Throughout The Hairy Ape, O’Neill references Rodin’s “The Thinker” in his stage notes as a way of representing Yank’s internal struggle to understand the nature of his own unhappiness. “The Thinker” is a sculpture by Augustine Rodin that depicts a large, muscular man sitting nude in deep thought with his chin resting on one hand. Given Yank’s severe lack of intelligence, the fact that he frequently strikes this pose is quite significant, as it suggests that he yearns for the capacity to engage in intellectual thought. As such, O’Neill intimates that even the most unintelligent people are capable of sensing their own lackluster mental faculties. More importantly, Yank’s periodic bouts of thinking in this position signal to the audience that he is undeterred by the fact that, as he puts it, “Tinkin’ is hard.” In this way, Rodin’s “The Thinker” comes to stand for the natural tendency humans have of gravitating toward complex cognition—a tendency that sets people like Yank apart from the gorillas and “hairy ape[s]” with whom they might otherwise identify.
Rodin’s “The Thinker” Symbol Timeline in The Hairy Ape
