Hairy Ape as a Modern Tragedy

The Hairy Ape displays O'Neill's social concern for the oppressed industrial working class. Eugene O Neill’s The Hairy Ape can be considered as a tragedy. But it is not a conventional tragedy in the Aristotelian tradition but is a modern one. Its subject matter and theme is the same, but its form is different. It is a great tragedy with a difference. In later part of my answer I’ll try to evaluate the play as a modern tragedy.
A modern tragedy is a term used in literature to often describe a playwright that depicts ordinary people in tragic situations. The hero is usually a victim of social forces, and is faced with difficult situations. Normally, all the central characters in modern tragedies die, or are destroyed in the end. Elements of modern tragedy are status, society and audience. Modern writers who work on tragedy have over the years shifted their focus from politics to the plight of the common man. And it has been clear to us that the play is not about any high rank man but a story of a common man who falls victim to social circumstances. Yank has also been interpreted as representative of the human condition, alienated from nature by his isolated consciousness, unable to find belonging in any social group or environment. So, The Hairy Ape is the tragedy of the proletariat, seized at the point where it is still tragic. Now let’s have a deep look at the play.

According to Aristotle, the hero of a tragedy must be an exceptional individual, a man of high rank. He may be a great king, a prince or may be a general so that the fall from his former greatness would arouse the tragic emotion of pity and fear among the audiences. All the Shakespearean tragedy fulfills this condition but the modern tragedies are generally deal with a person not from a high rank but a common man. In the Hairy Ape the hero Yank is not a man of high rank. He is not a king or a prince. He is stocker whose business is to shove the coal into the furnace of the ship. For long hours he