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INTRODUCTION
The Hairy Ape is an expressionistic drama but its structure is not loose or unorganized. It lacks conventional well-knit plot-structure, but still it does not fall apart due to multiple structure devices. The character of yank, the themes of belongingness, illusion, reality, systematic development of action, ironic devices, e.t.c. immensely contribute to its unity.
BRIEF STORY
The story of The Hairy Ape is very simple and straightforward. Yank’s position at the bottom of the social scale and his vehement opposition to those at top are clearly established in the first four scenes: in each subsequent scene, he attempts to find a place for himself in society. Unable to fit in anywhere, he dies in the gorilla’s cage.
NO CONVENTIONAL PLOT STRUCTURE
Expressionistic drama does not have a conventional plot with a definite beginning, middle, and end; rather, it uses an episodic form, a series of relatively short scenes that move a central character through a variety of experiences.
The Hairy Ape is divided into eight scenes and not acts. It has no conventional plot having a specific beginning, middle and an end. The story part of the drama is not very important. Here the digressions are avoided and the efforts to create the character through various scenes renounced. The long preparation which usually went towards the creation of climatic situations in the conventional play is abbreviated. Event follows event in quick succession. The transition from one scene to another is abrupt, and this disjointedness is deliberate, meant to suggest the disorganization of our lives today. Scenes from a series in which incidents are singly displayed. It employs an episodic form, a series of relatively gripping short scenes that move its central hero Yank through a diversity of experiences to realize the sense of belongingness in life.
EPISODIC FORM
The action of the play has been divided into eight scenes. The action of the play follows a regular pattern of development till it is terminated in the end.
Scene I. opens in the forecastle of a transatlantic liner, an hour after the beginning of a voyage. The stokehole is echoed with the tumultuous noises of the hairy chested stokers. The narrow room is crowded with men, shouting, cursing, laughing and singing. Nearly all the men are drunk. Yank is heard asking for something stronger than beer. He pulls up Paddy for singing sentimental songs. Yank criticizes Long for his anti-capitalistic stance. Unlike Paddy and Long, Yank feels himself indispensable for the ship for he makes it move: “And I’m steel-steel-steel! I’m de muscles in steel, de punch behind it!”
Scene II. takes place two days after on the promenade deck, Mildred and her Aunt quarrel, as usual. Mildred is critical of her Aunt and mockingly calls her ‘a cold pork pudding’. The Aunt ridicules her fake social service credentials about how the ‘other half lives’. Mildred tells her Aunt not to doubt her ‘groping sincerity’ about how the poor live in such deplorable conditions. The Aunt teasingly calls her a ‘poser’ who would ‘drag the name of Douglas in the gutter’. Mildred discloses her intention to visit the stokehole against her Aunt’s wishes. Soon she enters the stokehole, escorted by the Second Engineer.
Scene III. takes place in the Stokehole where stokers are taking a breathing spell. Yank asks them to open the furnaces and resume work. Yank is seen cursing the man for neglecting their duties. He sees Mildred, like an apparition in the full light from the open furnaces. He glares into her face, and turned into stone. As she looks at his gorilla face, she utters a low, choking cry and shrinks away from him. She puts both of her hands on her eyes to avoid his ghastly appearance. She calls him a ‘filthy beast’. She almost faints and asks the Engineer to take her away from the stokehole.
Scene IV. shows Yank in a disturbed state of mind after being called a ‘filthy beast’ by Mildred. He is seated forward on a bench in the exact attitude of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. He has become a laughing stock at the hands of the fellow-stokers. He has not even washed himself. He asks them not to disturb him because he is “trin’ to tink”. He clarifies that he has not fallen in love but in hate with Mildred, her offender. He apologizes for not ‘banging’ her for her racial damaging remark. He is determined to square with her at any cost.
