In The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill, a lower-class laborer named Yank has a crisis of identity one day when he is referred to as a "filthy beast" by the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, one of his bosses. He then embarks on a journey through New York City, attempting to fit in with the various social classes that he sees, trying to find a place or a people to whom he can belong. The play itself is a masterwork of absurdism, bringing a heightened reality to the themes of class warfare and the search for identity in the human race. These ideas and themes are presented through deft use of symbolism; many different ideas throughout the play serve to illustrate Yank's search for the true nature of man among the industrialization of America at the time.
The age of industry is shown to have a dehumanizing effect on humanity, which is evident through the ever-present steel that surrounds Yank's world. Yank works as a laborer on a ship, itself a cage of steel and bolts. In the beginning of the play, Yank is figuratively trapped in this cage, as he sleeps and lives in the fireman's forecastle of the ship. He is surrounded by the other lower class workers with whom he works, including Long and Paddy, all of whom are effectively caged in along with him. The steel around them, and the fact that they work with steel, gives the workers a great sense of power, but it also cages them in and oppresses them. Yank compares himself to steel, "the muscles and the punch behind it"; at the same time, he is continually trapped behind it, whether in the ship, in the jail cell he finds himself in, or the Ape cell he dies in (O'Neill, p. 186). No matter what, industry appears to constantly hold back his power and potential, while tricking him into believing that he still has it.
The primitive nature of man as it is enhanced and suppressed by technology and industry is illustrated in this play through the likeness of man to apes. In the beginning of the play, the stage directions themselves allude to the ape-like behavior the men are forced to adopt by their situation in the cages: "The men themselves should resemble those pictures in which the appearance of Neanderthal Man is guessed at." All the men are burly, strong, hairy and powerful, with a bit of dimness to them to guess at barely restrained physical power. Yank even equates himself to an ape, and the play's central conflict comes when the daughter, Mildred, believes that she sees an ape when she sees Yank. One of the men reads about Senator Queen, who laments that the 'Wobblies" will "make of our sweet and lovely civilization a shambles, a desolation where man, God's masterpiece, would soon degenerate back to the ape!" (O'Neill, p. 202). This symbolism is hammered home when Yank himself finds an ape in the Zoo and commiserates with it, two kindred souls reaching an understanding. Of course, that same power and animalism that Yank respects is what leads him to his end, as the ape crushes him to death. The power and the blind senselessness of the ape is representative of the power of man and its stifling by industry; Yank wants to be an ape, but cannot even when he gets down to his roots and interacts with one. The animal world no longer accepts him because of man's control over it.
Yank's own search to find a place where he belongs - the world of man, or the world of the animal - is personified in Rodin's "The Thinker." O'Neill constantly has Yank taking on the position of The Thinker whenever he is attempting to be contemplative; despite Yank being human, he cannot think on his own. When he gets kicked out of the union and forced out into the world, instinct has him take the Thinker pose so that he can figure out what is going on and understand his situation, but he truly cannot. Calling back to the link between man and beast, the ape also adopts the Thinker pose, eventually showing the audience that Yank and the ape are more alike than we realize. The ape also attempts to attempt and comprehend his situation, thus cementing the likeness of both characters.
In conclusion, the symbolism in The Hairy Ape is quite clear in its depiction of the frustration of man's relationship with its animal side. Man attempts to overcome his inherent nature through the use of steel and industry, but that ends up merely being a trap to hold in our animal sides. Man, therefore, ends up in cages, not unlike an ape, and our mutual attempts to think and exert our strength are stymied by society in its various ways. To that end, O'Neill shows the agony that man goes through as a consequence of giving up its animal nature.
Works Cited
O'Neill, Eugene. The Hairy Ape.
