Конфликт в пьесе Юджина О'Нила "Долгий день уходит в ночь"

Заключение

XX век был отмечен довольно быстрой сменой разнообразных направлений в драме и режиссёрском искусстве. Несмотря на монополию прозаического начала в драматургии, не исчезает и стихотворная драма. Предпочтение отдаётся то собственно театральному представлению то тексту пьесы, в которой монологическое слово преобладает над сценическим действием.

На этом фоне драматургия Юджина О'Нила -- явление в высшей степени оригинальное. Чуткий к европейским театральным веяниям, он создаёт современную трагедию на `американском' материале. Действительность Америки, в его интерпретации, столь же богата подлинно трагическими коллизиями: вина, искупление, как и древнегреческая драма.

В данной работе философия трагедии Юджина О'Нила рассматривалась на материале пьесы `Долгий день уходит в ночь'. Для неё характерна трагическая неразрешимость целого ряда противоречий. Трагична, по мнению О'Нила, внутренняя раздвоенность человека XX века, неспособного найти своё место в мире. Трагичен разлад между идеалом и реальностью, ставящий героя перед дилеммой: как отказаться от сокровенной мечты и остаться самим собой? Трагична зависимость человека от таинственных сил, над которыми он не властен.

Уместно напомнить, что интерес к трагедии возник у О'Нила под воздействием разных, а порой и весьма противоречивых влияний. Конечно, важно его обращение к греческим трагикам или к Шекспиру. Но намного большее влияние на него оказали непосредственные европейские предшественники и современники: X. Ибсен, А. Стриндберг, Г. Гауптман. И не только драматурги, но, может быть, в большей степени поэты: Ш. Бодлер, Ч.А. Суинберн, Д.Г. Россетти, Э. Даусон. О'Нил также испытал значительное влияние немецкого экспрессионизма, ярко заявившего о себе в европейском театре и кинематографе 1910-х--1920-х годов. Следует особо сказать о национальном колорите трагедии О'Нила. Он проявляется, в частности, в том, что важнейшим для героя-американца оказывается выбор между двумя моделями жизнестроительства. Он должен решить, что предпочтительней -- `быть' или `иметь'. По мнению драматурга, его современники однозначно разрешили эту дилемму в пользу `иметь'. Соответственно, О'Нил видит один из главных недугов века в жажде обладания, в жертву которой собственник неизбежно приносит свою душу. Показательно в этой связи название задуманного О'Нилом огромного цикла пьес -- `Сказание о собственниках, обокравших самих себя' (A Tale of Possessors, Self-Dispossessed).

На трагическую подоплёку `американской мечты' указывали многие современники О'Нила. В прозе об этом, хоть и очень по-разному, заявили Т. Драйзер и Ф.С. Фицджералд. Трагическое неблагополучие, неудовлетворённость, конфликт между внешними формами жизни и подсознанием, -- удел персонажей Ш. Андерсона.

О'Нил по-своему вписывается в традицию развенчания общественных иллюзий, но акценты расставлены им иначе. Для него важен не социальный критицизм и даже не фиксация душевной опустошённости соотечественников, `полых людей'. Он видит, что `американская мечта' скрывает уход жизни, гибель живых импульсов, а также несёт весть о мести природы. Живое оказывается `на дне', продолжает своё существование в искажённом виде: болезненные состояния, алкоголизм, преступление. Форму гротеска принимает, например, противостояние `живых' собственническим инстинктам: бездуховность делает из людей манекенов. Невозможность расстаться со своей живой душой превращает их в `пасынков судьбы', вынужденных вечно страдать от нереализованности, `безнадёжной надежды'. Однако это не абстракция, а глубоко продуманное понимание дегуманизации Америки. Философия трагедии, по О'Нилу, представляет собой противоположность американской философии успеха.

В американском театре трагическая интонация характерна не только для драм О'Нила. Но именно в случае О'Нила можно говорить о последовательной философии трагедии. О'Нил создаёт особую художественную модель бытия. И философия трагедии придаёт ей целостность. Именно трагические коллизии дают ему возможность расшифровать ребусы современного сознания, представить его в противоречивой динамике.

