The Hairy Ape – Eugene O’Neill

Eugene Gladstone O’Neill is undoubtedly one of the best playwrights in American Literature. He needs unquestionable appreciation for having handled the weapon of Realism skillfully to cut down on the fancy dramatic style. His works generally reflect a sense of distrust and tragic ending.

For years, his work, “Hairy Ape” has been termed as an expressionistic play bringing a great surge of popularity amongst suppressed working classes of the American Society. The play is dramatized by presenting an ocean liner in which stokers strive from dawn to dusk, stooping too low to scoop coal right into the furnace. Humiliated, with no solid identity & bent like an ancient man, the stokers are subject to excruciating physical pain while they are at work.

Yank, the protagonist is “ all Brawns No brains” kinda guy who strongly believes that he is one of the only great symbols of physical strength. However, slowly, his characteristic of being too hefty is diminished by the interference of the thought process induced by the pale and weak, Mildred Douglas, daughter of a steel tycoon. She calls Yank “ Filthy Beast” which hurts Yank in turn depressing him to the extent of avenging her brutally. O’Neill Depicts the transformation of Yank’s characteristics of Being an “Aggressive force “ to a “tHinker” – to which his crew tease him saying “think” when Yank pronounces “tink”.

Also the mental agony that Yank undergoes is heavy and triggers an alarm inside him to register himself in the IWW or the Industrial Workers of the World. The association is pictured as one big community uniting workers of the lower cadre to potentially rebel the capitalists of the society. Objectively, introducing a rule of the suppressed is the elemental thought of the IWW. Yank is arrested by the cops at the Fifth Avenue when he bashes a man at the bustop. Long, his colleague, sows seeds of anti-capitalist thoughts into Yank resulting in the scene at the Fifth Avenue.

The ending sequence gets to Yank, being thrown out of the IWW, for not being able to answer and abide by the rules of the community. Again, his status as a thinker descends, attributes to being stupid. Yank, over again, hurt, leaves to a zoo and encounters a gorilla to which he equates himself stating “the Hairy Ape”. His foolishness does not end just there! When he tries to make friends with the gorilla, Yank is crushed to death.

The Changeover that the hero of the play encounters is subtly explained with the influence of opposing characters. When Yank says he is trying to “tink”, everyone mocks at him saying “Don’t tink, just drink” which is a rhyme scheme yet a broken conversation within the stokers. In the Hairy Ape, O’Neill reveals the truth that change inside Yank sequentially weakens him, putting him to the clutches of death.

O’Neill stages reality and his thematic depiction of the idea is entirely dependent on the style of One-One conversation ( Playwright- audience) eliminating the tools like presentation of dramatic versions. A Cordial approach to audience elucidating the harsh reality of life,degradation of distinctiveness and the search for a new yet real one with the blue collared cader of the society taking the role of presenters, makes Hairy Ape a play that’s worth a million!!