the symbols used in
The Hairy Ape.
Eugene O’Neill’s (1888-1953) play “The Hairy Ape” (1922) is full of powerful symbols that show the inner struggle of modern man. The play tells the story of Yank, a strong coal stoker on a ship. He feels powerful but slowly realizes that he does not belong anywhere. O’Neill uses different symbols—like steel, apes, Mildred’s white dress, the cage, and Rodin’s “The Thinker”—to show Yank’s journey from pride to confusion and finally to death. Each symbol expresses a deep meaning about class, identity, and human existence.
Steel—The Power and the Prison: Steel is one of the most important symbols in the play. At the beginning, Yank proudly says that he is the steel. He is—
"The muscles and the punch behind it.”
For him, steel represents power and strength. It makes him feel that he is the real heart of modern civilization. But as the play goes on, steel begins to mean something else. It becomes a symbol of imprisonment and oppression. The ship itself is made of steel, and it traps Yank and the other workers like animals in a cage. Later, when Yank goes to jail, the steel bars again surround him. So, steel finally shows how modern industrial life has trapped men like Yank instead of giving them freedom.
The Ape—Primitive Man and Lost Identity: The ape is another strong symbol. From the beginning, Yank is compared to an ape by others and even by himself. Mildred calls him—
“The filthy beast.”
Yank begins to think he truly is an ape. The ape represents man’s primitive side, the part that existed before civilization, language, or class. Yank cannot understand the complex world around him. In the final scene, when he meets the real ape in the zoo, he calls it “brother.” This moment shows his total confusion—he feels closer to an animal than to human society. The ape thus becomes a symbol of Yank’s lost identity.
Rodin’s “The Thinker”—The Need to Understand: O’Neill uses the image of Rodin’s famous statue “The Thinker” several times. Yank takes this pose whenever he faces something he cannot understand. For example, after being rejected by society and thrown out of the labor union, he sits like “The Thinker.” This position shows that Yank wants to think deeply but cannot. He has physical power but no mental power to understand his situation. It symbolizes the failure of modern man to think and find meaning in an industrial world.
Mildred’s White Dress—Class Division: When Mildred comes down to the stokehole, she wears a clean white dress. The white color stands for purity, wealth, and privilege. It shows that she belongs to the upper class. She is untouched by the dirt and struggle of working people. Her dress becomes a powerful contrast to the black, smoky world of Yank and the stokers. When Yank sees her, he calls her a “white ghost.” To him, she seems unreal, like a creature from another world. This symbol shows the huge gap between classes—the rich and the poor live in completely different worlds that can never meet.
The Cage—Imprisonment: The cage appears both in the jail and in the zoo at the end. It stands for spiritual and social imprisonment. Yank is trapped by society because he does not belong to any class. Yank says:
“Christ… Where do I fit in?”
The final scene, where the ape kills him inside the cage, becomes symbolic of his tragic end. He is destroyed by the very world that made him strong. The cage also represents the loss of freedom and identity in the modern industrial age.
Through these symbols, O’Neill shows the emptiness of modern life. Yank begins as a man of power but ends as a helpless animal. The symbols express his journey from strength to confusion, from pride to death. In the end, The Hairy Ape becomes a tragic story of a man who cannot find where he belongs in a mechanical, divided world.
Continue Reading
Subscribe to access the full content
Upgrade to Premium