The Hairy Ape- Eugene O'Neil

The Hairy Ape by Eugene O' Neil

Eugene O'Neil's play The Hairy Ape is one that plays upon class differences and the social divide between the upper class and the working class. In the first few scenes of his work, O'Neil sets the stage describing Yank and the other workers as dirty, half-dressed, strong, and uneducated laborers. Yank stands taller than the others, and he is a man of steel and raw power. Mildred is portrayed as a fragile, delicate,  and clean young woman dressed in white. She lounges on the ship deck with her aunt fighting about her service work and how she wishes to help and connect with the poor. Her elitist aunt replies with "After exhausting the morbid thrills of social service work on New York's East Side- how they must have hated you, by the way, the poor that you made so much poorer in their own eyes!-you are now bent on making your slumming international." (pg 1062-63)

Mildred decides to go under the ship to see the men work, and when she goes down she decides to leave on her white dress. While Yank yells and curses at the whistle blower, Mildred stands horrified in the work room until she nearly faints and is carried away. She says "Take me away! Oh, the filthy beast!" (pg 1067) Yank thought at first that Mildred was a ghost, but he feels insulted, and her comment really makes him "Tink" about who he is and he has somewhat of an identity crisis. O'Neil contrasts the upper class and working class (especially in scene 3) with the stark contrast seen between the artificial Mildred and the animalistic Yank. She dresses in stark white while he is covered head to toe in black coal dust.

Yank wants revenge on Mildred, and he starts a fight with upperclassmen in New York and lands himself in prison. He is confused at first and thinks that he is at the zoo. His fellow inmates tease him but try and tell him that he is in jail. Yanks situation is ironic because he is caged in by what used to be his element: steel. He is infuriated when he also realizes that Mildred's father is a steel tycoon and he gets angry and attempts to escape from prison. He is stopped by guards, but is later released. He is uneducated and lost, and when he asks a man where to go the man answers: "to hell." Yank wanders to the zoo and relates to an ape in his cage, eventually setting him free. The ape kills Yank and puts him into his cage. I think that O'Neil had a purpose ending the play in this way, showing how Yank deteriorated mentally and how the one thing that used to inspire him caged him in the end.