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Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.

Excerpt from Scene 8 Monologue: Yank

 

YANK

Say, yuh’re some hard-lookin’ guy, ain’t yuh? I seen lots of tough nuts dat de gang called gorillas, but yuh’re de foist real one I ever seen. Some chest yuh got, and shoulders, and dem arms and mits! I bet yuh got a punch in eider fist dat’d knock ’em all silly!

Read the full monologue.
 

 

Understanding the Given Circumstances

  • This, the final scene in the play, takes place in the monkey house of a zoo in New York City in the early 1920s.
  • Yank, a working-class “fireman” on a transatlantic ship, is the protagonist of the play. His work involved shoveling coal into the ship’s furnace. He seemed content with his life until Mildred, a wealthy young woman, calls him a “Hairy Ape.”
  • Yank’s rage has built steadily throughout the play; he has spent time in prison for an altercation with a wealthy churchgoer, and a leftist union hall kicked him out for suggesting they blow up a steel mill.
  • Explicit and implicit suggestions that Yank is a “monkey” or an “ape” have plagued Yank throughout the play, fueling his murderous rage. He keeps returning to Mildred’s comparison, but, until this scene, he has rejected it violently.
  • Wandering the city at twilight and feeling like a complete societal outsider, Yank ends up at the zoo, watching and talking to a large gorilla. He feels sympathy for the caged creature and begins to understand how Mildred viewed him.

 

Blocking and Movement

In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. Be sure to show respect and establish trust when working with scene partners. As you prepare to block this scene, ask yourself the following questions:

  • O’Neill specifies in the opening lines of the play that these performances “should by no means be naturalistic.” How does this directive affect the way Yank moves?
  • Yank has recently spent time in prison, which he compared to a zoo. How does the presence of the animal’s cage inform Yank’s physical relationship to the architecture of the set?
  • Yank’s “scene partner” is a caged animal. He claims to never have seen a gorilla in person before. How does Yank relate to the ape? To what degree does he believe the animal can understand his language?
  • How might Yank’s tone change in the scene? Consider how he feels when he remarks, “So yuh’re what she seen when she looked at me.” How might these feelings affect his body language?
  • At certain points in the script, the ape responds to Yank, and the monkeys chatter offstage. How does Yank react physically to this interspecies awareness?
  • At the end of the speech, Yank takes a “jimmy” from his coat and picks the lock of the cage so that he can free the animal. Is he skilled at this, or does he fumble a bit?
  • What is Yank’s mood in this scene? How big are his movements? What does this say about his character?

 

Literary Context

Eugene O’Neill wrote his early plays in direct stylistic response to both the naturalist and the melodramatic conventions that were common in his time. Scholars sometimes call The Hairy Ape “expressionist,” putting it in a genre that embraced subjectivity and symbolism.

O’Neill structured The Hairy Ape around several key symbols, but the most evident is the identification of its protagonist, Yank, with an ape. Historically, comparisons between human beings and animals have been racist, but, in the earliest performances of this play, white actors usually portrayed Yank. The similarities between Yank and the gorilla are more likely a reference to the works of the scientist Charles Darwin, specifically On the Origin of the Species. Darwin’s text is most well-known for his theory that humans evolved from apes. Darwin had published his study many decades before, but its popularity and resistance to it began to reach a peak in the United States when the play was written.

The validity of Darwin’s theory of natural selection received both criticism and support from people who were not scientific experts. Many religious fundamentalists attacked the concept that human beings had evolved from apes, while several prominent industrialists embraced the idea, seeing the natural competition between animals as a justification for their own business dealings as part of the “survival of the fittest.” Labeled “social Darwinism,” this idea has never fully fallen out of fashion, even today.

Darwin’s theories, therefore, inform the conversation between Yank and the gorilla, raising some troubling questions. Is there any escape from a cage without bars? How far has evolution gotten humanity? What does it mean to be the “fittest”?

Full Scene 8 Monologue: Yank

 

Scene—Twilight of the next day. The monkey house at the Zoo. One spot of clear gray light falls on the front of one cage so that the interior can be seen. The other cages are vague, shrouded in shadow from which chatterings pitched in a conversational tone can be heard. On the one cage a sign from which the word “gorilla” stands out. The gigantic animal himself is seen squatting on his haunches on a bench in much the same attitude as Rodin’s “Thinker.” YANK enters from the left. Immediately a chorus of angry chattering and screeching breaks out. The gorilla turns his eyes but makes no sound or move.

YANK

[With a hard, bitter laugh.] Welcome to your city, huh? Hail, hail, de gang’s all here!

[At the sound of his voice the chattering dies away into an attentive silence. YANK walks up to the gorilla’s cage and, leaning over the railing, stares in at its occupant, who stares back at him, silent and motionless. There is a pause of dead stillness. Then YANK begins to talk in a friendly confidential tone, half-mockingly, but with a deep undercurrent of sympathy.]

