Tragic hero in Eugene O'Neill's the hairy ape

Characters are the important element that builds a story in the literary work. The researcher analyses a drama entitled “The Hairy Ape” (1922) which was written by Eugene O’Neill. The story told about the main character, Yank, where the character became the tragic hero. As known, the hero is a hero for people, but here the hero always gets pressure from other characters. There are two discussions in this research; 1) What are Yank’s characteristics that make him as the tragic hero in “The Hairy Ape”?, 2) What are the aspects which affected Yank to tragic hero in “The Hairy Ape”? For analyzing this research, the researcher uses the method of structuralism Tyson (2006) for explaining the problem in the narration. Then the researcher uses the theories of character from Kenedi & Gioia (1999) and tragic hero from Aristotle (1974) for revealing the problem. The researcher finds several ways to collect and to analyze data like reading the drama first, identifying the problem, categorizing the problem, then getting two problems as result to be analyzed. The result of analyzing, the researcher finds characteristics and aspects as the sources of problem happened tragic hero. The characteristic hero from Yank makes him become tragic hero because of the narration which laid from his friends on mockery. Then the main aspects to make him tragic hero are the significant characters that always press Yank to be tragic hero. The two problems become disaster for Yank because the mockeries and characters make Yank become tragic hero in the story