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.

Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago”

Carl Sandburg wrote his most famous poem “Chicago” in 1916 while working for the Chicago Daily News. In the poem, Sandburg transforms the city of Chicago into a living, breathing human being. Through his use of personification he reveals the characteristics and qualities that the city holds: whether good or bad. Sandburg uses many other literary techniques, one in particular being counter arguments. First he reveals the bad qualities that Chicago possesses. “They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.” (6) This line shows the evil and corruption of innocence and the temptation that lies in the city. 

Opposing the evil that Sandburg reveals, he goes on to show the redeemable qualities that Chicago holds. “Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and course and strong and cunning” (10) Sandburg is clear that Chicago acts as a live human being. It is in his way of transforming the city into a person that Sandburg captures the audience, turning Chicago into man.

  Sandburg also uses many similes to show connections and similarities between people and Chicago. “Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness” (12)  His style is particularly powerful and is evident in his use of rhythm in both the beginning of the poem and towards the end. He compares Chicago to the hard working common men that work in its city to show the vigor and energy that it encompasses. 

Edgar Lee Masters- Carl Hamblin

Carl Hamblin starts off with the presumably dead narrator explaining that he was tarred and feathered for wrecking the reputation of the Spoon River Clarion by publishing a story on the day that four anarchists were hanged in Chicago. The short work introduces a beautiful woman standing on a marble temple holding a sword in one hand and a scale in the other. Though she has bandaged eyes, she strikes at people in the crowd, and those that get away from her throw gold coins onto the scale. A man in a black gown reads a manuscript saying "She is no respector of persons" while a crowd member rips the bandage from her eyes. The crowd sees that her eyes are oozing with a white mucus and that her eyelashes are all gone and they understand why she keeps her eyes covered.

Masters uses allegory to represent justice, or injustice, through the beautiful woman. The scale that she holds is often used to represent fair, weighed judgement or balance. The sword symbolizes punishment or enforcement of the law. The fact that she is blind can be seen as something positive, implying that justice is equal for all and blinded from bias. As the story progresses, however, we see that she covers her eyes because they are infected and sick, which symbolizes corruption and evil in the judicial system. "In her right hand she held a scale; Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed by those who dodged the strokes of the sword." The woman manages to avoid striking those who have gold to add to her scale. Those that have money seem to get away without any harm. It seems also that the woman seems to strike on those who are the weakest in society: "She was brandishing the sword, sometimes striking a child, again a laborer, again a slinking woman, again a lunatic." I think that Masters is trying to send out a message stating that though the judicial system's facade seems fair and equal, behind the mask lies corruption and evil.

Roman Fever by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton's Roman Fever begins by introducing two middle aged widowed women, named Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley, that are accompanying their daughters on a tour of Rome. The women sit at a restaurant overlooking the city and both analyze and scrutinize the other as they sit in silence and reminisce on the time they spent in Rome when they were younger.

The two friends remember together of their mother's pleas to keep them in at night in fear of them catching the "Roman Fever", which Mrs. Ansley ended up contracting, and she was ill for many months. Mrs. Slade pries Mrs. Ansley with questions and asks her how she caught the fever, because she secretly knows why. Without any confessions from Mrs. Ansley, Mrs. Slade cracks and tells Mrs. Ansley that she had written the letter inviting her to the Colosseum, pretending to be  her fiance Delphin. Mrs. Ansley, however reveals that Delphin did in fact meet her that night, and Mrs. Slade is caught off guard as she brags that it does not matter to her because Delphin was her husband for 25 years. Just when the reader thinks that the story is over, Mrs. Ansley then reveals that she had Barbara as a result of her night at the Colosseum with Delphin.

I found this story very entertaining, especially with the play on women and competition in friendships. Even though Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley are middle-aged and widowed, they still hold grudges and envious thoughts towards the other. They can no longer compete for a man, so they compare their daughters. Both women know in their hearts that they have betrayed their friend, but it is not until the end of the story that we realize they have both been stabbing each other in the back. I think that the ending of this story is necessary for the whole story to work together, and I love Wharton's use of Mrs. Ansley's illness of Roman Fever as a coverup for her illegitimate pregnancy.