Before you get a start on the essay, please watch this video! =) The video above is one of the most profound parts of the play. Jamie is the most realistic character throughout the play and at this part, it is difficult to understand whether he is being honest or if he is hiding his true feelings. Is Jamie being realistic or is he trying to hide the way he really feels underneath those nasty words? In my opinion, he’s speaking his mind.
As previously discussed in the last post, Long Day’s Journey Into Night provides one of the most valuable explorations into the losses of meaning and hope. Along the journey, Eugene also sends the reader into a search for the reality of an experience. What makes Long Day’s Journey Into Night even more valuable is the fact that it is based on a real day in the life of Eugene O’Neill.
The losses of meaning and hope are evident throughout the play. Edmund Tyrone is the best example of a person who faces these losses. When he learns of his disease (consumption), he loses all hope of living. Edmund constantly recites morbid poems that express death:
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream (O’Neill 133).
Even though Doctor Hardy warns Edmund not to drink, due to his consumption, Edmund rejects the doctor’s orders because he does not believe he will be treated. No longer does Edmund see a meaning to life at all; he shows this belief by drinking a lot of alcohol:
TYRONE
Passes the bottle to him– mechanically.
I’m wrong to treat you. You’ve had enough already.
EDMUND
Pouring a big drink– a bit drunkenly.
Enough is not as good as a feast.
He hands back the bottle.
TYRONE
It’s too much in your condition.
EDMUND
Forget my condition!
He raises his glass (O’Neill 132).
Edmund is not the only one who faces these losses; Jamie, too, stops hoping at a young age and shows no belief in a meaning to his life. Jamie witnesses the morphine addiction of his mother at a young age and thus, loses any hope for the termination of her use. He sees that she is constantly changing from “clean” to addicted so often that he keeps telling his family members there is no use in trying to stop his mother:
MARY
No. I know you can’t help thinking it’s a home.
She adds quickly with a detached contrition.
I’m sorry, dear. I don’t mean to be bitter. It’s not your fault.
She turns and disappears through the back parlor. The three in the room remain silent. It is as if they were waiting until she got upstairs before speaking.
JAMIE
Cynically brutal.
Another shot in the arm! (O’Neill 76).
Jamie is referring to his mother’s use of morphine again. He goes on to argue with his brother and father that they should not continue to hope:
TYRONE
Have you no pity or decency?
Losing his temper.
You ought to be kicked out in the gutter! But if I did it, you know damned well who’d weep and plead for you, excuse you and complain till I let you come back.
JAMIE
A spasm of pain crosses his face.
Christ, don’t I know that? No pity? I have all the pity in the world for her. I understand what a hard game to beat she’s up against– which is more than you ever have! My lingo didn’t mean I had no feeling. I was merely putting bluntly what we all know, and have to live with now, again.
Bitterly.
The cures are no damned good except for a while. The truth is there is no cure and we’ve been saps to hope– (O’Neill 78).
Jamie also proves that he sees no meaning in his life through constant stays with prostitutes during the nights and at bars.
EDMUND
What did you do uptown tonight? Go to Mamie Burns?
JAMIE
Very drunk, his head nodding.
Sure thing. Where else could I find suitable feminine companionship? And love. Don’t forget love. What is a man without a good woman’s love? A God-damned hollow shell. (O’Neill 161-162).
Mary Tyrone is another character who sees no meaning in her life. When left alone, while her family goes to bars to drink, she tells of how she has no friends. Mary talks to Cathleen, her servant, about how she lost all hope of being a pianist or a nun when she married James Tyrone.
MARY
I had two dreams. To be a nun, that was the more beautiful one. To become a concert pianist, that was the other.
She pauses, regarding her hands fixedly. Cathleen blinks her eyes to fight off drowsiness and a tipsy feeling.
I haven’t touched a piano in so many years. I couldn’t play with such crippled fingers, even if I wanted to. For a time after my marriage, I tried to keep up my music. But it was hopeless. One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains, leaving children, never having a home– (O’Neill 106).
Here, Mary expresses her hopelessness and the dreams that she believes she would never be able to fulfill. What, then, is the meaning in her life if she refers to her life as one filled with “one-night stands” in “cheap hotels” and “dirty trains,” while leaving her children and “never having a home?”
Are these characters in Long Day’s Journey Into Night really facing reality? Indeed, the situation is real, but the Tyrone family is escaping reality in so many ways. Edmund and Jamie both drink alcohol and spend nights with prostitutes. Mary escapes reality by getting high off of morphine. James avoids the situation by focusing on his acting career. There is no doubt that the situation these characters are facing is real, but whether or not they are accepting it as real is the question. Jamie is the only person in the family that bluntly states his true feelings and his belief that his mother will always be addicted to morphine. The rest of the family tries to avoid the issue and keeps on hoping that Mary will stop her addiction. Overall, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is based mostly on these two themes of losses of meaning and hope and exploring the reality of an experience.
