Abstract

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF WORK OF ZAPF TO HEGELIAN DIALECTICS ON O'NEILL

Devender Singh

Volume: 3 Issue: 1 2013

Abstract:

Yank is stung by Paddy's descriptions of how Mildred looked at him. In an odd mixture of "thoughtpunches," Yank vows to "brain her! I'll brain her yet, wait 'n' see!" Yank threatens to kill her by a blow he head, the word choice is revealing about his character. The word "brain" can refer to the physical organ, a very smart person or killing by smashing one's skull. Yank wants to take aim at what makes Mildred smarter and superior to him—to "brain" as in to hit and also to "brain" as to be smarter than Mildred.Unable to physically "get even" with Mildred, Yank resorts to the adolescent tactic of "belonging"—insisting that Mildred does not "belong." Mildred is inferior to the likes of Yank because he "moves," helps run the ship engine, and she's "dead." Yank reduces Mildred to "baggage" that he physically carries. Because Mildred has no physical function, because she does not help to propel the ship, she is lesser.In Scene Five, Long attempts to teach Yank a lesson. According to Peter Egri, Long means to demonstrate that "Yank's individual [humiliation from Mildred] is part of a general pattern." Acting as the voice of Marxism, Long has cleanly divided Mildred and Yank into the proletariat and the bourgeois classes. The proletariat is the lower, working class and the bourgeois is considered the upper, aristocratic class. Yank is a Marxist student. Although he does not recognize the proper class names (bourgeois and proletariat) or know the philosophy, he embodies the spirit of Marxism. Marxism predicts that the lower classes, the workers will rise and take over the Bourgeois in a great revolution. Yank attempts to start this revolution on his own. On 5th Avenue he attempts to disrupt and bother "her [Mildred's] kind."

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