The Hairy Ape and The Adding Machine A Crisis of Human Identity

Abstract

   The Hairy Ape and The Adding Machine transcend the social themes delving deep into the deepest level of the human identity. They address the burden humanity is afflicted with in the modern age when a human being is reduced into an animal who is burdened with his ability to think. The plays show how knowledge becomes a heavy burden for humanity in a world that does not tell them who they are, where they come from, and where they are going. Each play centralizes a character who seems sure of himself with his fantasies of centrality yet ends up a lost human being. The disillusionment of Yank and Zero is the catalyst that pushed both of them into a series of struggles with themselves. Slavoj Žižek discusses such an idea through giving ideology an important role as a phantasy mechanism that helps the individual to escape the abyss of the void lurking behind. Disillusionment

brings forward a crisis for both characters who struggle with their identity and belonging. It opens up a series of questions regarding the origin of man where Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution lies as a background. Darwin’s theory is tied with the characters’ lost sense of loftiness. They both feel that they are one with animals, and they are no more than a thing that can never belong. Deprived of their phantasies, Yank and Zero are propelled into the abyss that destroys them. Eventually, Yank could not belong even with his death, and Zero stuck in the void of being a meaningless thing.