A+Long+Day's+Journey...

__** Eugene Gladstone O'Neill **__

OCTOBER 16, 1888 - NOVEMBER 27, 1953
 * American playwright
 * Nobel Laureat in Literature
 * His best known books are:
 * : [[image:to-read-or-not-to-read/Beyond-the-Horizon-58614-410.jpg width="222" height="319"]][[image:180px-Ah_Wilderness_poster.jpg]][[image:Picture2.jpg width="231" height="360"]]
 * ** After being at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full time to writing plays. The events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece ** // "Long day's journey into the night". //



> **The action covers a day from around 8:30 am to midnight, in August 1912 at the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones (an irish family) - the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents at their home, Monte Cristo Cottage. ** > > **Characters:** > //"There's nothing like the first after-breakfast cigar, if it's a good one, and this new lot have the right mellow flavor. " JAMES// > //"That's what makes it so hard – for all of us. We can't forget." MARY// > //"I suppose I can't forgive her – yet. It meant so much. I'd begun to hope, if she'd beaten the game, I could, too." JAMIE// > //"Who wants to see life as it is, if they can help it? It's the three Gorgons in one. You look in their faces and turn to stone. Or it's Pan. You see him and you die – that is, inside you – and have to go on living as a ghost. […] We are such stuff as manure is made on, so let's drink up and forget it." EDMUND// = THEMES = __** GUILT AND BLAME **__ - the characters in "Long Day's Journey Into The Night" are obsessed with thinking over the past and either feelig guilty about what they have done, or blaming someone else for all the problems the face.
 * [[image:Picture3.jpg width="279" height="279"]]
 * **James Tyrone -**65 years old, but looks 10 years younger. Once, he was a famous actor who toured the U.S with his wife, but his career was based on a single role in a play. Now he is an alcoholic.
 * **Mary Tyrone -**54 years old, James' wife, a morphine addict. Although she loves James, under the influention of drugs she regrets marrying him.
 * **Jamie Tyrone**- 33 years old, the elder son. He is an actor like his facther but has difficulty in finding work due to a reputation fo being irresponsible, womanizing alcoholic. He has been a great disappointment for his father and has a bad influence on his brother.
 * **Edmund Tyrone**- 23 years old, the younger and more intelectual son. He is diagnosed with tuberculosis which he might have caught while working abroad as a merchant navy.

__** SUFFERING **__ - the characters have basically nothing to do, as the sons have no work, the father is in his off-season, and the mother doesn't work at all. They simply sit, argue and suffer the pain of old wounds and dark prospects for future.

__** DRUGS AND ALCOHOL **__ - this form of retreat might numb the pain, but they also bring their own problems - Mary is constantly zoning out and Jamie's inability to hold down a job. There is a vicious cycle : Mary takes drugs and the men drink alcohol to escape, but they also feel bad about doing so.

__** MEMORY AND PAST **__ - the characters have a major anxiety about the lost Good Old Days and about old mistakes that still show scars. Both parents express real regret over the choices they made in their youth : James wishes he could have been a more diverse actor and Mary wishes she had never married James.


 * SYMBOLS **

// FOG and FOGHORN - // fog gathers as the day progresses and a lighthouse foghorn sounds periodically. The fog can represent estrangement, retreating into one's self, blindness, but generally for all the chacarters fog is dark, isolation and unstoppable. The foghorn might be a sign that something wrong is going to happen.

//THE CAR// - the family car makes for an interesting because it is intented to mean one thing but works out to mean another: James buys the car as proof of how much he cares about Mary, he also wants to show the neighbours that although he is frugal, he has good taste and know how to spend.Mary sees it as a symbol of her husband's thoughtlessness, long absences and miserly ways.

// DAY AND NIGHT // - the cyclical movement of time, as represented by the progress of day to night is one of the central symbols in this book.The Tyrone family is caught in a similar cycle. They attack each other, they feel bad, they apologize, they say something mean...the family feud that never ends. // The "Long Day's Journey" of the title appears to symbolize life and the "Into Night" appears to symbolize the movement toward death. //

 //Long Day's Journey Into Night// is a tragic stage play in four acts. O’Neill based the events in the play on those in his own life, although he altered the events to suit his dramatic purpose. He completed the play in 1941, but it was not produced until 1956, three years after his death. The play was first performed on February 10 of that year in Stockholm, Sweden. It opened in New York City on November 7, 1956, at the Helen Hayes Theatre. The play received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for literature.

QUIZ

Earlier in life, James Tyrone was a: (A) Broadway actor (B) Movie star (C) Real estate agent (D) Novelist The Tyrone family ancestry originates in: (A)Germany (B) Ireland (C) England (D) Italy

As a young girl, one of Mary's dreams was to be: (A) An actress (B) A professional singer (C) A secretary (D) A nun

Edmund is inflicted with: (A) Consumption (B) Whooping cough (C) Cancer (D) Epilepsy

Mary is addicted to what drug? (A) Marijuana (B) Cocaine (C) Morphine (D) Alcohol

Tyrone's career as an actor ran dry when he: (A) Sold out to one particular role for commercial success (B) Broke his leg onstage (C) Left the theater to raise his infant children (D) Left New York to live permanently in the Midwest

Eugene O'Neill was born in: (A) 1706 (B) 1805 (C) 1888 (D) 1927

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