The Hairy Ape is a 1922 expressionist play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. It is about a brutish, unthinking laborer known as Yank, the protagonist of the play, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich.
The central character of Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape is Yank, a fireman, or someone who stokes the coal furnace of transatlantic ships. He is brutish and opinionated. Yank is leader of the firemen and the play opens with him hanging out with his coworkers in the forecastle of the ship. Though he is able to command their attention easily, they don't hesitate to make fun of how he speaks. Yank mocks a fellow fireman when the fireman stands up to make a speech about how they are in a hell created by the upper class.
The upper class in The Hairy Ape is represented by Mildred, a socialite who likes to help the poor, and her aunt, who is traveling with her. Mildred, before setting off on the journey, worked with the poor in Manhattan's Lower East Side, and is on her way to do more work in Europe. Mildred's aunt calls her charity work 'slumming'. She tells Mildred that it just makes poor people feel bad if the upper class helps them. She thinks Mildred should leave the poor in peace and let them be poor. Mildred argues with her aunt and is waiting for one of the ship's engineers to take her down to the stokehole. She's lied to the engineer and said that her father, the president of Nazareth Steel Company, gave his permission for her to go below.
Yank is in New York City, having returned from the voyage during which he scared Mildred. He is walking around the city with Long, one of his fellow firemen. Long is trying to convince Yank the rich don't care about the working classes, so Yank tries to make one of the rich passers-by notice him and react. He purposefully bumps into people, but is largely ignored. He is arrested, though, for making a man miss his bus. In jail, he vows revenge against Mildred. His fellow prisoners suggest he join one of the unions upon his release.
When he is released, Yank goes to an ironworkers' union but is rejected because they think he is a government spy. He tells them he is a government spy. He tells them he wants to cause mayhem in the city to get back at the upper class, and they throw him out of the offices. Yank gets drunk and goes to the zoo, where he sees the gorilla in its cage. He tells the gorilla the he's a hairy ape too, and unlocks the cage to shake the gorilla's hand. The gorilla mauls him and throws yank into the cage, escaping while yank die
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The Hairy Ape is a 1922 expressionist play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The hairy Ape is main story Upper class , Middle class.
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