Skip to main content

BA: TY: Play: The Hairy Ape

Play: The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill

 Yank as a Tragic hero or
'Hairy Ape' as a modern tragedy

 Introduction:-

 Most of O'Neill's plays are tragedies 'Hairy Ape' is also a great tragedy. But it is not a conventional tragedy in the Aristotlelian tradition but a modern tragedy. It's subject matter and theme is the same, but it's form is different. It is a great tragedy with a great difference.

 Yank as a tragic hero: not a man of high rank-

 Aristotle laid down that the hero of tragedy must be exceptional individual, man of high rank, a king or a prince so that his fall from his greatness would arouse the tragic emotions of pity and fear. All Shakespeare's heroes fulfil this requirement. But Yank, the hero of 'Hairy Ape' is not a man of high rank. He is not a king or a prince or some extra ordinary human being. He is a common stoker whose business is to shove fuel into the furnace of the ships engine. For long hours, he has to work in the same environment therefore he is beastly, filthy vulgar, coarse.

 He has no mind; he cannot think. He can only use physical force, like the area that he is. however, he is superior to the other stokers in the sense that is is more powerful physically than they and he is more in harmony with his work. He represent the most highly developed individuality. He strongly believes that he belongs, he can eat coal and smoke; he is steal, he is the power which makes the ship go. He is ideal stoke, an ideal of which the others coal for short off.

 No Tragic Flaw:-

 Yank is the tragic hero but of modern tragedy and therefore we do not find a tragic flaw or degradation that.

 We generally witnessed in ancient tragedies. This kind of flaw is known as Hamartia or tragic flaw in the hero's character. In this respect, Yank is the tragic hero of O'Neill's play, but in different way. He does not suffer from any fault of his own; but because he is in conflict with his environment with certain social forces that are much stronger than he. In the opening of the play he is quite happy and self-confidential because of his sense of belongingness.

 But this sense of belongingness is soon shattered by a rich lady Mildred Douglas when she calls him 
               'A filthy beast'
and looks upon him as if he were Hairy Ape. Yank feels insulted in the very heart of his pride; his confident sense of belonging is gone. He realise that he is not still and steam which make the ship go, but the slave of those who own the ship.

 The Action: not external but internal-

 The main difference between ancient and modern one is the struggle develops not outside but inside the character. There is conflict which is internal, if there is any villain in tragedy. It is not a God of or any human being, but the mechanical forces of the social environment. Society is the real villain here. Yank after being insulted experiences a great conflict within himself as well as with outside forces. 

 Tragic End:-

 The tragedy of Yank is so harrowing, first because he is superior and noble, efficient and capable. Secondly this tragedy is so effective because it is the tragedy of everyman; what happens to Yank is happening to countless millions in the modern age. Yank at the last scene is crushed by Gorilla creates a lot of sympathy for him. 








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

G B Shaw's Biography

Biography   George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw Author, Playwright (1856-1950) Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote more than 60 plays during his lifetime and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. Synopsis George Bernard Shaw was born July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland. In 1876 he moved to London, where he wrote regularly but struggled financially. In 1895, he became a theater critic for the Saturday Review and began writing plays of his own. His play Pygmalion was later made into a film twice, and the screenplay he wrote for the first version of it won an Oscar. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 60 plays and won many other awards, among them the Nobel Prize. Early Years Playwright George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, on July 26, 1856. The third child, Shaw's early education took the form of tutoring sessions provided by his clerical uncle. Early on, Shaw explored the worlds of the arts (music, art, literature) under his mother's guidance...
1 comment
Read more

Northrop Frye: Archetype Literature and Myth or religion

The Archetypes of Literature (1951): Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), which led to the reinterpretation of the poetry of William Blake. His lasting reputation rests principally on the theory of literary criticism that he developed in Anatomy of Criticism (1957), one of the most important works of literary theory published in the twentieth century.  1.  What is Archetypal Criticism? What does the archetypal critic do? =)  In literary criticism, the term archetype denotes recurrent narratives designs, patterns of action, character-types, themes, and images which are identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature, as well as in myths, dreams, and even social rituals. Such recurrent items are held to be the result of elemental ...
3 comments
Read more

Assignment: Refugee Mother and Child

African Poetry: Refugee Mother and Child   Name : Avni J Dave Semester : 04 Roll no : 03 Paper no : 14 African Literature Topic : Refugee Mother & Child Submitted to : Smt S. B. Gardi Department of the English, MKBU Refugee Mother and Child   by Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe was very well-known for his work on post-colonialism; his upbringing in southeastern Nigeria made his childhood a firsthand experience into the world of colonialism, and has fuelled such works as Things Fall Apart, the most well-known work of African literature today. Most don’t even associate the name Achebe with his poetry, and yet poems such as Refugee Mother and Child prove that the incredible talent Achebe possessed with the written word did not end with novels alone. No Madonna and Child could touch That picture of a mother’s tenderness For a son she soon would have to forget. The air was heavy with odours Of diarrhoea of unwashed children With washed-out ribs and dried-up ...
Post a Comment
Read more