and Pollux, all find themselves at the mercy of their human caretakers. The chimp Red Peter, for instance, lives in a “zoo without bars,” even in the story’s present when he’s learned enough to be considered human. In many ways, he’s still a zoo animal—he visits the zoo to lecture, which draws visitors, in addition to lecturing in other venues around Hamburg—even though he lives a life that seems shockingly human. But as World War I grips Germany and Hamburg’s residents begin to suffer from famine, Red Peter cannot continue to pass for human. He ultimately ends up back behind bars in the laboratory at the zoo, destined to become dinner for his starving human lover, Evelyn. Peter’s story suggests that even if he considered himself human and no longer a zoo attraction, he never actually stopped being a zoo animal in other people’s eyes—and therefore, he can never escape the power that humans have over him.
Other zoo animals in the collection experience similar fates. Zoo animals like Castor, Pollux, and the bears in the Sarajevo zoo are prized members of their communities until war and famine strike. And at that point, animals find themselves either starving (many people in the stories can’t justify feeding animals when there are hungry people) or slaughtered to feed those hungry people. Zoos, then, encapsulate the idea that animals in the care of people are powerless.
Zoos Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below all refer to the symbol of Zoos. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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I, the Elephant, Wrote This: Soul of Elephant
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“A zoo,” she said to them, “is a very dangerous place for an animal in wartime, for it can mean the difference between life and death for the human inhabitants of a city. But it was not the poor who ate the zoo animals in Paris.”
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Telling Fairy Tales: Soul of Bear
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“I’m waiting for her to die so I can eat her.” He chewed at the bread.
“Why wait?” asked the witch.
“People would stop risking their lives, dodging sniper bullets to bring me bread, if they thought I had no heart, eating her while she’s still half alive,” the bear said.
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It was dark in the zoo by now, darker than it had ever been before the siege started, for the city of Sarajevo no longer relied on electricity. It had become medieval, lightless, its citizens forced to fetch water from underground springs and to wash by candlelight. And the zoo was no longer a modern thoroughfare for the ogling masses. Now the few who dared visit brought sacred offerings of food. The two last remaining animals had become central to the city’s very survival, to the idea of the city’s survival.
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“But you must see what sort of position this would put us in. Smuggling two bears out of Sarajevo in a food-relief convoy—what does that say to the people left behind? Why bears, not babies? I mean, a busload of children trying to get out of the city was fired on, and we’re spending time worrying about these wild animals? We can’t allow it, I’m afraid.” He was the only one who had not brought stale bread in his pockets for the bears.
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Get the entire Only the Animals LitChart as a printable PDF.
Zoos Symbol Timeline in Only the Animals
The timeline below shows where the symbol Zoos appears in Only the Animals. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Red Peter’s Little Lady: Soul of Chimpanzee (Died 1917, Germany)
...others indulge. Peter asks Hazel to think of how Herr Hagenbeck decided to create a zoo without bars. Now, Hazel must mentally put the bars back and deny herself pleasure. Eventually,...
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...preface to Hazel’s letter. She understands that Peter doesn’t want to visit Hazel in the zoo until she’s ready to be his companion, but she’d appreciate it if Peter told his...
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In her letter to Peter, Hazel writes that the zoo is noisy. She’s itchy, but Frau Oberndorff won’t let her scratch. Instead, the woman bathes...
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...Peter has been forced to go along with it for the sake of Hagenbeck’s “cursed zoo.” If he had a choice, and if Evelyn had a choice, Peter would choose Evelyn....
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...and philosophy. Soon after, he moved to other lodgings and began to speak at the zoo.
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...next letter that she and the children are fine, but they’re struggling to feed the zoo animals. Earlier, Evelyn’s children stole some food and they celebrated their meal enthusiastically—and of course,...
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...asked Evelyn to charge spectators to watch her starve. But few people come to the zoo anyway—nobody wants to see animals eating, even if it’s just turnip peels. Hazel dictated another...
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...people by fasting for 40 days. She asks if Peter remembers him sitting in the zoo. People soon lost interest, and the man whom the Artist had hired to make sure...
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I, the Elephant, Wrote This: Soul of Elephant (Died 1987, Mozambique)
...other’s foreheads. They’re pretending to be Castor and Pollux, giving Parisian children rides around the zoo. They don’t understand why the elephant is angry (she’s afraid), so they run away and...
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The elephant’s sister says that during wartime, a zoo is a dangerous place for an animal. This is because, for humans, a zoo can...
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Telling Fairy Tales: Soul of Bear (Died 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
...bodies instead of bread, but the witch stays silent. She looks for movement across the zoo. The zoo is in no man’s land near the front line, and there aren’t many...
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One night, a group of “important foreigners,” escorted by several soldiers, venture into the zoo to feed the bears. As he drops bread through the bars of the bear’s cage,...
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...the bear. When Karol heard the bear would live out his days at the Edinburgh Zoo, he was envious. He, too, wanted to be cared for and not have to do...
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...dies at the end of October, holding tight to the brown bear’s ribcage. All the zoo’s enclosures tell the same story: “life mates eaten in madness,” and “beloved consumed at last...
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