Данное исследование позволяет сделать вывод, что О'Ниловская философии трагедии по-своему оказывается близка экзистенциализму, поскольку связана с проблемой индивидуальности и свободы индивида. Трагедия -- удел одиночек, не желающих придерживаться общепринятых правил, ставящих под сомнение идеалы и ценности машинной цивилизации. Это также удел тех, кто по-язычески чутко откликается на зов природы, способен расслышать глубинные ритмы, и при этом не способен защититься от них, не властен даже над собственной природой.

Список литературы:

1. Ю. О'Нил. Долгий день уходит в ночь / Пер. с англ. В. Воронина// М.- Радуга- 1985.

2. O'Neill E. Long Days Journey Into Night./ New Haven (Ct.): Yale U P, 1956.

3. O'Neill Е. Thirst, and Other One-Act Plays. / Boston// The Gorham Press, 1941.

4. Ю. О'Нил. Крылья даны всем детям человеческим / Пер. с англ. Е. Корниловой // О'Нил Ю. Пьесы: В 2-х т. /М.- Иск-во- 1971.

5. Коренева М.М. Творчество Юджина О'Нила и пути американской драмы./М. М. Корнеева// М- 1990.

6. Ю. О'Нил. Долгий день уходит в ночь / Пер. с англ. В. Воронина./ О'Нил Ю.// М.- Радуга- 1985.

7. O'Neill Е. Eugene O'Neill at Work: Newly released ideas for plays / Ed. and annot. by V. Floyd. -- N.Y. (N.Y.): Ungar, 1981.

8. Бердяев Н. А. К философии трагедии. Морис Метерлинк // Бердяев Н. А. Философия творчества, культуры и искусства// М.- Искусство- 1994.

9. Ю. Фридштейн Юджин О'Нил. Биобиблиографический указатель/ Фридштейн Ю.// М.- 1982.

10. О'Нил Ю. Пьесы/ Пер. с англ. Е. Голышевой и Б. Изакова / О'Нил Ю. // М.- 1975.

Приложение

Содержание произведения, его краткий анализ (на языке оригинала)

Act I, Part One Summary

The play begins in August, 1912, at the summer home of the Tyrone family. The setting for all four acts is the family's living room, which is adjacent to the kitchen and dining room. There is also a staircase just off stage, which leads to the upper-level bedrooms. It is 8:30 am, and the family has just finished breakfast in the dining room. While Jamie and Edmund linger offstage, Tyrone and Mary enter and embrace, and Mary comments on being pleased with her recent weight gain even though she is eating less food. Tyrone and Mary make conversation, which leads to a brief argument about Tyrone's tendency to spend money on real estate investing. They are interrupted by the sound of Edmund, who is having a coughing fit in the next room. Although Mary remarks that he merely has a bad cold, Tyrone's body language indicates that he may know more about Edmund's sickness than Mary. Nevertheless, Tyrone tells Mary that she must take care of herself and focus on getting better rather than getting upset about Edmund. Mary immediately becomes defensive, saying, `There's nothing to be upset about. What makes you think I'm upset?' Tyrone drops the subject and tells Mary that he is glad to have her `dear old self' back again.

Edmund and Jamie are heard laughing in the next room, and Tyrone immediately grows bitter, assuming they are making jokes about him. Edmund and Jamie enter, and we see that, even though he is just 23 years old, Edmund is `plainly in bad health' and nervous. Upon entering, Jamie begins to stare at his mother, thinking that she is looking much better. The conversation turns spiteful, however, when the sons begin to make fun of Tyrone's loud snoring, a subject about which he is sensitive, driving him to anger. Edmund tells him to calm down, leading to an argument between the two. Tyrone then turns on Jamie, attacking him for his lack of ambition and laziness. To calm things down, Edmund tells a funny story about a tenant named Shaughnessy on the Tyrone family land in Ireland, where the family's origins lie. Tyrone is not amused by the anecdote, however, because he could be the subject of a lawsuit related to ownership of the land. He attacks Edmund again, calling his comments socialist. Edmund gets upsets and exits in a fit of coughing. Jamie points out that Edmund is really sick, a comment which Tyrone responds to with a `shut up' look, as though trying to prevent Mary from finding out something. Mary tells them that, despite what any doctor may say, she believes that Edmund has nothing more than a bad cold. Mary has a deep distrust for doctors. Tyrone and Jamie begin to stare at her again, making her self-conscious. Mary reflects on her faded beauty, recognizing that she is in the stages of decline.

