Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill Essay

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Hairy Ape

In Eugene O'Neill's play The Hairy Ape, the titular character, Yank, has an identity crisis while working on a ship, and travels through New York attempting to find somewhere where he belongs despite his rough appearance and undeveloped social skills. In the end Yank is ultimately unable to find anywhere to belong, but nonetheless, examining the two instances in which he comes relatively close, at the Industrial Workers of the World office and the zoo, helps to reveal what the play is saying about isolation and belonging in the modernized world. While Yank clearly does not belong with the rich, his attempts at finding solidarity either with fellow workers or even a literal hairy ape fail because modern society has essentially developed in order to keep Yank and others like him from engaging in the social realm, instead being relegated to the hellish bowels of a ship, only good for stoking fires.

The first place Yank visits where it seems as if he might really belong is the Industrial Workers of the World local, and indeed, when he first visits, the secretary of the union is excited to see him, welcoming Yank to New York and, in reference to the fact that Yank is a "stoker on de liners," the secretary actually says "glad to know you people are waking up at last. We haven't many members in your line" (O'Neill 72). Thus, at first glance, the IWW seems to be the ideal place for Yank to belong and find companionship, as he is not only welcomed but in some ways expected.

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However, Yank seems incapable of relaxing even when in the company of his ostensible peers, and he soon reveals that the IWW he wants to belong to is something far different than what he has found. The secretary, sensing Yank's violent personality, eventually forces him to reveal that all he wants to do is "blow tings up" (O'Neill 75). Yank thinks he has found the perfect place for himself, and even shouts "I belong!" after accusing the IWW of wanting to blow things up, but his social conditioning in the stokehold has simultaneously made him exceedingly violent and exceedingly incapable of interpreting any number of social cues, such that he completely misunderstands the secretary's intentions until "his arms and legs [are] pinioned [and] he is too flabbergasted to make a struggle" (O'Neill 76). The secretary then repeats the epithet that set Yank off on his journey in the first place, calling him "a brainless ape" (O'Neill 77).

Though one might be tempted to view this scene as a simple misunderstanding on Yank's part, it actually serves to demonstrate how fully Yank has been isolated from society, because he sees no productive course of action except for violence, and furthermore, his desire to blow up a steel factory stems….....

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