Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written as a response to Thinking Activity, Which is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about Eugene O'Neill, Summary of the play and Theme of Addition in play. I hope my Blog will be helpful to you.
About the play :-
Long day's journey into night, is a play written in four acts. The play was written by American Playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play was written in 1939 - 41. And it was first published in 1956. After the death of Eugene O'Neill. The play is known as a finest American play of 20th century. gener of the play is Tragedy. And setting is of the summer home of the Tyrones, August 1912. The play includes five characters. Among them Mary Tyrone is consider as a protagonist. All the characters are very well portrait by O'Neill.
About the Author :-
Full name of O'Neill is Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. He was an American Playwright and also a Noble Laureate in literature. He won noble prize in 1936. He was born on 16 October 1888, in United States and died on 27 November 1953. Here I put one video of Documentry film on O'Neill's life.
Eugene wrote many famous works like,
1) Long day's journey into night.
2) The Iceman Cometh.
3) Desire Under the Elms.
4) Mourning Becomes Electra.
5) The Hairy Ape.
Here, is the videos of all the films, based on the books of O'Neill, I have mentioned above.
Summary of Long day's journey into night :-
The play begins in the summer house of Tyrone Family. It is a time of morning when the play begins. In first act we find that Mary Tyrone is just returned from the sanatorium. She was sent there because of her morphine addiction. Mary is a protagonist of the play. Edmund, Son of Mary and James, become ill in recent weeks and started coughing violently. And later we come to know that, he is suffering from tuberculosis. Similarly as play go on, we found that, Mary is still taking morphine. And when we see entire play, we get idea that all of the members of Tyron family are suffering from their past. As we see Mr.Tyron is blaming himself for Mary's morphine addiction. Jamie is ashamed that he is not able to find work accordingly his father accepts from him. Mary is constantly try to ignore her present and past by taking morphine.he constantly try to forgetting that she is still addicted with morphine and also a thing that his son Edmund has a tuberculosis. Along with Mary, Edmund is also suffering by illness and with a mental stress that he has a tuberculosis and he will soon die.
All the characters are addicted and all the scenes are related with the regret,stress, sorrow of family members. If we analyse the play we find that, most of the scenes are performed either before a mealtime or after a mealtime. And all the scenes where performed in living room. Which create a perticular kind of motion. The story ends tragically. Here is the video of full play of Long day's journey into night.
Theme of addiction in long day's journey into night :-
Addition of Mary Tyrone :-
We find theme of addiction in the play. All the Tyrone members are addicted with something. For example Mary is addicted by morphine, a kind of drug. She got this addiction while she was pregnant. Mr.Tyron neglected to hire a good doctor and a doctor whom he was appointed for Mary gave her constantly medicines which consist major part of morphin in it. Which lead Mary towards addition of morphin to reduce the pain of pregnancy. And even after the pregnancy, she continue to take morphine. Later on in play we found that, she was sent to sanatorium, but even after she came back, she started taking morphine again, and the reason we found for this is, she want to ignore or we can say forget about the illness of his loving son Edmund and her own past as well.
Addition of Jamie :-
Jamie is addicted with alcohol as well as a Women. Here we see a theme of sexuality. We find reason for each Tyrone member's addition. Jamie is addicted with alcohol and women is because he living constantly in regression that even though he is young, elegible, and a elder son of the family, he is not earning accordingly the expectations of his father. And ultimately this regret lead him towards addition of Alcohol. We can say that, drunkenness has been Jamie's response to life, and it is part of why he has failed so miserably.
Addiction of James Tyrone :-
James is a father of Edmund and Jamie, and a husband of Mary, is also addicted with alcohol. And as I discussed before, that each Tyrone member addicted with something because of to reduc the pain of past. James is also living with a regret that he failed to provide good fortune and good wealthy life to his family. They have just summer house, excepting that, they have no fortune. Which ultimately make him feel depressed and lead him towards regression of this. Even Mary play major role for his regression, she constantly try to make him feel guilty that because of him Edmund is sick. Jamie also blame his father that he is the one who responsible for his mother's addition. He was failed to provide her good doctor and that's why she started taking morphine. This all blames and regression, guilt lead him towards the addiction of alcohol.
Addition of Edmund :-
Just like his father James and brother Jamie, Edmund is also addicted with alcohol. We can say that all the Tyrone men are addicted with alcohol. Addition of alcohol, affects on his health. He has a tuberculosis, and constant addition of alcohol lead him towards bad health. And at the end we found that he loose his health. He is very close to death. Because his tuberculosis got out of control.
In short, we are able to analyse that, because of addiction, the entire Tyrone family ruined.and this addition lead them towards constant anxiety, illness, frustration and mental instability.
(Read here) more about the play.
