The Hairy Ape, Essay Example

 “The Hairy Ape” as a Study of Class Struggle

The play “The Hairy Ape,” by Eugene O’Neill, is a brief but powerful study of class struggle, of the contrasts between the working class and the moneyed class. O’Neill uses vivid imagery and language to convey a sense of the very different worlds inhabited by the main characters.

The story begins below decks of a steam ship, where the “firemen” who feed coal into the engines live and work. Their world is limited in many ways: physically, it is dark and cramped and noisy, requiring the firemen to constantly stoop over; beyond that, the men themselves are limited by their class. They concern themselves mostly with drinking and working, speaking to each other in coarse, guttural language.

The world above, on the open deck of the ship, is wide open, bathed in sunlight. The people there are relaxing, and lounging in deck chairs. One of the main characters, Mildred is curious about the world beyond the limits imposed by her class, and wants to visit below decks to see what life is like there. As it turns out, she is shocked by what she discovers. Yank, the main character, appears to her to be nothing more than a “hairy ape;” his brutish demeanor so appalls and frightens her that the sight of him makes her faint.

Just as Mildred wanted to see life beyond her limited world, Yank, awakening to a realization of the limits of his world, ventures out from the bowels of the ship. He is so angered by Mildred’s reaction that he wants to seek revenge on her, and goes looking for her. The world he finds “out there” is, in its own way, as limited as the world inside the ship. The people he comes across all mill about in a nearly mechanical way. In much the same way as Yank was a cog in the machine of the ship, so too are these people like cogs in the machine of the world above. They rush around from place to place, saying nothing more than “I beg your pardon” when Yank bumps into them in an attempt to start a fight.

As the story progresses, Yank start to realize that he doesn’t fit in anywhere. His sense of awareness of his class, his lot in life, has pushed him beyond the confines of the ship, but as he explores the larger world, he doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. His attempts to start a fight land him in jail, where he learns about the I.W.W. a worker’s union. He goes to visit thief office, in hopes that he might join, but is taken for a spy, and summarily ejected. He finally wanders into the monkey house at the zoo, thinking that at least the lowly gorilla will understand a “hairy ape” like Yank. But when he breaks into the cage, the gorilla crushes and kills him.

This imagery of his encounter with the gorilla serves as a metaphor for Yank’s place –or lack thereof- in the world. As he becomes aware of the differences between his world –dark and cramped and noisy- and the world above –bright and shiny and filled with all the things money can buy- he also becomes aware that he doesn’t belong in either world. In a sense, once he left the ship, he was doomed never to return. And as he ventured into the world beyond the ship, and began to realize that he didn’t fit in anywhere, the realization crushed him with the same finality that the gorilla in the cage crushed him.