Jacob Janiko Analysis

The story is told as a series of memories by Jacob Jankowski, a "ninety or ninety-three year-old" man who lives in a nursing home. Jacob is told what to eat and what to do.
As the memories begin, Jacob Jankowski is twenty-three years old and preparing for his final exams as a Cornell University veterinary student when he receives the news that his parents were killed in a car accident. Jacob’s father was a veterinarian and Jacob had planned to join his practice. When Jacob learns that his father was deeply in debt because he had been treating animals for free as well as mortgaging the family home to provide Jacob an Ivy League education, he has a breakdown and leaves school just short of graduation. In the dark of night, he jumps on a train
Alternately, he can be utterly charming. Jacob develops a guarded relationship with August and his wife, Marlena, with whom Jacob falls in love. August is suspicious of their relationship and beats Marlena and Jacob. Marlena subsequently leaves August and stays at a hotel while she's not performing. Uncle Al then informs Jacob that August is a paranoid schizophrenic and then utters a threat: reunite August and Marlena as a happily married couple or Walter and Camel get
Soon after he comforts her however, the couple sleeps together and then eventually declares their love for each other. Marlena soon returns to the circus to perform (and also to have secret meetings with Jacob), but refuses to have August near her, which makes Uncle Al furious. Days later Marlena informs Jacob that she is pregnant.
One night Jacob climbs up and jumps each car, while the train is moving, to August's room, carrying a knife between his teeth intending to kill August. However, Jacob backs out and returns to his car, only to find no one there but Queenie. He then realizes that Walter and Camel were red-lighted and Jacob himself was supposed to be too.
As the story climaxes, several circus workers who were red-lighted off the train come back and release the animals causing a stampede during the performance.
In the ensuing panic, August is killed by Rosie the elephant, and the only one who sees the incident is Jacob. As a result of this incident, which occurred during a circus performance, the circus is shut down. Soon after, Uncle Al's body is found with a makeshift garrote around his neck. Marlena and Jacob leave, along with several circus animals (Rosie, Queenie and others), and begin their life