Summary
Julia and George come to say goodbye to Ivan that night. George gathers his tools. Julia tells Ivan that Mack fired George, though the zoo lady said maybe there’ll be job openings for cage cleaners at the zoo. Ivan stares into Julia’s eyes through the glass. Julia worries when she doesn’t know where Bob went. Julia gets a gleam in her eye and says Bob could live with them. But George says he can’t afford it. Julia gives Ivan a picture of him and Ruby; Ivan is smiling.
In the morning Ivan’s cage is propped open. Using treats and clicks from a small metal device, the animal keeper, who is named Maya, leads Ivan into his box. Ruby is still in her cage, unwilling yet to move into the box. But once she sees Ivan get into his, she says she thinks she’ll go in the next day.
That night Mack enters Ivan’s domain and says he’ll miss Ivan, whose stomach drops when he learns he is leaving the next day. When the time comes, Ruby enters her box first. Ivan gives Bob Not-Tag and says goodbye. Ivan enters his box. He grows sleepy, thinking about the sunlight coming through jungle canopy. He awakes while the box is moving, and feels as though he is in the belly of some great beast.
When he awakes, Ivan is in a glass and steel cage. It is not unlike his old cage, only cleaner. Maya is there, but Ivan misses his old cozy cage, his art, and Bob. The food is fine, but he misses soda and cotton candy. The only visitors are Maya and her humans. He wonders if he has stopped being famous. One day he notices a change in the air. Maya brings him a TV to watch gorillas groom each other and eat and sleep. One day Maya pulls a string to remove the wall of wooden slats and reveals the gorilla family Ivan had been watching on TV. There are three females and a juvenile male on the other side of the glass. Every day he watches them and the graceful way they live. They stare back, hooting and pointing.
Ivan admires the canine teeth of one of the females, Kinyani. She is terrifying and beautiful, like a painting that moves. The humans lead him to the door but Ivan isn’t ready to meet the other gorillas. He is used to being just Ivan, only Ivan. He lies awake that night thinking about all the questions Ruby would ask him: he concludes that she would be curious to know what was on the other side of the door. The next day, he thinks of Ruby as he walks through the door. Once through, he takes in the sky, grass, trees, bugs, birds, sticks, flowers, rocks, and rain, all of which is his.
However, Kinyani chases Ivan into a corner; he knows she is testing to see if he is a true silverback who can protect her family. He cowers, then Maya leads him back into his cage. That night he tries to remember what he would have been like before the diapers and popcorn and human traits he learned from Mack. The next time he enters the gorilla domain, he beats his chest until the juvenile retreats. Ivan builds a nest, and the other gorillas grunt in disapproval.
Maya leads Ivan back to his glass cage, tempting him with a trail of marshmallows. He doesn’t want to leave the cloudless day, but yogurt raisins tempt him. The TV is on, displaying images of Ruby enjoying herself with other elephants. Maya removes the TV and Ivan tries to thank her with his eyes.
Kinyani engages Ivan in a game of tag. Ivan tries to make eye contact and strut and grunt to appear attractive to her. Gradually he begins grooming with the others. They exchange stories. He explores the boundaries of the outdoor enclosure and finds a tall white wall, reflecting that this is still a cage. He picks up a pile of mud and sees the white wall as an endless blank billboard. While his troop dozes in the sun, Ivan gets to work, making muddy prints. He climbs a tree to get a better view of his work when he is done. From his perch in the tree, he can see beyond the wall, where there are giraffes and deer and a bear and elephants. Ruby is safe, lumbering through tall grass, just like he promised Stella.
On a cloudy day Julia and George visit Ivan. Bob’s head pops out of Julia’s backpack. Bob says Julia and George struck a deal where she gets to keep Bob, whose company her mother likes. Julia shows Ivan a picture of Ruby happily living with other elephants. When the zoo lights switch on, Julia and George leave. Bob sticks his head out of Julia’s backpack and calls out to Ivan, saying he’s the One and Only Ivan. Ivan nods, then turns to his family and home and whispers to himself, “Mighty Silverback.”
Analysis
Though Ivan had wanted to save Ruby from the life of humiliation and mistreatment that Stella endured, he hadn’t anticipated that his own life would also drastically change. The animals’ liberation is bittersweet: Ivan has to say goodbye to Julia, Bob, and Ruby, who have become like family. Maya, the zoo’s professional gorilla handler, knows how accustomed he has become to his surroundings, so they ease him into the practice of entering the transport box until he is comfortable with the idea. Eventually, he and Ruby learn not to fear the box.
To lessen the stress of being moved, Ivan is tranquilized without his knowledge, waking only briefly during transport. He awakens in a new cage, and finds that he misses the environment he had been used to. It seems as if the humans are subjecting him to a new kind of mistreatment, and increasing his isolation.
What Ivan doesn’t know is that the zoo handlers are easing him into the gorilla pasture. First they get him and the others accustomed to his presence by keeping him in a cage on the pasture and exposing him to images of the other gorillas. Later, they initiate bursts of contact so as not to have conflict among the gorillas.
As Ivan spends more time with his new troop, he learns how to shed his human habits and relearns how to access his animal instincts. He embraces the open pasture and the other gorillas, with whom he will breed, and lead. Maya understands that he must miss Ruby, and so shows him images on the TV of Ruby adapting to her new environment. Ivan feels even less isolated after climbing a tree to admire his artwork; beyond the wall, he sees Ruby in her pasture, living happily with other elephants.
The novel ends with Julia, Bob, and George coming to visit Ivan. Julia, who might otherwise have been lonely without Ivan, now carries Bob in her backpack. Ivan learns that the family has adopted Bob, and Julia’s mother has taken a shine to him. Julia also reassures Ivan that Ruby is happy now. The last paragraphs see Ivan regaining a feeling of pride at his name: rather than the One and Only Ivan connoting his loneliness and isolation as the only gorilla, he has assumed his natural place as the mighty silverback, the one and only leader of his troop.
