The Hairy Ape

 

All of O'Neil l's plays are written from a personal point of view and reflect on the tragedy of the human condition. His plays deal specifically with the American tragedy, rooted in American history and social movement.

Yank is the protagonist of the play. Who is portrayed as a British and labour who searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich like Nazareth steel. The play is divided into eight scenes and there are many laborers like Yank in the play with  some high class character as well. Those characters are Mildred Douglas, her aunt. The secretary at I. W. W. (Industrial workers of the world.)

Yank's fellow workers are paddy, long and other fireman. So, from the very beginning O'Neil has started presenting the class difference with the used of language and other description.

O'Neil real intention behind writing such a mini play is to only figure out the situation of oppressed industrial working people or class. No doubt the play is the representation of classification but it also demonstrate how the working class people are treated by their masters or rather by their upper class people.  Mildred Douglas is from upper class society and she behaves very rudely with Yank and class him.

Before that Yank feels that he is the master of the ship as he is the leader of his working group and engine of the ship. 'Transatlantic ocean liner'. This play also presents how the Society is divided into two parts specifically:" The upper class" and "Lower class".

Eugene O'Neil has perhaps clearly demonstrated the American condition during his time that period is also called industrialized one as if was highly affected by if, and the condition of laborers because of this industries became pitiable. They were not having to their belongingness, something special which they can call  their own or their identity itself.Throughout the play 'Yank' searches for his real identity but finds none. O'Neil indirectly asks very
suggestive questions like,' what is more important being as a slave or being filthy like an animal?' , 'Are slave really filthy or the master themselves?' If it is mind then neither Yank nor other fireman but the upper class people are filthy so far as their thinking regarding superiority is concerned.

Though they are free they are bound by their master. So, it can be said that they are, " Free without Freedom ".

As the industrial environment is presented as dehumanizing, O'Neil presents, how the laborers also presents how humanity is subsiding in this materialistic era.

Yank has also been interpreted as representative of the human condition alienated from nature by his isolated consciousness unable to find  belonging in any social group or environment. This play also reveals how deeply and rigidly class is inscriber into American culture and the culture and financial boundaries it erects.