Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape illustrates a tragedy of the power struggle and class-division in society during the Progressive Era. During this time laborers struggled to survive on the most dreadful working conditions. Most people of the working class were destined to live in poverty for the rest of their lives (“Overview of the Progressive Era”). The plot of The Hairy Ape reflects this society, although O’Neill dramatizes it into a tragedy. In Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape, the author explores themes relevant to society such as self-identity, social issues, and the power struggle in the twentieth century. The main character, Yank, represents an ordinary working class citizen. His life spirals out of control when Mildred, the daughter of a steel company owner, calls him a “filthy beast.” After this encounter with Mildred, Yank struggles to find order in his life once more but he no longer feels welcome in the society he is placed in. Feeling degraded, Yank desperately tries to find his true place in society. He finds it in the most ironic of places: inside a gorilla’s cage in the zoo. Mildred’s comment put a large amount of power over Yank and he takes the remark made about him to heart in the most dramatic way, ultimately leading to his demise. According to Carpenter, “The Hairy Ape dealt with man’s quest for perfection and peace” (69). O’Neill narrates the tragedy of an individual’s internal struggle after all security and order was stripped away in his life.
Yank’s encounter with Mildred is a prime example of alienation in society and the search for self-identity in The Hairy Ape. With a major in sociology, Mildred eagerly goes to her family-owned steel company in hopes to learn more about the lower class. Mildred, according to Öğünç’s article, symbolizes “Both the power of the upper class, money in the capitalist system, and the sensitivity of her gender” (862). The imagery of the stokehole is like a fiery hell. Paddy, one of the laborers, describes the working conditions in Scene 1 saying they are “Caged in by steel from a sight of the sky like bloody apes in the Zoo!” Down there, there is only heat and dirty laborers. Mildred ignorantly wore all white when visiting the stokes. Yank recalls Mildred to be ghost-like, saying, “She was all white. I tought she was a ghost.” (Scene 4). Once she gets there, Mildred sees the reality of the working class and wants nothing to do with the filthy men. Even though she was told not to go into the stokehole, Mildred disobeys and has an unfortunate encounter with one of the working men, which just so happened to be Yank. Undoubtedly, Mildred’s curiosity got to the best of her and the sociology major runs away, horrified at what she saw. Even though she is among the wealthy in society with economic privilege, Mildred feels powerless in her own life. She pities the lower class while admiring the smoke that comes from the factory’s chimneys. The laborers are the ones who made her family, the Douglases, wealthy. This is foreshadowing a few moments later when Yank and Mildred see each other for the first time. Upon seeing each other, Mildred, a pale figure dressed in all white, and Yank, covered head to toe in a thick black layer of smoke and coal, stare blankly as though they have seen a ghost. Mildred then proceeds to call Yank a “filthy beast.” Yank would ponder over this traumatizing encounter, later remembering wrong to think that Mildred called him a hairy ape. Both characters are alienated from society in their own way. Yank is a typical working class American at the steel company who in the beginning of the play seems content with his line of work. According to Farhoudi, et. al, Yank “Takes the leading position of his class for his natural strength and enthusiasm… as opposed to mutely submitting”(164). It is only after the encounter with Mildred when Yank realizes that he is truly unhappy with his life. Mildred is also unhappy in her life, as she feels that she has no power or importance in her family’s riches. She is rather unsatisfied and struggles to find her place in society. Mildred did not grow up doing hard work, she only enjoyed the benefits from it. She had hoped that by going to the stokehole there would be some sort of learning experience or enlightenment in her life. Instead, all she saw was a filthy man. They both struggle to find their place in society after their encounter, Mildred disappearing from the narrative altogether, and Yank making a dramatic quest to find his place. According to Brugnoli, “Yank and Mildred (and the categories they represent as “their most highly developed individual[s]”) can be seen as opposed paradigms of self-identity” (47). Even though to the audience Yank is supposed to be portrayed as the outcast, it is really Mildred who is the outcast. She, compared to Yank, is the one out of place, as she is wearing something rather inappropriate to the dirty stokehole. Following Mildred’s disappearance, Yank makes a great effort to look for Mildred after that horrible first impression. He believes that if he sees Mildred again, he could restore his identity that he lost when Mildred insulted him. The comment she made destroyed not only his ego, but it destroyed his overall content in his place in society. Yank is better off believing he was content working in the stokehole as he says, “Steel was me, and I owned de woild. Now I ain’t steel, and de woild owns me. Aw, hell! I can’t see–it’s all dark, get me?” (Scene 7). Feeling alienated and lost, Yank struggles to find his true identity. Misunderstanding Mildred’s comment from the stokehole, Yank finds himself relating to the hairy ape. Yank sees the gorilla in the steel cage at the zoo, trapped inside from the outside world. Both Yank and the gorilla are alienated from society, so he metaphorically sees himself in that situation. Ironically, when the gorilla throws Yank into the cage, Yank finds himself stuck in another steel cage once more, as he compares it to being back in the stokehole. “Acutely aware of his social inferiority… he could find peace at last only in death, in the arms of a gorilla” (Carpenter 69).