As Mary exits, Tyrone chastises Jamie for suggesting that Edmund really may be ill in front of Mary, who is not supposed to worry during her recovery from her addiction to morphine. Jamie and Tyrone both suspect that Edmund has consumption (better known today as tuberculosis), and Jamie thinks it unwise to allow Mary to keep fooling herself. Jamie and Tyrone argue over Edmund's doctor, Doc Hardy, who charges very little for his services. Jamie accuses Tyrone of getting the cheapest doctor, without regard to quality, simply because he is a penny-pincher. Tyrone retorts that Jamie always thinks the worst of everyone, and that Jamie does not understand the value of a dollar because he has always been able to take comfortable living for granted. Tyrone, by contrast, had to work his own way up from the streets. Jamie only squanders loads of money on whores and liquor in town. Jamie argues back that Tyrone squanders money on real estate speculation, although Tyrone points out that most of his holdings are mortgaged. Tyrone accuses Jamie of laziness and criticizes his failure to succeed at anything. Jamie was expelled from several colleges in his younger years, and he never shows any gratitude towards his father; Tyrone thinks that he is a bad influence on Edmund. Jamie counters that he has always tried to teach Edmund to lead a life different from that which Jamie leads.

O'Neill's opening stage directions immediately give the audience some clues as to what the Tyrone family is like. The bookshelves, for instance, show that the family is both educated and worldly; there are books by a wide range of famous European authors. The Irish literature on the bookshelf clues us in to the family's pride in its Irish heritage. The character descriptions also foreshadow some of the play's conflicts. Mary is described as decaying, yet she stills retains a `youthfulness she has never lost.' We see that she is in a transition period in her life, on the verge of becoming an old woman. The description of Tyrone and his shabby, utilitarian clothes suggests his financial prudence. He has obviously taken care of himself, because he looks ten years younger than his age. In fact, Tyrone does not seem to be affected physically by the passage of time; he maintains the digestion of a 25-year-old, for instance. His impervious body may support the idea that Tyrone has not changed very much throughout his life despite Mary's continual efforts to make him reform some of his attitudes and habits. Notice that O'Neill uses stage directions more than many other playwrights to provide insight into what the characters ought to look like and what their central interests are.

It is also important when beginning the play to notice that O'Neill does not condemn any one of these characters more than any other. Instead, he feels a great sympathy for all four Tyrones, as he wrote to his wife in 1940 when he completed the play. All the characters have severe faults, and all are capable of great cruelty. At the same time, they are all part of one family that has stayed together throughout many years of hardship, and they can all be very loving and compassionate. One cannot single out any particular character as the protagonist or antagonist; one can instead see the themes that create strife in the family and the ways the family mends itself when it falls into disorder.

There are two major health problems in the play, which will slowly be uncovered over the course of the four acts, but they are both hinted early on. The first is Edmund's consumption. We see that he is having coughing fits in the morning, and, even though Mary insists that he has merely a bad cold, we will learn later on that he is undoubtedly inflicted with tuberculosis and will have to live in a sanatorium in order to be cured. The second problem in the play is Mary's addiction to morphine, which began when a doctor prescribed the drug to her after she gave birth to Edmund as a means of stopping her intense pain. As this play opens, Mary has just returned from a long treatment program designed to break her addiction. She shows signs of recovering--she is gaining weight again--but we will learn later on in the play that she has quickly become a full-blown morphine addict once again.

These two problems and how each character reacts to them provide a medium for bringing out the family's most cruel and painful conflicts. It is obvious from the first, for instance, that one of Mary's central flaws is her refusal to admit that there is a problem with herself or Edmund. She lies to her family countless times about being cured, and she chastises them for suspecting her. She also will not accept that Edmund is really sick. Her husband and sons, not wishing her to get worried while she is supposedly recovering, help her delude herself by keeping Edmund's sickness from her as best they can. Mary, we see, likes to live in a fantasy world, and the morphine helps her accomplish that. We also see that bad side of Tyrone through these conflicts when we learn that he may be partly responsible for Mary's initial addiction, having refused to pay the high costs for a good doctor, hiring instead a cheap quack who solved Mary's pain without regard to the long-term consequences. Tyrone, we will see later, is also overly hesitant about spending money on a good doctor to treat Edmund's illness. The two boys have their own problems as well, most of which will be fleshed out more in upcoming scenes.

