“The treatment of this scene, or of any other scene in the play, should
by no means be naturalistic”. Even from the very outset of the play, readers
and viewers are given the direction that there is to be nothing natural in this
play, as mechanization and industry reign supreme, and what interested me is
just how deep this idea or theme runs, especially in the first four scenes. The
obvious, of course, points to the men working beneath the ship, who are
described, despite of slight individual differences, as being all alike, who
constantly speak in unison outside of the warring voices of Paddy and Yank, the
similar cogs in a giant machine that shovel coal and get the ship moving “Twenty-five
knots a hour!”, something that Yank takes pride in as he feels as if this them
makes him something in this world in which he lives, “I’m de end! I’m de start!
I star somep’n and de woild moves! It - dat’s me!”, a force that keeps the
world clipping along. And even in the early stage directions Yank is described
as “the very last word in what they are,
their most highly developed individual”, which struck me as strange as not
only were the men early described as the perfect images of early Neanderthals, making
him the best of early evolution, but more so in the sense that this idea of
development comes from the fact that Yank is just the best piece of the machine.
There is also the character of Mildred, who in a very different way, falls into this category of the unnatural, despite being completely different from the men below deck. Calling herself a “waste product of the Bessemer process”, as well as being called a “poser” by her aunt, Mildred seems to be an unnatural creation in an already unnatural world, who then keeps recreating herself, or posing differently, in order to find her place in this world where she clearly does not belong or rather does not know how to belong, something emphasized by her choice to continue to wear white despite going down into a furnace. And there is an unnaturalness about the white she wears as well, as Yank swears he sees a ghost, rather than the normal associations one would get about a woman in white, the pureness or innocence, but rather she becomes frightening to him and gets him “tinkin” about setting out to prove that he is more than a “hairy ape” and almost needing to convince himself in his tirade that this is the case.
This then leads me to my discussion questions:
Is the natural possible in this mechanized world? Or the natural
as we know it to be? Clearly O’Neill is bringing up this idea in these scenes
and may have more to say on this as the play continues, but there is the idea I
see sort of floating around that this is the new natural. What does
that then mean for mankind in this world, as well as in the world outside of
the play, if this is the “new” natural?
How is one supposed to deal with these changes or how are they to be viewed? Sort
of goes back to the discussion on the fears of modernism or of the modern age that
we brought up in class the other day. Of course this may not be an answerable
question entirely, but it is something that could be interesting to think about.
Also, I found the continued image of Rodin's The Thinker, (Fun fact: the first cast of the original statue is pretty close to Cincinnati, its outside of Grawmeyer Hall at the University of Louisville) to be interesting in these first few scenes and the fact that Yank constantly is "tinkin" but all that he really comes up with is more to do with his job and his being a part of the ship than any "real" thoughts outside of this. So there is the question of whether or not there is room for "tinkin" in this world, or do people need to think or should they just function?
But I mean Moloch though? Anyone else think of this when Yank is talking about throwing Mildred into the furnace to help the ship continue to run? Metropolis was completely running through my brain throughout reading this text and I think the two are definitely a part of the same modern conversation as they are only 5 years apart, except I have yet to see a heart come in that can connect hands and head.
I found the first four scenes of “Hairy Ape” ironic in the sense that Yank is eternally professing his freedom, his belonging to the stokehole, and his grand role in the operation of the La Touraine yet he and the other men work like machines at the will of a harsh whistle’s blow. Yank rambles on and on about his self-governance and that his role is catalyst to the workings of the ship and facilitating the ease of the first class passengers. As soon as “Eight bells sound, muffled, vibrating through the steel walls as if some enormous brazen gong were imbedded in the heart of the ship [.] all the men jump up mechanically, file through the door silently close upon each other’s heels in what is very like a prisoner’s lockstep” (129).
ReplyDeletePaddy is the only character who realizes that the men in the bottom of the ship are hardly living life at all; they are simply cogs in the machine that operates for the transport of the upper classes. Paddy dreams are the object of Yank’s scorn; the little Irishman desires freedom from the toxic environment, “choking our lungs wid coal dust -breaking our backs and hearts in the hell of the stokehole - feeding the bloody furnace - feeding our lives wid the coal, I’m thinking - caged in by steel from a sight of the sky like bloody apes in the Zoo!” (127).
You raise an interesting question, Tara, is there any room for thinking in this mechanized world? I believe that Yank really didn’t think too hard before his run-in with Mildred. He was used to the interjections of the rest of the crew and he was settled into belonging in the world of the stokehole. After his brief sighting of an outsider, Mildred, Yank is triggered to question why she perceived him as a “Hairy Ape” and what her impression says about his own identity. I think Mildred is a catalyst for Yank’s thinking and I am interested to see how the rest of the work plays out.
I didn't think about this before, but you are right. There is nothing natural or real about Mildred. She is a creation of rebellion. She obviously only really likes the attention that she receives from those that she is "helping" and takes no comfort or pride in her actual work. She treats those that live in a lower class like animals in the zoo and zoos are incredibly unnatural. Mildred is not only an unnatural creature, she's an unnatural creature that fears other unnatural creatures. She's afraid of the animals in the zoo when she gets too close.
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