BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature Guides Criticism/Essays Criticism/Essays Biographies Biographies My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help


In the Zoo Study Guide

Print-Friendly  Order the PDF version  Order the RTF version
by Jean Stafford
About 31 pages (9,270 words)
In the Zoo Summary

Bookmark and Share

Themes

Childhood Trauma

Daisy and the narrator's psychological trauma, stemming from their childhood with Gran, is not confined to their flashback, and it does not end with Gran's death. In fact, it continues to trouble them into their middle age, as is clear from the immediate urgency of the sisters' memories when Daisy mentions Mr. Murphy, from the intensity of their emotional farewell, and from the earnest letter that the narrator writes to her sister from the train. The sisters are no longer traumatized and defenseless orphans, but they are still attempting to deal with the "terror and humiliation" of their childhood.

The sisters' close relationship with each other and their abilities to build new lives for themselves suggest some hope in their attempt to move beyond their earlier psychological trauma. However, there are a.....

This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 787 words. This study guide contains 9,270 words (approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page).

Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our In the Zoo Access Pass.

 
Copyrights
In the Zoo from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.

Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags


About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy