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The Hairy Ape

In: Novels

Submitted By syuzanna15
Words 292
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The firemen, workers who shovel coal into the engine of a Transatlantic Ocean Liner, sit in the forecastle of the ship drinking and carrying on with each other. They are an hour out of New York City and have seven more days aboard ship. The men are burly and muscular. Yank, the fiercest looking of the men, sits in the foreground quietly. Whenever Yank speaks the men immediately hush. Yank asks for a beer and the men immediately give one to him. As Yank and the men drink, Yank remains in control as the leader of the group. Yank and the men joke about thinking as they drink. Yank, in a joke repeated during the play, tells the men to be quiet because he is trying to "tink." The men mockingly repeat after him, "think" and then erupt into a chorus of "Drink, don't think!" Cutting through the general mayhem, a drunken tenor sings a tune about his lass at home. Talk of home outside the ocean liner infuriates Yank and he tells the tenor to be quiet. Long, quite drunk, stands up and makes a Marxist speech, preaching to the men that if the ship is home, their home is hell and the Upper Class put them there. Yank tells him to join the Salvation Army and get a soapbox. Paddy, a wise, older fireman tells the men that life on an Ocean Liner is hell by comparison to his life on a Clipper Ship. Paddy reminisces about the freedom he enjoyed, the purpose he had and skill for which he was valued. Yank tells Paddy that he is dead, "living in the past of dreams" and glorifies his own job as the strength of the ship's speed and force.

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