Long Day's Journey Into Night.. Woo!

Sigmund Freud observed that, “The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises.” This suggests that humans can act or write in a chosen manner; however, in the end, the subconscious mind supplies all of the components that dictate these words and actions, regardless of the users recognition of these components. Biographical elements manifest themselves within Eugene O’Neill’s play, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” in the characters, and settings throughout the work, paralleling the author’s life.

O’Neill utilizes characters in the play to symbolize his own family and relationships and reconcile through them what he could not in his own life. Throughout the play, Edmund serves as a version of Eugene’s younger self, allowing O’Neill to essentially relive his past vicariously through Edmund. The relationship between Edmund and James has much in common with that of O’Neill and his father, as the failures of James as an artist mirror those of O’Neill’s father. After James Tyrone pours out his life story of being a cheap sell out to Edmund, Edmund gains a deeper and more respectful understanding of his father. Through Edmund’s new found perspective on Tyrone’s impact on his life, O’Neill draws a new conclusion on his father’s impact, realizing that “his father’s artistic failure became a lesson for him never to compromise the standards of his art” (Mann). O’Neill also begins to comprehend the impact of his older brother on him as an artist through Jamie Tyrone. Portrayed in accordance with the persona of O’Neill’s older brother, Jamie Tyrone is a wasteful individual who negatively influences Edmund. Towards the end of the play, however, Jamie enlightens Edmund about his true feelings and motivations. In writing of this change of heart, O’Neill has his own change of heart towards his brother as he discovers that his brother’s “outlooks and styles shaped his own art,” just as Jamie influenced Edmund and the way he lived his life (Mann). Each of these epiphanies and revelations take occur as a result of both the concrete and abstract environments in which the characters dwell.

The setting O’Neill creates in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” coincides with his own physical and emotional states of both his past and present. The play transpires in the significant year, in O’Neill’s life, of 1912. This year marked O’Neill’s embarkation on becoming a writer, as well as, the year he left to go to the sanatorium to recover from tuberculosis (Mann). O’Neill’s battle with tuberculosis parallels Edmund’s struggles with consumption, while his beginning as a writer corresponds to Jamie trying to find purpose in his life. Other than the year, however, much of the significance in setting lies in the emotions of the characters. “The ambience of the fourth act seems much less realistic than in the earlier acts, and we may feel that we are as much in a mental landscape..” (Mann). As O’Neill confusedly struggles with his past, one of the main elements of setting is fog. Edmund, the representation of O’Neill, spends much time by the sea and walking amongst the fog thinking. Leading the characters through the fog of their problems to find answers, O’Neill commences on a journey of self discovery.

The presence of O’Neill through narration provides an inlet for the author’s own voice and experience, weaving an element of reality throughout the fictitious play. “Thus, as we are watching the Tyrones during their literal journey from day to night, we are “seeing” the narrator as well on his painful journey from the present deep into the past” (Mann). While O’Neill’s subconscious plays a role in the manifestation of biographical elements in his work, he acknowledges their impact and hones in on them to artfully and deliberately to tell his own story and convey his opinions through the Tyrone family.

Works Cited:Mann, Bruce J. "O'Neill's 'Presence' in Long Day's Journey into Night." Theatre Annual. 43.(1988) 15-30. Rpt. in Drama Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 15-30. Literature Resource Center. Gale. LEE COUNTY LIBRARY SYSTEM. 19 Sept. 2008