The Hairy Ape Analysis

Disintegration of Modern Civilization in O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape
T.Sriram
II MA [English]
Kongunadu Arts and Science College, Coimbatore.
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FULL PAPER
The Hairy Ape is one of O’Neill’s best plays. It was produced in the year 1922. O’Neill calls the play “a comedy of ancient and modern life.” The play is a piece of social satire and propaganda. It deals with man’s quest for identity. It is a study in disintegration of the modern civilization. ‘The Hairy Ape’ is basically the piece of social satire. The social revolutionists regard the play as a strong protest against the brutalization of the proletariat. Some critics regard it as a piece of propaganda. It is a condemnation of the whole structure of machine civilization

It is here that his sense of disillusionment is complete. This scene portrays the total and final disintegration of Yank.”
Though O’Neill ends by saying “And, perhaps the Hairy at last belongs”, one is left with the feeling that this species of hairy ape doesn’t even belong to the cage.
This play the playwright wanted to expose the injustice and cruelty of society. The play treats us a burning social problem - that of the stockers who are not even recognized by the wealthy upper class. Yank is not recognized as human by the more elegant denizens; he is not recognized as an animal either by the ape in the iron cage. Instead of getting sympathy, he is put behind the bars and is lastly knocked down by the I.W.W. an organization of the workers. He is upset and goes to the zoo to seek fraternity with monkeys and apes. But even there he is not acceptable. He opens the cage of the guerrilla to get him free, but the guerrilla wraps his arms around Yank and crushes him to death. The fate of Yank is the fate of all workers.

It is shared by Mildred Douglas also. Mildred as Doris V Falk points out “is decadent, aimless, artificial product of society, who dabbles in social work to uplift the “masses”. She suffers from exhaustion and complete loss of vitality. Not Mildred alone, but the whole class which she represents is dehumanised in the machine age. The crowd from church enter from the right, sauntering slowly and affectedly, their simpering voices. The women are rouged, calcimined, dyed, and overdressed to the nth degree. The men are in tall coats, tall hats, canes, etc. A procession of gaudy marionettes, yet with something of the relentless horror of gaudy of Frankenstein’s in their detached, mechanical unawareness”. These people have no mind, no will, and no