Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night by eugene o/neill

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

On re-reading, I found LONG DAY'S JOURNEY rather tedious.

Although it is hailed as the best American play by the best American playwright, the characters seem so rigid that they are constantly engaged in the same conversations.

Moreover, it is an unpleasant cycle steeped in alcohol, enhanced with morphine, and burdened with hardened memories and fears for the future.

However, after so much circular talking and concealment, I was satisfied that we finally get such heartfelt poetry from Edmund: \"...and for a moment I lost myself—actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, witching peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself!\" (156).

Through Edmund, O'Neill implies that piecing together the truth from one's own words, even if they are imperfect, is a more effective way to deal with family than by quoting the classics, lying, or hiding: \"Stammering is the native eloquence of us fog people\" (157).

This shows that authenticity and self-expression, even in their flawed forms, are crucial in understanding and relating to one's family and life.

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TerraBorn

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

That was truly traumatic.

Thank goodness the play was divided into four parts. It was such a relief that I could only read one act at a time.

O'Neill is undoubtedly a genius when it comes to portraying the nuances of his characters. The way he describes their postures, facial expressions, and hand gestures is simply remarkable.

I've never actually seen the play performed, so I can't help but wonder how O'Neill's claustrophobic set would project for an audience.

This is a quiet play that somehow manages to scream with anguish. It's a family tragedy that will surely stay with me for a long time.

The emotions and the depth of the story are so powerful that they leave a lasting impression.

I find myself constantly thinking about the characters and their fates.

It makes me realize the complexity of human relationships and the hidden pain that often lies beneath the surface.

Overall, this play has been a profound and eye-opening experience for me.

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Prizma10

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

The first time I witnessed Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, I was truly astounded. I couldn't fathom how people could consume that much alcohol and still manage to survive. This thought crossed my mind despite the fact that I hail from a family with a drinking culture. In Albee’s play, alcohol functions not merely as a numbing agent but as an alchemic incendiary for the verbal abuse that transforms four intelligent individuals into the most malicious of harpies.

Likewise, in O’Neill’s play, the spotlight is on four people, members of an Irish-American family - a father, mother, and two grown sons (alongside a slack-jawed servant). All the dialogue and action unfold within the family’s summer house, and the passage of time (occurring within a single day) can be gauged by the decreasing level of the whiskey bottle. Or rather, bottles, in the plural. The excessive drinking is both breathtaking and cruel. The pendulum that swings between love and hate, forgiveness and scathing recrimination, the past and the present, only comes to a halt when all the men in the family, nearly decimated by booze, stop to watch the mother and wife slip into a morphine-induced fugue about the sweetness of her fantasized past………before her husband and sons entered her life. She is truly awful, with her passive-aggressive, nasty sweetness.

MARY
[. . .]I’ve always loathed this town and everyone in it. You know that. I never desired to live here in the first place, but your father adored it and insisted on constructing this house, and I’ve been compelled to come here every summer.
EDMUND
Well, it’s preferable to spending the summer in a New York hotel, isn’t it? And this town isn’t so dreadful. I like it well enough. I suppose because it’s the only home we’ve ever had.
MARY
I’ve never regarded it as my home. It was amiss from the very beginning. Everything was done in the cheapest manner. Your father would never part with the money to make it right. It’s just as well we haven’t any friends here. I’d be mortified to have them step through the door…………

O’Neill’s play is an extraordinarily disturbing family tragedy where love, which is undoubtedly present, cannot be sustained. The deep-seated animosity among the family members undermines any affection they have for each other at every turn. It’s a blame game, with not a single one of them willing to admit their own role in the emotional violence. Jamie, the eldest son, is a failure as an actor like his father once was and has descended into alcoholism and womanizing. He spends his last borrowed dime on “Fat Violet” while his brother and father futilely hope he won’t return home. The father, accurately accused of being stingy, is willing to save a buck by sending his ailing son to a public sanitorium. The younger son, Edmund, busy provoking his Shakespeare-loving father by quoting Beaudelaire and Rossetti, is listless and pathetic. The family is a Freudian dream. Each character has a core of anger so profound that it has become the only emotional security they know. Not one of them is willing to relinquish it. Instead, in order to feel something, anything, they drink to intensify the joy they experience in blaming someone else for their pain.

When the curtain descends at the end of the night, I am certain that the morning will be no different. I can perceive the influence O'Neill must have had on Edward Albee, particularly in Virginia Woolf. Is it a quintessentially American story? Perhaps. After all, O'Neill is被誉为 the "father of American drama," and this is his most autobiographical play. But the family dynamics are profoundly human, and I would venture to guess that somewhere within its pages, a human being anywhere in the world might recognize one or more of his/her own worst traits.

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Itachi_Uchia

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

I had to read this for my 20th Century American Drama Grad class.

The play, which I also watched actors perform in movies via YouTube (I especially liked the one where Jack Lennon is playing James Tyrone and Kevin Spacey is playing Jaime Tyrone), was truly interesting. Each of the main characters comments on the others' addictions yet remains blind to their own, until the very last act when the three men finally acknowledge their own issues.

Mary Tyrone, the mother, fluctuates between the present and the past, from being high to low, unhappy with her life. She calls her husband cheap at times but then compliments him. It's not initially clear what her addiction is, but finally uncovering it was exciting for me. The anticipation of knowing that she is not fully in the present and her mind drifts, along with the circumstances that are gradually revealed throughout the play, added to the intrigue.