Act I, Part Two Summary

Tyrone and Jamie continue their discussion about Edmund, who works for a local newspaper. Tyrone and Jamie have heard that some editors dislike Edmund, but they both acknowledge that he has a strong creative impulse that drives much of his plans. Tyrone and Jamie agree also that they are glad to have Mary back. They resolve to help her in any way possible, and they decide to keep the truth about Edmund's sickness from her, although they realize that they will not be able to do so if Edmund has to be committed to a sanatorium, a place where tuberculosis patients are treated. Tyrone and Jamie discuss Mary's health, and Tyrone seems to be fooling himself into thinking that Mary is healthier than she really is. Jamie mentions that he heard her walking around the spare bedroom the night before, which may be a sign that she is taking morphine again. Tyrone says that it was simply his snoring that induced her to leave; he accuses Jamie once again of always trying to find the worst in any given situation.

Between the lines, we begin to learn that Mary first became addicted to morphine 23 years earlier, just after giving birth to Edmund. The birth was particularly painful for her, and Tyrone hired a very cheap doctor to help ease her pain. The economical but incompetent doctor prescribed morphine to Mary, recognizing that it would solve her immediate pain but ignoring potential future side effects, such as addiction. Thus we see that Tyrone's stinginess (or prudence, as he would call it), has come up in the past, and it will be referred to many more times during the course of the play.

Mary enters just as Tyrone and Jamie are about to begin a new argument. Not wishing to upset her, they immediately cease and decide to go outside to trim the hedges. Mary asks what they were arguing about, and Jamie tells her that they were discussing Edmund's doctor, Doc Hardy. Mary says she knows that they are lying to her. The two stare at her again briefly before exiting, with Jamie telling her not to worry. Edmund then enters in the midst of a coughing fit and tells Mary that he feels ill. Mary begins to fuss over him, although Edmund tells her to worry about herself and not him. Mary tells Edmund that she hates the house in which they live because, `I've never felt it was my home.' She puts up with it only because she usually goes along with whatever Tyrone wants. She criticizes Edmund and Jamie for `disgracing' themselves with loose women, so that at present no respectable girls will be seen with them. Mary announces her belief that Jamie and Edmund are always cruelly suspicious, and she thinks that they spy on her. She asks Edmund to `stop suspecting me,' although she acknowledges that Edmund cannot trust her because she has broken many promises in the past. She thinks that the past is hard to forget because it is full of broken promises. The act ends with Edmund's exit. Mary sits alone, twitching nervously.

Commentary

The latter part of Act I introduces us to the central conflict between Tyrone and Jamie. Tyrone believes that Jamie does not appreciate the value of money or the importance of hard work; Jamie has taken too much for granted. Jamie, on the other hand, thinks that his father is a penny-pincher, and he never shows his father any gratitude. Nevertheless, we see in this conflict an optimistic side of Tyrone, who maintains that his son still has the chance to become a great success. Their relationship and Tyrone's bitter disappointment suggests a thematic link between the two. Jamie is an example of the prodigal son who could have been like his father but instead chose to rebel. One of the strengths of the play is the presence of both Tyrone and Mary in their two children. In Act II, for instance, Edmund will criticize Jamie for thinking suspiciously by asking, `Can't you think anything but. . .' and cutting himself off before finishing. This is the same wording Tyrone uses in Act I to criticize Jamie's negative attitude. Similarly, we see towards the end of the act that Edmund and Mary share a common romantic vision. They dream of life in high society and comfortable living. Edmund concerns himself with Romantic authors and drunkenness while Mary entertains sublime fantasies about the role of the home and the success of her children. The character links come up several times throughout the play and affect the play's internal cohesion.