Say, yuh’re some hard-lookin’ guy, ain’t yuh? I seen lots of tough nuts dat de gang called gorillas, but yuh’re de foist real one I ever seen. Some chest yuh got, and shoulders, and dem arms and mits! I bet yuh got a punch in eider fist dat’d knock ’em all silly!

[This with genuine admiration. The gorilla, as if he understood, stands upright, swelling out his chest and pounding on it with his fist. YANK grins sympathetically.]

Sure, I get yuh. Yuh challenge de whole woild, huh? Yuh got what I was sayin’ even if yuh muffed de woids. [Then bitterness creeping in.] And why wouldn’t yuh get me? Ain’t we both members of de same club—de Hairy Apes?

[They stare at each other—a pause—then YANK goes on slowly and bitterly.]

So yuh’re what she seen when she looked at me, de white-faced tart! I was you to her, get me? On’y outa de cage—broke out—free to moider her, see? Sure! Dat’s what she tought. She wasn’t wise dat I was in a cage, too—worser’n yours—sure—a damn sight—’cause you got some chanct to bust loose—but me—[He grows confused.] Aw, hell! It’s all wrong, ain’t it? [A pause.] I s’pose yuh wanter know what I’m doin’ here, huh? I been warmin’ a bench down to de Battery—ever since last night. Sure. I seen de sun come up. Dat was pretty, too—all red and pink and green. I was lookin’ at de skyscrapers—steel—and all de ships comin’ in, sailin’ out, all over de oith—and dey was steel, too. De sun was warm, dey wasn’t no clouds, and dere was a breeze blowin’. Sure, it was great stuff. I got it aw right—what Paddy said about dat bein’ de right dope—on’y I couldn’t get IN it, see? I couldn’t belong in dat. It was over my head. And I kept tinkin’—and den I beat it up here to see what youse was like. And I waited till dey was all gone to git yuh alone. Say, how d’yuh feel sittin’ in dat pen all de time, havin’ to stand for ’em comin’ and starin’ at yuh—de white-faced, skinny tarts and de boobs what marry ’em—makin’ fun of yuh, laughin’ at yuh, gittin’ scared of yuh—damn ’em!

[He pounds on the rail with his fist. The gorilla rattles the bars of his cage and snarls. All the other monkeys set up an angry chattering in the darkness. YANK goes on excitedly.]

Sure! Dat’s de way it hits me, too. On’y yuh’re lucky, see? Yuh don’t belong wit ’em and yuh know it. But me, I belong wit ’em—but I don’t, see? Dey don’t belong wit me, dat’s what. Get me? Tinkin’ is hard—[He passes one hand across his forehead with a painful gesture. The gorilla growls impatiently. YANK goes on gropingly.] It’s dis way, what I’m drivin’ at. Youse can sit and dope dream in de past, green woods, de jungle and de rest of it. Den yuh belong and dey don’t. Den yuh kin laugh at ’em, see? Yuh’re de champ of de woild. But me—I ain’t got no past to tink in, nor nothin’ dat’s comin’, on’y what’s now—and dat don’t belong. Sure, you’re de best off! Yuh can’t tink, can yuh? Yuh can’t talk neider. But I kin make a bluff at talkin’ and tinkin’—a’most git away wit it—a’most!—and dat’s where de joker comes in. [He laughs.] I ain’t on oith and I ain’t in heaven, get me? I’m in de middle tryin’ to separate ’em, takin’ all de woist punches from bot’ of ’em. Maybe dat’s what dey call hell, huh? But you, yuh’re at de bottom. You belong! Sure! Yuh’re de on’y one in de woild dat does, yuh lucky stiff! [The gorilla growls proudly.] And dat’s why dey gotter put yuh in a cage, see? [The gorilla roars angrily.] Sure! Yuh get me. It beats it when you try to tink it or talk it—it’s way down—deep—behind—you ‘n’ me we feel it. Sure! Bot’ members of dis club! [He laughs—then in a savage tone.] What de hell! T’ hell wit it! A little action, dat’s our meat! Dat belongs! Knock ‘em down and keep bustin’ ‘em till dey croaks yuh wit a gat—wit steel! Sure! Are yuh game? Dey’ve looked at youse, ain’t dey—in a cage? Wanter git even? Wanter wind up like a sport ‘stead of croakin’ slow in dere?

[The gorilla roars an emphatic affirmative. YANK goes on with a sort of furious exaltation.]

Sure! Yuh’re reg’lar! Yuh’ll stick to de finish! Me ‘n’ you, huh?—bot’ members of this club! We’ll put up one last star bout dat’ll knock ‘em offen deir seats! Dey’ll have to make de cages stronger after we’re trou!

[The gorilla is straining at his bars, growling, hopping from one foot to the other. YANK takes a jimmy from under his coat and forces the lock on the cage door. He throws this open.]

Pardon from de governor! Step out and shake hands! I’ll take yuh for a walk down Fif’ Avenoo. We’ll knock ‘em offen de oith and croak wit de band playin’. Come on, Brother.

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