Various concepts in the play "The Hairy Ape"

There are many things and concepts one can come across while reading of the play "The Hairy Ape". Here, I have tried to take major concepts in consideration with explanation through the play.

1. The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neill Kaushal H. Desai https://sites.google.com/view/kaushaldesai

2. Existentialism I am Kaushal Desai Mail: [email protected] Site: https://sites.google.com/view/kaushaldesai

3. Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature . His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov , Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen , and Swedish playwright August Strindberg .

4. Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) His plays were among the first to include speeches in American vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society , where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote only one well-known comedy ( Ah, Wilderness ! ) . Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism . Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956) Horizon (1928) Anna Christie (1922) Strange Interlude (1928) The Icemen Cometh (1946)

5. Title: O’Neill’s interest in how machines can replace humans as valuable workers. The title surrounds with a man goes in materialistic process and from the society he got the self as ape.

6. Theme: Human Regression by Industrialization The Frustration of Class Racial degeneration Masculinity Pride , Identity, and Belonging/ Existentialism Exploitation, Oppression, and the Individual Aggression and Stupidity Progress and Happiness

7. Character List Yank    Mildred Douglas Mildred's Aunt Paddy Long The Secretary Gentleman   Second Engineer The Guard

8. Robert "Yank" Smith Filthy beast? Lurking for identity? Is Masculinity curse? Marginalized? H ero or mad man?

9. Major concepts of the play There are several concepts one can come across while reading of this play.

10. Concept of Existentialism Existentialism is commonly associated with Left-Bank Parisian cafes and the ‘family’ of philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who gathered there in the years immediately following the liberation of Paris at the end of World War II. One imagines offbeat, avant-garde intellectuals, attached to their cigarettes, listening to jazz as they hotly debate the implications of their new-found political and artistic liberty. The mood is one of enthusiasm, creativity , anguished self-analysis, and freedom – always freedom.

11. E xpressionistic drama The realistic setting has been to create an impression of overcrowding in the way of an expressionist . Yank , have been realistically presented, “Hairy-chested, with long arms of tremendous power, and low, receding brows above their small, fierce, resentful eyes. All the civilized white races are represented, but except for the slight differentiation in color of hair, skin, eyes, all these men are alike . H e represents to them a self-expression. “ I am a busted Ingersoll, dat’s what. Steel was me and I owned de woild . Now I ain’t steel, and de woild owns me. Aw, hell! I can’t see — it’s all dark, get me? It’s all wrong ! ~Yank

12. Marxist theory in “The Hairy Ape” Eugene O’Neill presents a sharp division among social classes, which he illustrates by presenting strong contrasts between the world of the ship workers (proletariat) and that of the cruise-goer (bourgeoisie). In Gundrisse, Karl Marx wrote of the necessity to fully understand the significance and impact of the class delineations, he posited that “classes, again are but an empty word unless we know what are the elements on which they are based, such as wage-labor, capital, etc.” ( Grundisse , 650).

13. Rodin's "The Thinker" Throughout The Hairy Ape , O’Neill references Rodin’s “The Thinker” in his stage notes as a way of representing Yank ’s internal struggle to understand the nature of his own unhappiness. “The Thinker” is a sculpture by Augustine Rodin that depicts a large, muscular man sitting nude in deep thought with his chin resting on one hand. Yank out of the office, he sits in the streets and assumes the position of  Rodin’s “The Thinker.”  “So dem boids don’t tink I belong, neider .” Talking to himself,

14. O ther works like “ The Hairy Ape”

15. Sophie Treadwell’s  Machinal A young woman works as a low-level stenographer and lives with her mother. She follows the rituals that society expects of a woman, however resistant she may feel about them. She subsequently marries her boss, whom she finds repulsive. After having a baby with him, she has an affair with a younger man who fuels her lust for life. Driven to murder her husband, she is convicted of the crime and is executed in the electric chair.

16. Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine It is a landmark of American Expressionism , reflecting the growing interest in this highly subjective and nonrealistic form of modern drama. The author of this play takes us through Mr. Zero’s trial, execution, excursion and arrest going into the afterlife. During the whole series of this episodic journey Mr. Zero is surprisingly oblivious to his deepest needs, wants and desires. The story focuses on Mr. Zero, an accountant at a large, faceless company. After 25 years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine. In anger and pain, he snaps and kills his boss.

17. Movie: Modern Times (1936) The American dream, a prominent feature of the movie, Chaplin’s American Dream was a small shack with a puddle out back, saying that is not how much you have that is what matters but what it means to you. T he struggle of survival, the movie takes on social issue: poor becomes more poorer from the hierarchy of upper class people. How they treated and many more issues which is presented in this movie.

18. Somewhere I Belong - Linkin Park

19. Thank You… This presentation is uploaded on : SlideShare : https:// www.slideshare.net/kaushal111