Scene V. is set in Fifth Avenue in the Fifties on a fine Sunday morning. Yank and Long come swaggering, looking about the colorfully dressed church-goers with a forced, defiant contempt. Yank tries to interrupt the flow of the people after attending the church-services but is pushed aside. None bothers even to look at him for this uncivilized behavior. Yank lets drive a terrific swing, his fist landing full on the fat gentleman’s face. But the gentleman stands unmoved as if nothing has happened. He looks a bit angry as he has missed the bus. Yank is finally overpowered and arrested for this unlawful act.
Scene VI presents a row of cells in the prison on Blackwell’s Island Prison. Yank can be seen within, crouched on the edge of his cot in the attitude of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. He shakes the bars and realizes that he is firmly confined to the bars of the Zoo. He is advised by the fellow-prisoners to join I. W. W. to settle his scores with Mildred for calling him a ‘hairy ape’. In a fit of fury, he bends the steel bars to show that he cannot be imprisoned in ‘cages, cells, locks, bolts, bars’. The prison guards turn the hose on him and run to get a straitjacket for him.
Scene VII shows Yank heading towards I. W. W. Office for enrolling himself as its member. After paying the registration fee of fifty-cent, his membership is confirmed. But soon he is thrown out of the Office of the Union when he discloses his intention of blowing up the steel plants of the Street Trust owned by Mildred’s father. A policeman arrives and hears Yank asking the Man in the Moon to clarify his confusion. The policeman rejects his plea of being arrested and leaves behind lying on the road.
Scene VIII is set in the monkey house of the Zoo. Yank continues to face the problem of belongingness in life. He stands before a cage marked ‘gorilla’. The gigantic animal himself is seen squatting on the haunches on a bench in much the same attitude as Rodin’s “The Thinker”. Yank finds a striking resemblance between himself and the gorilla. He tells gorilla how lucky he is that he cannot think. Yank takes a jimmy from under his coat and forces the lock on the cage door. He throws door open and tries to shake hands with the gorilla. With a spring the gorilla wraps his huge arms around Yank in a murderous hug. The gorilla lets the crushed body slip to the door and shuts the door of the cage. And, perhaps, the Hairy Ape at last belongs.
THEMATIC STRUCTURE
The Hairy Ape has a very sound thematic structure.
The conflict between reality and illusion is sustained throughout the play. This helps in overcoming the so-called looseness of the play. In The Hairy Ape Yank’s illusion of belongingness is shattered at various stages in his quest for identity. He is finally crushed by the gorilla when he tries to belong to it in the end of the play. Moreover, the theme of belongingness, which is all-pervasive, keeps intact the structure from falling apart.
IRONY AS A STRUCTURAL DEVICE
In The Hairy Ape irony is used as a strategy and a principle of structure. It is an indispensable part of the play and helps in producing the desired dramatic effects. O’Neill has used the devices of verbal, situational, dramatic and tragic ironies for imparting a touch of unity to the structure of the play.
UNITY OF ACTION
The structural power in O’Neill’s expressionistic plays is intensified by oft-used device of the repetition of the word, a situation, or a motif. In The Hairy Ape, the motif of repetition progresses uninterruptedly from scene to scene and the effect becomes more and more tense as the action hurries on towards the end.
CONCLUSION
The Hairy Ape is an expressionistic drama but its structure is not loose or unorganized. The story of The Hairy Ape is very simple and straightforward. The Hairy Ape is divided into eight scenes and not acts. It has no conventional plot having a specific beginning, middle and an end. The story part of the drama is not very important. The action of the play has been divided into eight scenes. The action of the play follows a regular pattern of development till it is terminated in the end. The title ‘the hairy ape’ is directly linked with its chief protagonist, Yank. Yank is the central unifying force in the play and sustains our interest from the beginning to its end. The entire action of the play revolves around the character of Yank. The Hairy Ape has a very sound thematic structure. The conflict between reality and illusion is sustained throughout the play. In The Hairy Ape irony is used as a strategy and a principle of structure. It is an indispensable part of the play and helps in producing the desired dramatic effects.