Jamie's comment that he `can't forget the past' introduces another central concern of the play: the role of the past in the events of the present. Each character in this play is at least partially controlled by his or her memories of the family's history. None of the men, for instance, are willing to believe Mary, because she has broken so many promises in the past. Both sons and Mary hold deep-seated grudges towards Tyrone for refusing to pay for a quality doctor for her, and the problems that created are still very much alive. Perhaps most importantly, Mary can never let go of the dreams she had as a young girl of being a professional pianist or a nun, both of which were destroyed when she got married. We see throughout the play her tendency to question whether she made the right decision, and this tendency fosters a resentment towards Tyrone, who she thinks was complicit in the destruction of her dreams. All these characters are haunted by all sorts of events from the past, none of which they can forget, as Jamie says. Thus, much like Mary's body as described at the beginning of the play, the family is slowly decaying because it is trapped by suspicions and problems resulting from mistakes made long ago which can neither be forgiven nor ignored.

We also see in this act Mary's specific idea of what a `home' is. More importantly, we learn that she does not feel like her house is any kind of a home, that she believes that she has never actually had a home with Tyrone, because they have lived their lives touring on the road. This is one of the manifestations of Mary's romantic vision of life that has been destroyed by the reality of her present situation. Unfortunately for her, Mary was never able to voice her concerns until too late in life; she always went along with Tyrone with little comment. Thus, we see that communication within the family is deeply flawed. This is also evident in Mary's continual refusal to admit the truth, and in the men's refusal to tell her the truth. We are left with a family who can easily argue and fight, but can never really communicate what they feel and want until it is too late. The play will move towards a resolution of this conflict towards the end of Act IV, when Jamie tells Edmund of his desire to see him fail, and when Mary and Tyrone discuss their old hopes.

Mary's concern over having a `home' introduces the concern over language into the play. Notice that the characters each command their own particular vocabulary that is highly politicized. Tyrone, for instance, is constantly calling his attitude towards money `prudent,' while the other three call him `stingy.' Likewise, Mary has a different definition of the word `home' than the three men. There is also a hesitancy on the part of all characters to say the word `consumption' in reference to Edmund. O'Neill's world is one in which language is politicized, where characters can claim language for themselves, and where other characters place a great stake in which particular words are used to describe which experiences.

Act II, Scene I Summary

The curtain rises again on the living room, where Edmund sits reading. It is 12:45 pm on the same August day. Cathleen, the maid, enters with whiskey and water for pre-lunch drinking. Edmund asks Cathleen to call Tyrone and Jamie for lunch. Cathleen is chatty and flirty, and tells Edmund that he is handsome. Jamie soon enters and pours himself a drink, adding water to the bottle afterwards so that Tyrone will not know they had a drink before he came in. Tyrone is still outside, talking to one of the neighbors and putting on `an act' with the intent of showing off. Jamie tells Edmund that Edmund may have a sickness more severe than a simple case of malaria. He then chastises Edmund for leaving Mary alone all morning. He tells him that Mary's promises mean nothing anymore. Jamie reveals that he and Tyrone knew of Mary's morphine addiction as much as ten years before they told Edmund.

Edmund begins a coughing fit as Mary enters, and she tells him not to cough. When Jamie makes a snide comment about his father, Mary tells him to respect Tyrone more. She tells him to stop always seeking out the weaknesses in others. She expresses her fatalistic view of life, that most events are somehow predetermined, that humans have little control over their own lives. She then complains that Tyrone never hires any good servants; she is displeased with Cathleen, and she blames her unhappiness on Tyrone's refusal to hire a top-rate maid. At this point, Cathleen enters and tells them that Tyrone is still outside talking. Edmund exits to fetch him, and while he is gone, Jamie stares at Mary with a concerned look. Mary asks why he is looking at her, and he tells her that she knows why. Although he will not say it directly, Jamie knows that Mary is back on morphine; he can tell by her glazed eyes. Edmund reenters and curses Jamie when Mary, playing ignorant, tells him that Jamie has been insinuating nasty things about her. Mary prevents an argument by telling Edmund to blame no one. She again expresses her fatalist view: `[Jamie] can't help what the past has made him. Any more than your father can. Or you. Or I.' Jamie shrugs off all accusations, and Edmund looks suspiciously at Mary.

