The Hairy Ape was published by Boni & Liveright in 1922 (premiered at the Provincetown Players earlier that year). Robert “Yank” Smith is the lead stoker on a transatlantic steamship — a man who finds his identity in physical power and his place in the universe in the act of shoveling coal. He “belongs.” Then Mildred Douglas, a wealthy steel heiress slumming in the ship’s engine room for a thrill, sees Yank and recoils: “Oh, the filthy beast!”
Her words destroy Yank’s self-certainty. If he is merely a beast to the world above decks — the world his labor supports — then where does he belong? The remaining scenes follow his increasingly desperate search: he tries Fifth Avenue (the wealthy don’t even see him), the IWW union hall (they think he’s a spy), and finally the gorilla cage at the Central Park Zoo, where he opens the cage and embraces the ape — which crushes him to death.
O’Neill subtitled the play “A Comedy of Ancient and Modern Life” — the ancient referring to humanity’s primal connection to nature and labor, the modern to the alienation produced by industrial capitalism. The play’s expressionist staging (the stokehole is literally a cage; Fifth Avenue’s pedestrians move like marionettes) makes its social argument through form rather than dialogue.
Collecting The Hairy Ape
First edition (Boni & Liveright, New York, 1922): In the collection The Hairy Ape, Anna Christie, The First Man.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $100–$300
- Without jacket: $40–$100
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
The Outsider
The Hairy Ape (1922) is O’Neill’s expressionist parable about Yank, a brutish stoker on an ocean liner who is comfortable in his identity until a wealthy passenger calls him a “filthy beast.” Shattered by the realization that he doesn’t “belong,” Yank wanders through New York — from Fifth Avenue to a union hall to the gorilla cage at the zoo — searching for a place in a world that has no use for him. The play is a compact, furious assault on class division, mechanization, and the dehumanization of labor. Its final image — Yank crushed by the gorilla he has freed — is unforgettable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this an expressionist play? Yes — O’Neill uses distorted settings, stylized dialogue, and symbolic action rather than realistic staging. The stokehole scenes, with their chanting workers and furnace light, are among the most powerful expressionist images in American theatre.