Throughout The Hairy Ape, O’Neill expressed his Marxist ideologies through the voice of Yank. Yank represents how Marx believed individuals in society can become alienated from everyone else as their work consumes them. O’Neill also displays the class-division in this play from the layout of the ship. Farhoudi, et. al says that the ship is a representation of society as a whole. The laborers are working in poor conditions in the fiery stokehole of the ship, while the upper class is relaxing above them, enjoying their freedom and leisurely life (162-163). Therefore, the Douglas family represents capitalism as they have the most social and political control in the steel production industry. Unlike Yank, Long has a clear understanding of his place in society. “He mentions their being enslaved in the stokehole and talks about inequality in the society” (171). Through Long, O’Neill makes his political beliefs known to his audience by saying laborers are being overworked by the upper class Capitalists who control them. Long narrates a passionate Marxist speech about class consciousness, saying, “I wants to convince yer she was on’y a representative of ’er clarss. I wants to awaken yer bloody clarss consciousness. Then yer’ll see it’s ’er clarss yer’ve got to fight, not ’er alone. There’s a ’ole mob of ’em like ’er, Gawd blind ’em!” (Scene 5). At this time, Americans had to quickly adapt to the innovative technology being invented (“Overview of the Progressive Era”). This impacted the working class Americans the most, as they were losing their jobs to machines. Some workers, like Yank, found a way to work with technology by working in the stokehole. Most of the working class men were immigrants that desperately needed work, even if it meant low pay and poor working conditions (Costly, “Election Central: The Progressives and Direct Democracy”). At the beginning of the play, Yank took pride in his line of work, even though he lives a miserable life as a stoker. It is evident that if Mildred and Yank had not seen each other that Yank would have continued to work in the stokehole thinking that is where he truly belonged. Mildred’s comment about Yank being a “filthy beast” completely changes his perspective on society as he grew with anger and lashed out against society. “Thus, Yank feels as if his assumed power is challenged by Mildred. This leads Yank to an awakening, to a quest that results in a loss of belonging and identity” (Banu 862). Soon Yank’s paranoia gets to the best of him, where he starts to believe he is a filthy beast, or to his misunderstanding, a hairy ape. He strips himself all of humanization and begins to act like a beast, embracing Mildred’s surprise utterance. By Yank going to the zoo to see the ape, he no longer wants to be part of society anymore. Looking for acceptance and empathy, Yank never does find it because he is killed instantly by the ape. “The gorilla crushes him in a deadly embrace, enraged by the mocking tone of Yank’s voice” (Nastić 204). Yank believes, since he was recognized as a filthy beast in the stokes, that he is one. He goes to the gorilla’s cage to be welcomed, and he believes that his place in society is inside the cage, too. Instead, he was embraced into a murderous hug. Yank falls to the floor of the steel cage with cracked ribs and knows he is about to die. His final thought in the play is his realization that he, in fact, does not belong anywhere. Mildred took away Yank’s blind content thinking his role working in the stokes was important to society, but even the ape did not accept him. Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape was set in the Progressive Era, a time in the United States where they were innovating society at a rapid pace. The Progressive Era is most iconic for the heavy social, economic, and political reforms in this period. The goal for these reforms was to make America a better society to live in and battle corporate greed. Some of these reforms included issues such as prohibition, child labor, natural resources, and immigration. Most of the support during the Progressive Era reforms came from the middle class that lived in urban areas and were college-educated. They mostly strived to improve working conditions and some supported the women’s suffrage movement (“Overview of the Progressive Era”). During this time four amendments were passed by the federal government, which authorized income tax, provided for the direct election of senators, gave women the right to vote, and prohibited alcohol (Costly, “Election Central: The Progressives and Direct Democracy”). Beginning as a social