Tyrone enters, and he argues briefly with his two sons about the whiskey. They all have a large drink. Suddenly, Mary has an outburst about Tyrone's failure to understand what a home is. Mary has a distinct vision of a home, one that Tyrone has never been able to provide for her. She tells him that he should have remained a bachelor, but then she drops the subject so that they can begin lunch. However, she first criticizes Tyrone for letting Edmund drink, saying that it will kill him. Suddenly feeling guilty, she retracts her comments. Jamie and Edmund exit to the dining room. Tyrone sits staring at Mary, then says that he has `been a God-damned fool to believe in you.' She becomes defensive and begins to deny Tyrone's unspoken accusations, but he now knows that she is back on morphine. She complains again of his drinking before the scene ends.

Commentary

Act II introduces us to alcohol, one of the great motifs in the play. In the drinking of alcohol, we see an attempt by the male characters to escape the problems that haunt them. However, notice that this makes them no different from Mary, who uses a different drug to escape the pains of the world. In fact, by the end of Act IV, all three men are drunk, Cathleen is drunk, and Mary is mentally drifting after consuming a huge dose of morphine. The play begins in sobriety but ends in complete inebriation. All the characters are to some degree addicted--to alcohol, or, in Mary's case, to morphine. Thus we see that life for the Tyrone family is very conducive to the desire to escape from the world. Life in the Tyrone family is also conducive to addiction, which we see particularly in Mary, who was on her way to recovery until she came home to her family and could no longer resist the urge to escape mentally. The use of alcohol, furthermore, suggests also that the day on which this play is set is just one of many similar days filled with fighting and excessive drinking until everyone goes to sleep. There is a cycle of alcoholism present in each day for the Tyrones, which leads to the pessimistic conclusion that the family's problems in this play do not resolve themselves, that their conflicts do not lessen. Each family member spends the day working towards inebriation, arguing along the way, and then goes to bed only to wake up the next day and begin the cycle over again.

In this scene, we see clearly Mary's tendency to blame the problems of the family on fate. She initially criticizes Jamie for his tendency to look for weaknesses in other people, but then she attributes the flaw to the way Jamie was raised, which he cannot help. Mary's fatalistic view is one of her character flaws, because it always provides her with an easy way out. Rather than really confronting Jamie about his malice, she simply excuses him. Likewise, she blames much of her own problems on her crushed dreams and disappointment, which in her mind leaves her with very little choice in her actions. The fatalistic outlook, in its removal of responsibility, is a barrier to solving problems, which Mary does not seem to have the ability to do.

One of the ways she hides from these problems is by failing to communicate effectively with her family, which also comes up in this scene. Jamie begins to confront her about her appearance, which we are to believe is somewhat haggard because she is on morphine. Mary, however, immediately decries the supposition and pretends not to understand what Jamie is saying. She will not admit even to her own sons that she has regained her addiction, but at the same time, her sons will not confront her fully about it and force her to confess, even though they know that she is back on morphine. Notice that both sides are to blame for this communication failure; O'Neill is not condemning any one character.

Act II, Scene II Summary

The scene begins half an hour after the previous scene. The family is returning from lunch in the dining room. Tyrone appears angry and aloof, while Edmund appears `heartsick.' Mary and Tyrone argue briefly about the nature of the `home,' although Mary seems somewhat aloof while she speaks because she is on morphine. The phone rings, and Tyrone answers it. He talks briefly with the caller and agrees on a meeting at four o'clock. He returns and tells the family that the caller was Doc Hardy, who wanted to see Edmund that afternoon. Edmund remarks that it doesn't sound like good tidings. Mary immediately discredits everything Doc Hardy has to say because she thinks he is a cheap quack whom Tyrone hired only because he is inexpensive. After a brief argument, she exits upstairs.

After she is gone, Jamie remarks that she has gone to get more morphine. Edmund and Tyrone explode at him, telling him not to think such bad thoughts about people. Jamie counters that Edmund and Tyrone need to face the truth; they are kidding themselves. Edmund tells Jamie that he is too pessimistic. Tyrone argues that both boys have forgotten Catholicism, the only belief that is not fraudulent. Jamie and Edmund both grow mad and begin to argue with Tyrone. Tyrone admits that he does not practice Catholicism strictly, but he claims that he prays each morning and each evening. Edmund is a believer in Nietzsche, who wrote that `God is dead' in ## Thus Spoke Zarathustra # He ends the argument, however, by resolving to speak with Mary about the drugs, and he exits upstairs.

