Forgiveness in Long Day's Journey into Night

Long Day’s Journey into Night is a considerably autobiographical play in which O’Neill describes one day in the life of a family. The characters are James and Mary Tyrone, who would represent O’Neill’s parents, and their children, Jamie and Edmund, who are about 20 and 30 years old respectively. The story explores the relations between family members and the way they coped (or rather ignored) each other’s addiction; the men were alcoholic and Mary had developed a morphine addiction. None of them seems to have control over the situation nor much will to mend it even though the effects of their addictions in their deteriorating relationship is quite evident.

http://www.wbur.org/2012/04/04/long-days-journey

Besides, the story leaves the reader with a feeling of repetitiveness, we are led to believe that the situation is a cycle that has been repeated several times.

According to Murphy, B. (2001), in Eugene O’Neill’s work journal the first note for Long Day’s Journey into Night was written on 25 June 1939 and 9 days after, he had finished an outline for the play.

Long Day’s Journey into Night is powerful and tragic and O’Neill was not unaware of it, in fact, after writing the mentioned outline he wrote, according to Murphy (2001): “want to do this soon - will have to be written in blood - but will be a great play, if done right"

Although the story deals with a reflection of O’Neill’s family problems, it must not be regarded as reproachful, it is rather a proof of forgiveness towards the author's family. In 1941, Eugene gave the original script to Carlotta as a wedding anniversary present and he wrote in the dedication that he “mean(t) it as a tribute to your love and tenderness which gave me the faith in love that enabled me to face my dead at last and write this play - write it with deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones.”

This shows that even if he struggled for several years with forgiveness towards his family, he finally could do it, nevertheless, some assert that for O’Neil, forgiveness took long to be achieved. As Vaillant, G. (2008) points out, “forgiveness does not happen overnight and to forgive we often need a witness to our pain.” In O’Neil’s case, this first willing witness was the Gilbert Hamilton, a psychoanalyst  who Eugene saw for six weeks; during that time, he began writing notes that he would afterwards use to create the play’s outline, the second witness was as already mentioned, Carlotta, his wife.

http://www.cinemind.com/moon/main.html

Forgiveness is a topic shared by most of O’Neill’s late plays, and one that particularly caught my attention is Moon for the Misbegotten, in which once again we read about Jim Tyron. According to Shea, L. (2008). the only character who was not forgiven in Long Day’s Journey into Night is Jim, and O’Neill provides a sort of closure through the character of Josie Hogan, who says at the end of the play ‘May you have your wish and die in your sleep soon, Jim, darling. May you rest forever in forgiveness and peace.’

Bibliography

Berlin, N. (1993). O'Neill's Shakespeare. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Murphy, B. (2001). O'Neill: Long day's journey into night. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

O'Neill, E. (1956). Long Day's Journey Into Night. New Haven.

Shea, L. (2008). A moon for the misbegotten on the American stage: a history of the major productions. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.

Sheaffer, L. (2002). O'Neill: son and artist. New York: Cooper Square Press.

Vaillant, G. (2008). Spiritual evolution a scientific defense of faith. New York: Broadway Books.