Arcade of Memories

Eugene O’Neill’s

Long Day Journey into Night

Long day’s Journey into Night is Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical play regarded as his finest work and awarded with the Pullitzer Prize in 1957. It is the story of the Tyrone family; James Sr. (who we recognise as “Tyrone” in the play) a former actor; Mary, his wife, suffering from a morphine addiction ever since the birth of their youngest son, Edmund; and Jamie, the eldest. But my main purpose in writing this is not to make a summary for the ones who did not read it, but to discuss certain aspects that characterize modernist works inside O’Neill’s play.

Mary Tyrone (Katharine Hepburn) and James Tyrone Sr.
 (Ralph Richardson) in  Sidney Lumet's 1962 film adaptation.

First of all: The gnomon

Two of the Tyrone’s family members are ill; first we learn there is something not so right about Mary’s health from paying attention the first discussions between Mary and her husband about her weight, from the stage directions we realise that something is wrong with her hands which she tries to have occupied all the time, we are told that she is “too self-conscious” and constantly touches her hair because she is aware that she is being looked at.  We are given clues that “she is better than she was before” but we do not understand what has happened to her. The family tries to hide the fact that Mary is struggling with her addiction to drugs by not speaking of it, but as spectators, we can only wait to see what the male characters so afraid of in relation to this female character.

The same happens with Edmund’s health, he suffer from tuberculosis and again his brother and his father tries to hide this from Mary, who tries to believe that Edmund has “just a cold”, and we only find out by the end of the third act, that this is not true.

Crisis (yes, of course)

It seems obvious to mention this is a play in which the sense of crisis and constant turmoil are present. We can observe this not only in Mary and her son Edmund’s health problems which make the family’s daily situations more tense, since these issues cannot be properly addressed in fear it might hurt and let Mary suffer from another “nervous breakdown”.

The Tyrone sons, Edmund (Dean Stockwell) and Jamie
(Jason Robards Jr) in Lumet's 1962 film adaptation.

Apart from the alcoholism problems the male characters in this play have which has slowly destroy each of them, one of the aspects that may have deteriorated the Tyrone’s is how they resent on each other, and how this reflects on their discussions, it seems that in order to deal with themselves, “they spit their anger out at one another” (Gray, 2002). Edmund blames his father for his condition and her mother’s condition as well, since he has paid for the same cheap doctor year after year and is not willing to pay for a better treatment. Mary blames Tyrone for this same reason, for not giving her a house in which she felt comfortable; she blames her sons as well, Edmund for being born because it was since then that she started with her addiction to morphine, and her son Jamie for having spread the measles to her second son Eugene, who we discover had died long ago. Jamie at the same time, hates Edmund for having the talent that he never had and admits almost at the end of the play, in one of the most intense moments of the whole book, that he has mislead his brother on purpose because of the  jealousy he felt. Tyrone had sooner discover this and blames his son Jamie for not being a good role model for his younger brother. “Though the audience is witness to this play, the family's dilemma is that there is no single person to blame for everything, and so a solution cannot be rendered.” (Gray, 2002)

Because of all of this, we get the feeling this family is completely lost, they are constantly about to break, and what family wouldn't? When you have so many things going on, so many issues to unravel and not apparent solution to them...

Stagnation

MARY

With a strange, abrupt change to a detached, impersonal tone.

 But I suppose life has made him like that, and he can't help it. None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before you realize it, and once they're done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever. (Page 63)

It is in this fragment, in which we can clearly see the kind of philosophy this family follows, a certain fatalism that does not allow any of the characters to fight their demons, to change the way they are and therefore, their situation as a family. Mary cannot help but succumb to her addiction, Jamie cannot help being a jerk; Tyrone cannot help being thrifty because he grew up poor. It is here where we can see a never ending cycle, the characters themselves believing there is no possible change, now way out of the drama they are living in. Ironically, the only one who can escape this is Edmund who will be sent away to a sanatorium, it is consumption, the one thing who is stealing life from him that can save him from this family’s tragedy.

After having explained why different elements from modernism can be found in this marvellous play, I conclude this with my humble opinion. What I really liked about this play was that, as it moves from on scene to another; we get hints or clues of what is actually going on, you know some things are not right and you want to confirm whatever it is we started thinking it was, or maybe, we don’t, because deep down we know it’s not simple, we know we’re in for a tragedy. Or, as this quote from one review of the play points out: “Scene by scene the tragedy moves along with a remorseless beat that becomes hypnotic as though this were life lived on the brink of oblivion.” (Books Atkinson, 1956)

References

Bloom, H. (1987). Foreword. In E. O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night (pp. 1-12). London: Yale University Press: New Haven.

Books Atkinson. (1956). Long Day's Journey into Night. New York Times .

Bray, W. R., & Barton Palmer, R. (2013). Modern American Drama on screen. Cambridge.

Gray, J. (2002). Eungene O'Neill's Long Day Journey into Night. In J. Parini, American Writers Classics Volume 1 (pp. 108-124). Charles Scribner's Sons.

O'Neill, E. (1956). Long Day's Journey into Night. London: Yale University Press New Haven.