After Edmund leaves, Tyrone tells Jamie that Doc Hardy say that Edmund has consumption, `no possible doubt.' However, if Edmund goes to a sanatorium immediately, he will be cured in six to 12 months. Jamie demands that Tyrone send Edmund somewhere good, not somewhere cheap. Jamie says that Tyrone thinks consumption is necessarily fatal, and therefore it is not worth spending money on trying to cure Edmund since he is guaranteed to die anyway. Jamie correctly argues that consumption can be cured if treated properly. He decides to go with Tyrone and Edmund to the doctor that afternoon then exits.

Mary reenters as Jamie leaves, and she tells Tyrone that Jamie would be a good son if he had been raised in a `real' home as Mary envisions it. She tells Tyrone not to give Jamie any money because he will use it only to but liquor. Tyrone bitterly implies that Mary and her drug use is enough to make any man want to drink. Mary dodges his accusation with denials, but she asks Tyrone not to leave her alone that afternoon because she gets lonely. Tyrone responds that Mary is the one who `leaves,' referring to her mental aloofness when she takes drugs. Tyrone suggests that Mary take a ride in the new car he bought her, which to Tyrone's resentment does not often get used (he sees it as another waste of money). Mary tells him that he should not have bought her a second-hand car. In any case, Mary argues that she has no one to visit in the car, since she has not had any friends since she got married. She alludes briefly to a scandal involving Tyrone and a mistress at the beginning of their marriage, and this event caused many of her friends to abandon her. Tyrone tells Mary not to dig up the past. Mary changes the subject and tells Tyrone that she needs to go to the drugstore.

Delving into the past, Mary tells Tyrone the story of getting addicted to morphine when Edmund was born. She implicitly blames Tyrone for her addiction because he would only pay for a cheap doctor who knew of no better way to cure her childbirth pain. Tyrone interrupts and tells her to forget the past, but Mary replies, `Why? How can I? The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future too. We all try to lie out of that but life won't let us.' Mary blames herself for breaking her vow never to have another baby after Eugene, her second baby who died at two years old from measles he caught from Jamie after Jamie went into the baby's room. Tyrone tells Mary to let the dead baby rest in peace, but Mary only blames herself more for not staying with Eugene (her mother was babysitting when Jamie gave Eugene measles), and instead going on the road to keep Tyrone company as he traveled the country with his plays. Tyrone had later insisted that Mary have another baby to replace Eugene, and so Edmund was born. But Mary claimed that from the first day she could tell that Edmund was weak and fragile, as though God intended to punish her for what happened to Eugene.

Edmund reenters after Mary's speech, and he asks Tyrone for money, which Tyrone grudgingly produces. Edmund is genuinely thankful, but then he gets the idea that Tyrone may regret giving him money because Tyrone thinks that Edmund will die and the money will be wasted. Tyrone is greatly hurt by this accusation, and Edmund suddenly feels very guilty for what he said. He and his father make amends briefly before Mary furiously tells Edmund not to be so morbid and pessimistic. She begins to cry, and Tyrone exits to get ready to go to the doctor with Edmund. Mary again criticizes Doc Hardy and tells Edmund not to see him. Edmund replies that Mary needs to quit the morphine, which puts Mary on the defensive, denying that she still uses and then making excuses for herself. She admits that she lies to herself all the time, and she says that she can `no longer call my soul my own.' She hopes for redemption one day through the Virgin. Jamie and Tyrone call Edmund, and he exits. Mary is left alone, glad that they are gone but feeling `so lonely.'

Commentary

All the characters in this play try to muster an optimistic outlook at times. Tyrone always hopes that Jamie will one day make a success of himself. Mary still hopes that Edmund will get better and that her husband will finally make her a real home. In this scene, we see that Edmund, in keeping with his youthful romantic outlook, has hope for the whole family to make amends. At the time of his `heartsick' entrance, he appears truly troubled by the fighting occurring within the family. Notice that Edmund also has a tendency to avoid conflicts by laughing them away when they appear. He has his outbursts, but he is less responsive to baiting from his father than this brother is. Mary, in a similar vein, tries to hold the family together in part through imminent talking. She seems to dislike silences, because whenever she is onstage, she is usually making meaningless chit chat simply to create noise, such as at the beginning of this scene. Some of her talking constitutes an attempt to smooth over conflicts and also to change the subject away from conflict between the men.

