In Eugene O’Neill’s "The Hairy Ape," the reader is taken back to the early 1900’s during the time of the Industrial Revolution. During the Industrial Revolution the working class experienced a loss of connection with their work. Machines replaced their jobs and the working class seemed separated from society. O’Neill’s suggestion is that technology, science, and progress is regressive. He feels that man has regressed into more of a Neanderthal than being progressive. O’Neill focuses on Yank, a lead Fireman on an ocean liner, and utilizes his position within the working class to analyze the effects on society brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Working under Yank, Paddy and Long, are two Fireman that O’Neill uses to find suggestions of how to manage with the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Within Scene 1, O’Neill introduces the reader to Paddy who spends most of his time drunk. O’Neill uses what Paddy says to represent a way to deal with the effects of the Industrial Revolution by going back to the past. Paddy reminisces back to his old job on a sailboat. ‘Oh, to be back in the fine days of my youth, ochone! Oh, there was fine beautiful ships them days-clippers wid tall masts touching the sky-fine strong men in them-men that was sons of the sea as if 'twas the mother that bore them.’ (1.194) The reader can see that O’Neill is trying to show that the Clipper ships were natural, being made from wood and the sails of cloth. Unlike the Clipper ships, the ships of the Industrial Revolution are made from metal. Paddy then goes on to tell the characteristics of the workers during that time, “Oh, the clean skins of them, and the clear eyes, the straight backs and full chests of them! Brave men they was, and bold men surely” (1.196). Since those days the revolution has brought about men hunched over Neanderthals with exaggerated chest and arms. Men were on the sea and part of nature, “Twas them days men belonged to ships, not now. 'Twas them days a ship was part of the sea, and a man was part of a ship, and the sea joined all together and made it one” (1.205). It was then that men had a place to belong. O’Neill suggestion of going back to the past is probably not going to work because Paddy spends time drunk, living in the past, and not solving problems for the future. The reader has to think, what are solutions and answers to Industrial Revolution? Other issues could be are we ever going to give up our scientific and technological advancements? To bring this into focus let us compare the clipper ship to a steam ship. A clipper ship is taken wherever the wind goes while a steam ship can control its speed and direction. Would we be willing to give up computers and write papers using type writers? These advances would m