Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill

Eugene O’Neill won the Pulitzer Prize posthumously for his powerful play Long Day’s Journey Into Night. First performed in the United States in 1956, the play is considered O’Neill’s finest and most autobiographical work. Both critics and audiences praised the play for its raw emotional content.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night takes place in the Connecticut home of the Tyrone family over a day in 1912. Tyrone is the last name O’Neill gave to this family that replicated his own. He retained the names of his father, James, his mother, Mary, and his brother, Jamie Jr., but changed his name in the play to Edmund. When the story begins, the family members are conversing happily and lovingly. Yet two upsetting pieces of information regarding Mary, the mother, and Edmund, the youngest son, change the tone of the family discourse. Instead of tenderness and sympathy, there are accusations and recriminations. Mary Tyrone 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.”

As the light of day fades into the darkness of night, each family member articulates grievances, anger, and blame for the family’s fate. Unfortunately, this family does not believe in verbal restraint. The origins of this dysfunctional dynamic are complex, though a few clues are provided. In a different era, therapy might have helped the situation.

Exacerbating the situation, James Tyrone and his two grown sons are alcoholics, and Mary Tyrone struggles with morphine addiction. Like all people, each character has charming characteristics but also fatal flaws. Though not uplifting, the dialogue is immersive and enriched by references to literature, religion and theater. Like Arthur Miller’s Death of Salesman, this book echoes the first family of literature, Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel.

So, why would one want to spend a couple of hours with four dysfunctional individuals? Because the playwriting is excellent and insightful about the human condition. O’Neill illuminates how unprocessed emotions can shape the course of lives without the person’s knowledge. The play moves forward while pulling readers into the past to find clues as to why the characters behave the way they do. Great literature embodies empathy and understanding, and O’Neill is a skilled practitioner. 4/5