The One and Only Ivan Themes

The One and Only Ivan is the story of Ivan, a gorilla who has spent most of his life living in the Big Top Mall. There, Ivan lives with an elephant named Stella, a small stray dog named Bob, and a variety of other domestic and exotic animals who perform in three shows per day, every day of the year. Ivan can more or less ignore how unfulfilling and sad his life…

Though the animal characters in The One and Only Ivan describe the various cruelties they’ve experienced at human hands, they also highlight the times when humans have been surprisingly kind. The baby elephant Ruby, for instance, acknowledges that bad humans killed her family and captured her—but she also feels extremely grateful to the kind humans who rescued her from a hole filled with water before she was captured. And both Ivan (a gorilla) and…

Ivan insists for much of the novel that he doesn’t remember his past. He is “the opposite of an elephant” in that he remembers nothing, while his elephant friend Stella remembers everything. Though Stella suggests at various points that remembering is a useful tool, Ivan doesn’t believe her until the baby elephant Ruby arrives at the Big Top Mall, and Stella dies not long after. Having made a promise to Stella to help Ruby live…

Ivan has lived his life alone in a shopping mall, and he hasn’t seen another gorilla in the 27 years since he arrived there. Having spent so many years living with humans and other animals rather than gorillas, and being billed as a frightening roadside attraction for tourists, Ivan isn’t sure of who or what he is—it’s not always entirely clear to him whether he’s supposed to be a person or a gorilla, or whether…