Monday, 26 June: American family tragedy: O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night (complete)

web-highlight: Elyse Martinez

Introduction:

Tragedy, as we have all learned of the course of this semester, is not easily defined. There are different forms of tragedy. Some tragedies have components of comedy, some have romantic overtones, and some like Long Day’s Journey into Night, by Eugene O’Neill, seem to be closer to pure tragedy then some other plays.

Examples:

Long Day’s Journey into Night takes a tragic look at family life. Throughout the play, O’Neill demonstrates his personal issue growing up in a dysfunctional household. He has an overbearing father, morphine addict mother, alcoholic, lazy brother, and he himself is ill. An aspect of each of these strong personalities can be found in American families, but not always to this extreme. LDJ explores the issue of blame within the nuclear family. Each person’s defect can be blamed on themselves and at least one other member of the family. O’Neill further complicates these issues with the family’s inability to acknowledge the problems. Every time someone starts to point out an obvious problem, the issue is glossed over, and the subject is changed. These same behaviors can be seen in all families. For example, when my family gathers for the holidays, there are certain things/people we just don’t talk about. I think that on some levels it a natural habit for families to avoid confrontation by not facing problems. Like the Tyrone’s, many American families practice the philosophy of “if you ignore it, it will go away.” O’Neill proves with LDJ that family problems are only compounded by not facing them. [JL 02]

Eugene O’Neill’s plays Long Days Journey Into Night, Ah, Wilderness! and A Moon for the Misbegotten let the reader into the dynamics of his family. LDJ portrays the family more realistically because O’Neill does not set out to lighten moments to ease the heavy tragic feel. The play shows a family that would today be called dysfunctional, but is plain and simply messed up beyond repair. The most eerie moment for me, as the reader, is the realization that O’Neill has given the dead baby his name. The tragedy of the play is the many problems that hang over this family. Mary is a morphine addict, which is a family problem yet also social because it is not accepted behavior. Jamie is a drunk with a wicked tongue. In tragedies there is usually justice in the end, but in this case there is not justice for the characters only heartache.

For O’Neill’s real family there is a short period of justice after his father dies and this is written about in A Moon. This “justice” is the ability of both Mary and Jamie to overcome their addictions and have a life with some happiness. LDJ is an epic in tragedy because any attempts at humor, by Jamie or anyone else, falls flat with the overall oppressiveness. When Jamie tells about the day he walked in on his mother shooting up and how he had believed that only hookers did that the audience/reader is faced with Jamie’s reality. Edmund finds that his mother did not start using morphine until after his birth. In his mind, and everyone else’s it seems, her addiction is his fault. Mary’s addiction cripples her mind and lets her only see what she does not have. These characters are not built around tragedy they are tragedy. [LR 02]

We see this idea of being exemplified by one’s dreams in O’Neill’s thinking and in his writing. O’Neill feels that men are nothing without dreams, and this is obvious in his tragedies. In Long Day’s Journey into Night all of the characters have specific dreams that define who they are. As I mentioned earlier, Tyrone had dreams of being a great Shakespearean actor, and Mary had dreams of being a nun and a concert pianist. Edmund dreams of being a poet and of getting away from the oppressive life of his family. None of these dreams are achieved, and it is this fact that exemplifies the tragedy itself. However, even though none of these characters achieves his/her dreams, they still cling tightly to them. This gives the reader a heightened sense of respect for these characters and gives the characters a higher or more elevated status. It is only Jamie who doesn’t have a dream, and this, in the end, is his very downfall as he wastes away into a life of drunken oblivion with no purpose and no reconciliation.

[AAS 02]

Conclusion:

These examples from final exams of 2002, exemplify the how Long Day’s Journey into Night, is closer to a purer form of Tragedy than some of the previous plays we have read this semester.

Question:

How does Long Day’s Journey into Night exemplify a purer form of Tragedy if any?