The Hairy Ape

The Hairy Ape Summary | Scene 1 Summary

The stage directions indicate that the setting of the first scene is the forecastle (the bunkroom where the sailors live) of a transatlantic ocean liner. The ceiling is low, so the sailors have to stoop; the walls and bunks are all framed in polished steel, and the men are described as rough and rowdy, and all being white. The image is of animalistic men in a cage.

One of the men sits apart from the others. Yank is stronger, fiercer and has a shorter temper than the others have. They fear him because of his physical power and tease him in order to see what happens when he looses his temper.

At the beginning of the play all the sailors are quite drunk. They are not given individual lines to say, but make a sound like a mob. They speak in a way similar to an ancient Greek chorus: they respond as a group and not as individuals, and we hear individual phrases emerging from the general roar. The sailors keep shouting, laughing and horsing around until Yank yells at them to calm down. The sailors are quiet for a moment, and then the uproar starts again.

The sailors turn to an old, wrinkled Irish sailor named Paddy and ask him to sing. He responds with a song about whiskey, and the sailors all join in. Yank does not like that either; he tells them all to be quiet, he is trying to think. The other sailors tease him about thinking, and one starts singing a sentimental song about home, but Yank has had enough: he angrily shouts at them that home is where they are, not where they were. Home is there in the bottom of the ship. Home is where they belong.

A British sailor named Long argues with him, saying that all men are created equal and should not be kept cooped up as the sailors are. He goes on to complain about the people keeping them cooped up: the spoiled people in the upper cabins, the Capitalist class. Long is shouted down by the other sailors, and Yank threatens to beat him up if he is not quiet. Yank shouts that Long and the other sailors should take pride in where they are and who they are, telling them to remember that they are the ones who make the ship run, that they are better men than the Upper Classes are. He says that if one of the Upper Classes came down to the engine room, they would have to be carried out in a stretcher. The other sailors threaten to punch Long out for his views, but Yank tells them to leave him alone. Yank takes a long swig from a bottle of booze, the sailors all do the same and they are all happy and rowdy again.

Paddy comes out of a drunken doze and has a long, poetic speech about the joys of being at sea and how the sailors ought to feel at one with the world but are instead trapped in steel cages, slaves hidden from the world and treated like animals. Yank responds with a long speech of his own - in language that is less poetic but more raw and violent - agreeing that they may be trapped, but there is power and strength in being in their situation. He describes himself as "steel," as being where he belongs, as not being a slave but as being the engine of not just the ship, but also the world.

Paddy, who has been listening to Yank's speech and getting drunker and drunker, laughs and sings a song about caring for nobody. Yank does not lose his temper at being laughed at: instead, he agrees that caring for nobody is the way to go.

A bell sounds eight times, letting the men know it is time to go to work shoveling coal in the engine room. The sailors form a line and shuffle out. Paddy says he is not going. Yank looks at him with contempt, and tells him he "doesn't belong."