The stage directions indicate that the setting of the first scene is the forecastle (the bunkroom where the sailors live) of a transatlantic ocean liner. The ceiling is low, so the sailors have to stoop; the walls and bunks are all framed in polished steel, and the men are described as rough and rowdy, and all being white. The image is of animalistic men in a cage.
One of the men sits apart from the others. Yank is stronger, fiercer and has a shorter temper than the others have. They fear him because of his physical power and tease him in order to see what happens when he looses his temper.
At the beginning of the play all the sailors are quite drunk. They are not given individual lines to say, but make a sound.....
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