The One And Only Ivan

At the opening of The One and Only Ivan, Ivan says he lives behind the glass wall of a cage that separates him from humans, a barrier that says “you are this and we are that and that is how it will always be” (14). From the first pages of the novel, the symbolism of cages and walls emphasizes the unbridgeable separation between animals and humans. Applegate suggests that humans have created this separation because they fear the connection between humans and animals—it is “troubling” (5), Ivan says, that humans are so closely related to great apes with “four hundred pounds of pure power” (4). In large animals like gorillas and elephants, people see “a test of themselves” (4), and humans attempt to assert their dominance by caging animals. In so doing, humans deny animals their freedom, access to their natural habitats and others of their own kind.

For the first half of the novel, Ivan refers to his and his friends’ cages as “domain[s]” (7), a sign that he is not able to face the bleak reality of his entrapped life. However, after Stella dies and Ivan refuses to let Ruby suffer in a life of isolation and confinement, he tells the young elephant her home is “not a domain […] It’s a cage” (165). The symbol of cages also illustrates Ivan’s transformation, as he both sees the cruel way humans have treated him and his friends in all its bleak reality and then accesses his own anger, taking action to fight back against this treatment.

While cages symbolize human cruelty throughout the novel, these barriers dovetail with another symbol, that of zoos, to show how some people try to make up for the harm their fellow men have inflicted. According to Stella, zoos are “wild cage[s]” (64)—places where humans still keep animals separate and trapped, but where they have safety, space, and access to nature. Because cages and walls themselves are harmful, zoos can never be ideal—as Ivan says, “a perfect place would not need walls” (186)—but they do reveal that humans did not create all cages with malicious intent. However, when the novel ends, Ivan still sees his human friend Julia from the other side of his wild cage—“across the expanse that separates us” (300). While some cages are better than others, cages still emphasize the separation between human and animal worlds that animals can never cross.

Stella first introduces the idea of zoos when she tells Ivan “a good zoo is how humans make amends”—it’s a place where animals and humans are still separated by the walls of a “wild cage,” but where the animals are safe and have “room to roam” (64). “Good zoo[s]” develop the theme of human-animal relationships. They emphasize the separation of humans and animals, with animals in the disempowered position where they are unable to escape their confinement; yet at the same time, zoos show how some people work to keep animals safe and protected, and to give captive animals a life as close as possible to that they would enjoy in the wild.

The symbol of zoos becomes even more important when Ivan searches for a way to save Ruby from her life in the mall and happens to see an ad for a zoo on the TV in his cage. Ivan realizes the zoo is “not a perfect place” (186), because it still has walls—but he sees a group of elephants, living together as a family, and knows the zoo is “the place I need” (186). In the imperfect life of an animal who has been captured by humans, a good zoo is the best solution to provide Ruby with a life of companionship and contentment, and Ivan devotes himself to finding a way to get Ruby into a zoo.

By the end of the novel, not only Ruby, but Ivan himself finds a new home in a zoo. Finally able to live among nature—something so miraculous for Ivan, he spends an entire chapter listing the “grass,” “tree[s],” “bird[s]” (277), and other elements of the natural world he can finally enjoy—and in the company of other gorillas, Ivan discovers that this zoo is now “my life, my home” (300). The zoo therefore becomes a symbol of a safe, peaceful home for Ivan and other animals, a place where the gorilla can finally claim his true identity as “Mighty Silverback” (300).