Each of the main characters (the father, the mother, and the two adult sons) is both complex and simple. By the end, there is a sense of sadness in how they don't fully address their addictions/vices.

In class, two idiots made rather absurd comments. They talked about how the addictions the characters have don't equal the ones in 2013. But why would you step out of the setting in 1912 and disconnect from what is happening with the characters? Another idiot wanted to argue that the alcohol consumption could simply be a way of "having a good time" rather than a means of escaping the problems the characters have within themselves and with each other. He is clearly mistaken. When someone has to sneak drinks, try to break open liquor cabinets, or check how much liquor was taken from a bottle behind their back, it's obvious that they are not just having a good time drinking. The author's family dealt with alcoholism, so it's safe to say that the characters were not simply enjoying a drink for pleasure, especially not in Jaime's case.

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Unnamed_File

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

Loved this.

Women slowly (but oh my god, surely) losing their minds is my favorite literary trope. It's truly fascinating to see how authors explore the complex and often tragic journey of a woman's mental deterioration.

As a millennial woman, I find this trope unfortunately very, very relatable. In our modern society, there are so many pressures and expectations placed on women, and it's not uncommon for these to take a toll on our mental health.

So, the question remains: who did it best? Eugene O’neill with Mary Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey into Night" or Tennessee Williams with Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire"? Both characters are iconic examples of this trope, and each has her own unique charm and tragedy.

Mary Tyrone's descent into drug addiction and madness is a slow and painful process, while Blanche Dubois' delusions and alcoholism ultimately lead to her downfall. It's hard to say which character is more powerful or more well-written, as they both offer a深刻 and moving portrayal of a woman on the brink.

Perhaps the answer lies in the eye of the beholder. Each reader may have their own personal connection to one character or the other, depending on their own experiences and perspectives.

Regardless of who did it best, one thing is certain: the trope of the woman losing her mind will continue to be a powerful and relevant theme in literature for years to come.

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mouthpiece

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

"None of us can help the things life has done to us."

"Long Day’s Journey into Night" is widely regarded as a classic of American drama, and rightfully so. This text offers a profound and searing examination of the complex web of family, addiction, jealousy, work, health, poverty, wealth, and love. It manages to touch on all these topics with remarkable success, which is no small feat. To achieve such depth and breadth in a single work is truly astounding.

The play delves into a day in the life of the Tyrone family. Husband and wife, Mary and James, along with their two adult sons, Jamie and Edmund, form the core of this dysfunctional unit. While the play is far from a comedy, it is infused with a black Irish sense of humor that adds an interesting layer. At times, this humor can be rather unnerving. The family lives together, yet each member is isolated and hidden behind a façade of lies we all tell ourselves to掩盖 our weaknesses or failures. Every reader will surely recognize themselves in the denial and lack of self-awareness that plagues all humans to some degree. The Tyrone family finds themselves at the center of a perfect storm of all these elements during the course of the play.

A significant aspect of this text is the stage directions and notes, which make up a large portion of the play and are crucial to its success as both a literary and dramatic work. At times, they convey more meaning than the dialogue itself, and this is not a criticism. In fact, the note/stage directions often have a narrative quality, and reading the play can feel like reading a novel.

Eugene O’Neill never intended for this semi-autobiographical play to be performed (it wasn't even published until after his death), but we are fortunate that it was. Its portrayal of four people is both unnerving and deeply human in its characterization. We will all find parts of ourselves in the Tyrone family, for better or for worse. As one character poignantly states, "We’ve loved each other! We always will! Let’s remember only that, and not try to understand what we cannot understand, or help things that cannot be helped - the things life has done to us we cannot excuse or explain." This is a plea that we can all relate to at some point in our lives.

The universal tragedy (or power) of this play lies in its exploration of the things we say (and sometimes don't say) to the people we love the most. It forces us to confront the complex and often painful realities of our relationships and the human condition.

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khaego

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

I truly wish that I could have witnessed it with my own eyes instead of simply reading about it. (

It is such a pity that I missed the opportunity to experience the real thing.

Just imagining the scenes and emotions that must have unfolded on stage makes me feel a sense of longing.

This play is truly amazing and yet so sad at the same time.

The story must have touched the hearts of all those who had the chance to see it performed live.

I can only try to picture in my mind what it would have been like, but I know it would have been an unforgettable experience.

I hope that one day, I will have the opportunity to see a play of this caliber and be able to fully immerse myself in the world that the playwright has created.)

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Natsuki_SanJuan

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

July 15,2025

The posthumous, Pulitzer Prize-winning play is from the only American playwright who ever won a Nobel Prize for Literature. This play offers an absolutely agonizing, autobiographical portrayal of an American family from the first half of the 20th century. It is a powerful and poignant work that delves deep into the complex relationships and inner turmoil within the family. Sadly, it's probably all the more relevant here in the first half of the 21st century. The issues and themes explored in the play, such as family dynamics, alcoholism, and the search for meaning and identity, still resonate with audiences today. O'Neill was truly a master of the dramatic form, able to create characters and situations that are both realistic and deeply affecting. His work continues to be studied and performed around the world, a testament to his enduring legacy as one of the greatest playwrights in American history.

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Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night

eugene o/neill paul m. gannon

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Edmund Tyrone

Mary Tyrone

James Tyrone

Jamie Tyrone

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eugene o/neill

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