movement, the Progressive movement soon became a party, and almost all of the Progressive Party ideas became a law. The idea of corporate greed from the Progressive Party is explored in The Hairy Ape when Yank realizes that he is not benefiting off of his hard labor working in the stokehole. It is people like Mildred, white-collar citizens who benefit off of people like Yank. It was almost impossible for a lower class laborer to attain any higher class. America’s obsession with materialism swept the nation, creating an economic boom. This, however, caused the working class to work long, grueling hours in poor working conditions (“Overview of the Progressive Era”). Eugene O’Neill addressed the political issues in his play The Hairy Ape, depicting the poor working conditions and his portrayal of the different social classes in the United States. This play arguably criticizes capitalism as Yank challenges America’s capitalist society in this play. The Hairy Ape successfully does so, as O’Neill includes distinct heavy dialect of lower working class citizens and show their place in society as inferior. They are ignorant to the reality of their situation working in the stokehole that benefit only the wealthy. As Carpenter writes, “The play marks the beginning of O’Neill’s long war with the soul-destroying materialism of American society” (99).
Yank serves as a symbol for the working class of America as a whole. He is described as inconsiderate, careless, and aggressive. He is one of many laborers that work for the Douglases, who thrive off of laborers like Yank. These men work as machines, bent over with their shovels together in unison. They are the ones that power the engine, and the upper class sees them as nothing more than dirty laborers. The Douglas family represent capitalism in America, as they build their wealth from their hired laborers hard work. O’Neill’s play reflects the idea that America is a materialistic nation. In The Hairy Ape the characters only interact with those in their class. If they interact with others from a different social class, it does not go well. Before going into the stokehole, Mildred only interacted with those in the upper class. She wanted to see how the laborers acted, like visiting a zoo, as they worked in her family’s steel company. The clashing of the interaction between the two classes are doomed to only do harm. After their horrific encounter, Yank becomes more mindful and aware of the different social classes, and he is angry about the way the upper class views the lower class. To them, he is only seen as a “filthy beast.” Yank believed that he was a strong, hardworking American citizen, and was taken aback by this comment. From there, Yank goes through somewhat of an existential crisis. He wants to find where he truly belongs in this materialistic and capitalistic society. Mildred did not see him as a laborer, or a man, as Yank was, instead he was nothing more than just a “filthy beast.” Long tries to help Yank feel better about himself by taking him to Fifth Avenue. His intentions were that if the other people of the upper class saw him as a regular human, not a beast, that Yank would feel better and he would stop dissecting Mildred’s meaningless comment. Long tried to tell Yank that Mildred was just one person; she did not represent the upper class as a whole. However, Banu contradicts, saying in their article, “Mildred can be perceived symbolizing both the power of the upper class, money in the capitalist system, and the sensitivity of her gender” (862). He also believed that Yank took Mildred’s comment too personally. Yank should not take personal offense to it or blow it out of proportion. After all, it’s been three weeks since the encounter and Yank is still constantly thinking about her comment. Showing up unshaven and ragged, he does not look like the upper class pedestrians walking around Fifth Avenue. In this scene, Yank takes all of his anger out of the upper class churchgoers walking on the streets and lashes out, resulting in Yank getting arrested. While in prison, Yank finds himself in yet another cage. He soon associates the prison as being like a zoo, and this is when he fully embraces his beast-like qualities. Up to this point, Yank continuously finds himself in situations where he is rejected and alienated by society. In his final moments, Yank goes to the zoo as his last hope of acceptance. However, when he opens the gorilla’s cage, the gorilla attacks Yank and brutally kills him. The audience can sympathize with Yank to an extent, as all he wanted in his life was acceptance in this capitalistic society.
