Yank in the Hairy Ape - Essay Example

Yank in the Hairy Ape The story depicts the miserable life of the laborers and how they are treated by the higher The story by Eugene O’ Neilltitled “The Hairy Ape” is a fictional comedy of ancient and modern life portraying the plight of lower class for their inability to earn enough wealth to earn their self respect in this society. The society treats well to people who can afford to throw huge parties and have enough wealth to feed a generation. It does not matter how these people gained such wealth but the dazzling spark of money blinds them and turn their hearts cold and the poor are treated as filth.

The story revolves around a man named Yank who is a poor man with no education and a miserable childhood. Although Yank does not reveal much about his childhood but as much gathered from the story it was painful. During his childhood his poverty stricken family could give him no comfort and his parents quarreled so intensely they broke furniture and made Yank attend church unwillingly on Sundays. Yank would only get punishments from his father and when his mother died he ran away from it to find himself a better life, but being an illiterate person he could not get a white collar job and had to earn his livelihood the hard way.

Being uneducated he is trapped for life to work like a mule to earn a meager wage that would not buy him even a decent meal. The hard work during his life had turned his features rough. He works to shovel coal in the engines of a Transatlantic Ocean liner along with other firemen who like Yank are all burly and muscular.Upon the Liner, a first class passenger Mildred a rich spoilt brat but a social worker working to help the poor is daughter of a steel industrialist, visits the workers and meets Yank.

The coals have their effect on his skin which turns all black and inhumanly. Upon seeing Yank, Mildred screams to him being an ape and faints. This incident changed his whole life and Yank actually becomes aware of the class distinction in the society and completely changes his aims and motives. A new flame sparks in him and he tries to bring himself to the upper class and revenge the person who called him an ape and imposed such humility on him. “Yank and Mildred are the two symbols of class distinctions (sparknotes).

”Yank and Long a fellow crewman arrive on the 5th Ave and Yank tries to make believe that there is no such thing as class differentiation and picks a row with a gentleman only to end up in prison. After his release he is shunned by the society for being illiterate and with all hopes lost he goes to the zoo and calls the gorilla encaged, his brother. He talks to him as if the gorilla understands him and his grief and releases the ape that pounces on Yank and kills him.This story in-fact resembles the life of the people living in this modern age where class identification defines our roles in the society and try with all his might no one can escape his identity that is imposed by the class in which he is born.

REFERENCES:Eugene O’ Neill (2010), The Hairy Ape: A Comedy Of Ancient And Modern Life In Eight Scenes. The Pennsylvania State University. Retrieved from www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/eugene-oneill/Hairy-Ape6x9.pdf Sparknotes. "Eugene ONeill." The Hairy Ape. Spark Notes, n.d. Web. 6 Mar 2012. http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/hairyape/themes.html