Irving, John. Setting Free the Bears.

Setting Free the Bears is a novel divided into two narratives where one describes the family history of the protagonist Siggy during the Second World War while the other focuses on his plan to free all animals from the Vienna Zoo. Through intertwining the storylines, the novel explores the relationship between the zoo and historical oppression as Siggy starts waging a war against the zoo’s authoritative keepers and the captivity imposed on the animals. The text also provides an interesting perspective on what would happen if all the zoo-animals would be released into an urban landscape.

Secondary texts: 

• Abádi-Nagy, Zoltán. 1982. “From Graff to Garp: The World According to John Irving.” Hungarian Studies in English 15: 23 – 42. 
• Malamud, Randy. 1998. “Cages.” Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Irving, John. 1968. Setting Free the Bears. New York: Random House.