Working Class In Eugene O Neill's The Hairy Ape

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Eugene O'Neill's play, The Hairy Ape, demonstrates the working class of the 1920s' response to feelings of inferiority, unacceptance and dissatisfaction with their lives, themes often associated to many of the Lost Generation's works.
The writing style and components of this play help demonstrate the feelings of social inferiority and the separation of classes, a major theme of this play and concept of the 1920s.The play The Hairy Ape starts out in the coal-feeders forecastle of a ship. The firemen are behaving uncivilized, similar to like animals. In this first scene, we are introduced to some of the most prominent firemen, Yank, the leader who according to the play "… seems broader, fiercer, more truculent, more powerful, more sure of himself …show more content…

He decides to try to join them. In the following scene, after being released from jail, he tries to join the organization but believing that Yank is actually a spy from the government, the secretary has security remove him. In the last scene, Yank goes to a zoo, eventually ending up at the gorilla exhibit. He, in an act of irrationality, ends up letting the gorilla out of his cage and makes the beast angry. The gorilla then strangles Yank, making Yank's demise be at the hands of the animal he was so often compared to. The play's stage directions often contribute to the overarching theme with its use of caricaturizing the characters and settings as well as its repetition to embellish the messages the playwright was trying to express. For example, O'Neill uses exaggeration to show the firemen's animalistic similarity in the first scene when stating "The men themselves should resemble those pictures in which the appearance of Neanderthal man is guessed at. All are hairy-chested, with long arms of tremendous power, and low, receding brows above their small, fierce, resentful eyes." (1.1) this use of embellishment helps provide the reader with the image of the stereotypical "caveman" mirroring their behavior. Another example of the stage

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