1、工业文明下丧失自我的悲剧：The Hairy Ape毛猿 Eugene ONeill(1888-1953)尤尤金金奥尼尔奥尼尔上海海事上海海事PlotThe play narrates the struggle and tragic death of Yank,a fireman who works aboard a Transatlantic Liner.Yank,the protagonist,is a leading stoker on a transatlantic liner.Strong and brutish,he has won respect from his fellow
2、men,the kind of“grudging respect of fear.”Completely adapted to his environment,Yank is satisfied with the life he leads,and is proud of himself.But when Mildred Douglas,daughter of the ships owner,displays her horror and terror of him and calls him a“filthy beast”on her visit to the stokehole,Yank
3、feels insulted,and denied a position in the world.He goes out to prove his position by insulting aristocratic strollers in New York and is then put into prison.He cannot make himself understood by his fellow prisoners,and is later rejected by the I.W.W.(Industrial Workers of the World),a labor organ
4、ization.Frustrated,Yank goes to the zoo to see the ape at night.He sets free the beast,offers to shake hands with it but is killed.Team Topics for DiscussionCharacter analysis:Yank Mildred Douglastechnique of expression:Expressionism SymbolismThemes:The Frustration of Class Human Regression by Indus
5、trializationYank 1)He is the representative of the working class alienated by capitalism 2)caged in steelthe victim of industrialization and technological progress 3)Mildred Douglass reaction to Yank makes Yank come to class awareness.His attempts to revenge on the steel industry and finally the ent
6、ire Bourgeois.4)Throughout this struggle Yank defines belonging as power.When he thinks he belongs to something he gains strength,when Yank is rejected by a group,he is terribly weak.Mildred DouglasMildred Douglas 1)daughter of the owner of Nazareth Steel 2)Studied sociology and is on a crusade to h
7、elp the poor 3)She shares with Yank the need to find a sense of usefulness or belongingthe fates of both characters were decided before they were born.4)Describe herself as the waste of her fathers steel company,5)Though Mildred has more education and cultural experience than Yank,she still cannot e
8、scape her cultural identity.expressionism in the play:In this play,abstract and symbolic stage sets are used to set off against the emotional inner selves and subjective states of mind.Take ONeills use of contrastive tones of remarks for example,Yanks friendliness and excitementindifference and impa
9、tiencethe apes angerhis own bitterness,self-mocking and despair.Symbolism in the play1)The Thinker The Thinker is symbolic of Yanks need to think.While he physically embodies the cultural symbol of a thinker he cannot think himself.The real ape is the only other character that takes The Thinker posi
10、tion.The ape sharing this habitual body position reflects on Yanks own animalistic state.2)ApeThe ape symbolizes man in a primitive state before technology,complex language structures,complex thought or money was necessary.Yank,like the ape,struggles with thought,doesnt understand the class system,h
11、as at best basic language skills and is most concerned with his survival on Earth.3）SteelSteel is both a symbol of power and oppression.It is symbolic of the technology that forces Yank and the Firemen into slave-like jobs.Yank is in a virtual cage of steel created by the ship around him.1 Human Reg
12、ression by Industrialization1）Industrialization has reduced the human workers into a machine.2）The play marks his regression from a Neanderthal 穴居人on the ship to an actual ape at the zoo extremely monkey-like3）Workers are thus forced into jobs that require nothing but grunt work and physical labor 2
13、 The Frustration of Class 1）Mildred and Yank are representatives of the highest and lowest social classesthe bourgeois and the proletariat.（无产阶级）2）While Mildred and Yanks lifestyles are extremely different,they share similar complaints about class.3）Class limits and determines both Mildred and Yanks financial resources,educational opportunities,outlook on life,and culture.