The trip to Fifth Avenue is when Yank learns of the power struggle between social classes during this time in American history. In this scene from The Hairy Ape, he believes that he is seen nothing more than part of his class. Yank is a part of the lower class and that is all that he will ever be. Vowing to seek revenge on Mildred for her life-altering comment, Yank wants nothing more than to prove her wrong. The shocking comments made in The Hairy Ape is that he wanted revenge physically, too. Since he is unable to out class her, as she is a part of the upper class, his only way to attain any sort of revenge is physical. This, however, does not go through as he is unable to find Mildred ever again. The only way he could prove Mildred wrong is by finding his belonging in society, which as the audience learns, never happens. According to Carpenter, “Almost by definition, the primitive hero can never “belong” to the super-civilized heroine: the title, the characterization, the dialogue, the scenery, and the stage directions all emphasize this” (100). The time Yank spent in jail is when he truly loses his mind. Having continuous nightmares, Yank dreams every night that he becomes the hairy ape, trapped inside a cage. This is a metaphor to his situation, whereas he is trapped in the jail cell and cannot escape. Yank is now embracing his “hairy ape” as an outcast in society. Mildred, however, is going through her own existential crisis in The Hairy Ape. When she visited the stokehole, she learned of the worker class power struggle, something she had never experienced before since she is part of the upper class. Her family’s steel company has been owned by her family for generations. In her situation, like in many others, her grandparents came from the working class and built their family into the wealth that it has today. When she saw Yank, she saw something she had never seen before in its true state, a working class man working for her in the stokes. Yank thought Mildred was judging him and seeing him as inferior. From there, he set out to get revenge on Mildred for making him feel alienated from society. He believed that she was the reason why he had lost his identity. According to Nastić, “His rebellious hysteria leads to his inevitable death, which can be seen as his choice, his opting out of a world devoid of meaning” (Nastić 203).
The Hairy Ape explores timeless themes of the American working class such as self-identity, social issues, and the power struggle. This tragedy tells the tale of Yank, a working class American, who struggles to find his belonging in society. Set during the Progressive Era, a time where there were heavy social, economic, and political reforms, O’Neill explores these ideologies in this play. Many reforms in the United States at this time strived for better working conditions. America was an innovative society and wanted to make this nation better to live in. The Hairy Ape is a great example of the social class division at this time in history as well. There is a clear division between the lower class and the upper class. The working class were destined to work long, hard hours of labor work and almost all would be living in poverty for the rest of their lives. The upper class, on the other hand, employed the lower class and gave them poor working conditions with little pay. Yank was one of the few that seemed content with working in the stokes, as he seemed in control in his position. Of all of the workers, Yank took the lead and he felt that he had power in his place in society. In the end of The Hairy Ape leading up to Yank’s ultimate demise, his last words of never finding his place in society express his feeling of isolation. Never finding acceptance within himself or in others, Yank dies a tragic death before he could find acceptance. In The Hairy Ape, Eugene O’Neill criticizes heavily on capitalism in America and struggles Americans face. The popularity of this play among the working class of America was outstanding, and O’Neill made this play relatable to them through his use of distinct heavy dialect and the reality of the struggles they faced. This play is a tragedy about modern society and the power struggle in the United States. As for O’Neill, according to Farhoudi et. al, “[The Hairy Ape] remains one of my favorites. I have an enduring affection for it–always will have–and an enduring respect for it as drama, the more so because so few people have ever seen what it is all about” (162).