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Yank’s desperation reaches its climax in the ending of The Hairy Ape. Failure to belong I.W.W Yank leaves for the zoo to see if he belongs to the cage. On reaching there, he is surprised to observe a gorilla squatting on his haunches on a bench in a cage in much the same attitude as Rodin’s “The Thinker”. He has discovered a striking resemblance between himself and the gorilla. This is his first hand experience of seeing live the gigantic animal gorilla. Now he realizes why he is addressed as a ‘hairy ape’ by Mildred in his first encounter with her in the stokehole. Undoubtedly, it must be his gigantic gorilla-like appearance that must have terrified her.
In his bid to belong to the gorilla, Yank decides to take the gorilla down the Fifth Avenue to show that he has discovered a real companion. But the gorilla takes Yank in his embrace and crushes him to death. Yank realizes that even this attempt to belong has gone in vain. He instantly collapses and dies in the cage. The gorilla has menacingly shuffled off and leaves Yank dead in the cage. In his death the dramatist thought “Perhaps, the Hairy Ape at last belongs”.