Literary and sociolinguistic approaches to the study of Yank's character in O'Neill's the Hairy Ape

One's language can reflect one's character. In O'Neill's The Hairy Ape, the author is trying to show many things about the main character. The writer is, therefore, tempted to know deeper about Yank, the main character in The Hairy Ape, eg: about Yank's character, social background, and reasons why Yank uses different kind of sentences in different settings. Due to the fact that language is unseparable from society, the writer is trying to dig up the content of the play to get as much information as she can in order to be able to know deeper about the main character's social background which can later be related to the language used by the character. After doing the analysis, the writer of this thesis is finally able to know that Yank comes from low social background. The writer is also able to describe the character of Yank after relating the social background of Yank and the language used by him. The writer is finally able to conclude that Yank is at first full of self-confidence; however, towards the end of the play, Yank gradually loses his self-confidence