The Hairy Ape (1921) was written during the time of America's great economic catastrophe, the famous crash, when the people endured difficult years and the issue of class differences became prominent. The lower classes lived under miserable conditions, while entrepreneurs and industrialists kept their fortunes high, whenever possible.
In this work, the prominent American playwright explores intensely, and with a clearly dominant attitude, the element of the vast class divide that exists between the coal heavers, the gripmen who handle the barrels aboard ships, in the boiler room (those who shovel and throw coal into the huge furnaces to keep the ship moving), and others, the owners of the "Steel Trust," Mr. Douglas, his daughter Mildred, and his aunt, who happen to be passengers on this particular ship owned by Douglas, crossing the endless Atlantic Ocean.
The setting of the play is nightmarish; everything is surrounded by steel, demonstrating the power of the "big boss": the supposed bunks of the crew, the benches, the furniture, all steel. The image presented is one of a stifling cage, where the stokers live and seem to spend their entire lives, like wild animals.
The way Eugene O'Neill depicts his main characters and handles the themes, with his undeniable sense of realism, surely ranks him among the foremost playwrights of 20th-century world theater and undoubtedly among the greatest dramatists of American Theater, alongside Tennessee Williams, Clifford Odets, Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller, and Edward Albee.
Author: O'Neill, Eugene
Publisher: Kedros
ISBN: 960-04-1770-9
Year of Publication: 2001
Number of Pages: 87
Cover: Soft Cover
Dimensions: 24x17
