The Hairy Ape (A Comedy of Ancient and Modern Life)

Yank is a brutish stoker on a transatlantic ocean liner who derives his sense of self from his physical labor in the engine room. He believes his strength provides the literal momentum for the modern industrial age. His world collapses when Mildred Douglas, a wealthy industrialist’s daughter, descends into the coal bunker and reacts to him with visceral horror, calling him a filthy beast. This rejection drives Yank into the streets of New York, where he fails to find kinship with the upper class or the radical political groups of the city. He eventually seeks a sense of belonging at the zoo, attempting to find union with a gorilla.

Student of Expressionism and modern drama read this play to analyze the psychological impact of industrialization on the individual worker. It serves those interested in the breakdown of class structures and the failure of primitive identity in a mechanical society. Readers walk away with a specific understanding of social alienation and the internal crisis that occurs when a person is stripped of their functional value in the world.