The Significance of Family in Long Day’s Journey Into Night

◆康晓亚

(中国农业大学人文与发展学院)

The Significance of Family in Long Day’s Journey Into Night

◆康晓亚

(中国农业大学人文与发展学院)

Long Day’s Journey Into Night is considered one of the best drama Eugene O’Neill has ever written.It was published and staged posthumously as per the will of the playwright and won him a fourth Pulitzer Prize.This paper tries to analyze this tragedy from conventional perspective of tragedies and concludes that the Tyrone family in the play serves as the protagonist and the play conforms to traditional structure of a tragedy，though no deaths and the like are found in the end.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night the Tyrone’s protagonist

Long Day’s Journey Into Night is an autobiographical play of Eugene O’Neill，written in later years of his life and published and staged posthumously.

The play is structured around three meals of the Tyrone family，covering a length of a single summer day.The setting is the family＇s summer house，their temporary home in New England.It starts from breakfast，and the dialogues among characters are light－hearted at the beginning，though with something disturbing，like the foghorns.From the conversation，we can see there is love between husband and wife，mother and sons，and father and sons.They care for each other.Mother is a bit worried about the younger son＇s health.Father is anxious about the elder son＇s career.With the conversation carrying on，conflicts between characters become intense，the whole family is brought back to their past pains and guilty:Mother＇s addiction to Morphine，Jamie＇s expel from college and alcoholism，Father＇s stinginess.Tragic flaws begin to emerge.However，all these flaws are excusable and they seem to come up as a domino chain.

James Tyrone，the father，is a tightwad，despite his love for his wife and two sons.Due to his childhood experience of extreme poverty，he has no financial security all his life，even when he is quite rich.Like most Irish immigrants，he has a strong attachment to land and property(this is also reflected on the character of Gerald O＇Hara in Margaret Michael＇s Gone With the Wind)，that＇s why he continually invests his money on properties instead of spending for the family.He buys cheap house，second－hand car，hires cheap servant and consults cheap doctors for family members.

Mary is the mother of this family.She was brought up in a monastery and once wished to become a nun or pianist.Although she always loves her husband and even understands him，in her deepest soul，she blames him for not ever giving her a home.In normal conversations，she avoids mentioning this，though.Only when she takes morphine is she able to tell the truth.In Act One，She is just back from a sanatorium and everyone in the family expects her to have a fresh start.However，with her worries about Edmund＇s illness increases，she ultimately resorts to drugs again to put herself together，which put the whole family into despair.

Jamie，a former distinguished student，once found her beloved mother taking morphine.That fatal blow has plunged him into a path of self－deterioration and self－destruction:he turns to alcohol and whores for an escape.Jamie hates his father for his stinginess and blames his brother for causing Mary＇s addition to drugs.

Edmund，the younger son of the family，is infected with consumption.He is "Mama＇s baby，Papa＇s pet and the family＇s White Hope"(165).Edmund always blames his father for not giving his mother a decent home.But not like his brother，he can sometimes understand his father.

Despite all his jealousy for his brother，Jamie has a special affection to him，too.He was once Edmund＇s idol and he was the one who led his brother into the path of literature.He says，"I made you!You are my Frankenstein!"(164).In drunken，he confesses to his brother about his mixed affection and jealousy to him.

As the story develops，all the family members try to forget by losing soberness:the mother takes drugs，the father and the sons get themselves drunk.However，instead of forgetting，they remember，remember more and more details and their real thoughts.Truths are told and more and more past pains are revealed in the family，and as the conflict becomes more intense.Love，entangled with hatred，guilty with forgiveness，resentments with understandings，together bring readers a feeling that this family is doomed or predestined to the fate it cannot escape.There is no fighting，nor deaths，unlike most Shakespeare tragedies.Still，the tragic power can be felt intensely both in readers and audience.

The play is about the downfall of this family as a whole.All the members have tragic flaws.Loving one another is part of them，too.And because they love，they also hate one another.As everyone knows，this is the family portrait of O＇Neill in real life.However，the complexity of this love－hate thing is universal.That is why readers and audience can relate it to their own life and have a feeling of catharsis.

In this great American tragedy，there is，evidently，not any one solely serving as the protagonist.Instead，the whole family，the four of the Tyrones，is the protagonist in the play.Family，in this play，is like an individual character in other conventional tragedies.It is undoubtedly a dramatic renovation of Eugene O’Neill as a great master.

［1］Alexander，Doris，Eugene O＇Neill＇s Last Plays.University of Georgia Press，2005.

［2］Black，Stephen A.Eugene O＇Neill:Beyond Mourning and Tragedy.Yale University Press，1999.

［3］Cotsell，Michael，The Theater of Trauma.New York:Peter Lang，2005.

［4］O’Neill，Eugene，Long Day’s Journey Into Night.Yale University Press，1990.