An Analysis of the Theme of Class in the Hairy Ape

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An Analysis of the Theme of Class in the Hairy Ape Eugene O’Neill’s play The Hairy Ape tells the story of Yank, an American stoker on a steel steamship in 1922. In the play Yank is a hard-working and proud steel worker who feels secure in his position, and content with his identity. Yank’s position and identity is put into question after Mildred Douglas, the companies presidents rich daughter is bored and enters the stokehole to encounter Yank. Overcome by this unfamiliar environment she cries out at Yank “Oh, the filthy beast!” and faints (192). With his security threatened he begins to question if he really belongs in this modern world. In the play, O’Neill shows how the different class separations – Upper, Middle, and Lower classes have changed with the industrial industry in American rapidly moving forward to alter the force of common labor. The character Yanks does not understanding the distinction between the different classes by the affects of the Industrial Age. Yank’s departure from the IWW to establish he’s value and worth in the social order thinking he is no longer a creator of steel, but a prisoner in a steel cage against the industrial giants of the world. The theme of The Hairy Ape shows the roles of the middle and lower classes against the industrial age, being placed and valued according to the social status in the world compared to the status of the upper class. O’Neill uses the character Mildred to symbolize the way the upper class treats the classes beneath them that begins to question Yank, a modern steel worker, the value and differences between the two classes during the Industrial Age. In the cramped quarters two people are introduced to Yank, an old Irishman called Paddy and another seaman called Long serve as alternatives of modern societies conscious. Paddy resents all stokeholes’ existence, saying that the steel worker’s job should
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