The second scene of Act II reinforces the idea that in terms of structure, the play is built around meals. Act I is set just as the family returns from breakfast; Act II, Scene i occurs as the family prepares for lunch; Act II, Scene ii is set as the family returns from lunch; Act III is set as the family prepares for dinner; Act IV takes place late at night when the men are having their last drinks waiting to pass out. The structure of meals indicates the centrality of meals to the Tyrone family because meals bring all four people together in a traditional family setting. Nevertheless, we never actually see the Tyrones at one of these central meals. Thus, the play has a sense of waiting and recovering in each of the scenes. In the first part of Act II and in Act III, there is a constant sense of waiting for the main event, a meal, to happen. In Act I and the later part of Act II, the characters are all satisfied and search out activities to do until the next meal. This meal structure, like that structure of alcoholism, is very repetitive, and it further suggests the unchanging nature of life for the family.

In this section we begin to see more clearly that Edmund is an intellectual who reads extensively. He is well versed in the German philosopher Nietzsche, for example, and in Act IV we will see him quote extensively from famous French poets such as Baudelaire. Edmund's intellectualism is a source of conflict between him and Tyrone, who thinks that the writers Edmund reads are leading him astray and turning him into towards a cynical, morbid outlook. This is one of the ways in which we see the autobiographical side of the play emerge; O'Neill himself was the intellectual son in the family who went on to be a literary great. Interestingly, Tyrone himself also has an intellectual streak in his love of Shakespeare. He knows the fine details of every Shakespearean play, and he holds the Shakespearean canon up at the highest form of art. In his praise of Shakespeare and condemnation of almost all other authors whom Edmund enjoys, Tyrone with futility tries to assert his control over Edmund, who despite what he hoped does not respect his father as a model for intellectual thought. Tyrone, ever the actor, tries his best to play as many roles as he can.

Nevertheless, religion is particularly important to Tyrone as well as to Mary, as we see in this section for the first time. Although neither practice Catholicism, Tyrone and Mary both claim to pray on a daily basis, and they say that they fear God. The two sons, by contrast, are skeptics. We see then the breakdown of the Tyrone family values from one generation to the next. Whereas Tyrone was raised on Shakespeare, Irish writers and the Bible, his sons have spurned that same upbringing, turning towards a different type of literature and a lack of faith. The rejection of the old way by the second generation is something that Mary and Tyrone both have difficulty accepting, and it further reminds the reader that they are an aging couple being replaced by new Americans.

Finally, Mary's comments that she cannot forget the past because `the past is the present' further suggests the repetitive nature of life in the Tyrone family. The events of the past are continually repeated in the present, just as the events of each individual day are repeated in a cyclical fashion based on alcohol or morphine. Note that the title, Long Day's Journey into Night, suggests that the day is not really unique; it is just another day in the life of the family, not too much different from most other days except that it is the day that Edmund learns he has consumption.

Act III Summary

The scene opens as usual on the living room at 6:30 pm, just before dinner time. Mary and Cathleen are alone in the room; Cathleen, at Mary's invitation, has been drinking. Although they discuss the fog, it is clear that Cathleen is there only to give Mary a chance to talk to someone. They discuss briefly Tyrone obsession with money, and then Mary refuses to admit to Edmund's consumption. Mary delves into her past memories of her life and family. As a pious Catholic schoolgirl, she says that she never liked the theater; she did not feel `at home' with the theater crowd. Mary then brings up the subject of morphine, which we learn Cathleen gets for her from the local drugstore. Mary is becoming obsessed with her hands, which used to be long and beautiful but have since deteriorated. She mentions that she used to have two dreams: to become a nun and to become a famous professional pianist. These dreams evaporated, however, when she met Tyrone and fell in love. She met Tyrone after seeing him in a play. He was friends with her father, who introduced the two. And she maintains that Tyrone is a good man; in 36 years of marriage, he has had not one extramarital scandal.

Cathleen then exits to see about dinner, and Mary slowly becomes bitter as she recalls more memories. She thinks of her happiness before meeting Tyrone. She thinks that she cannot pray anymore because the Virgin will not listen to a dope fiend. She decides to go upstairs to get more drugs, but before she can do so, Edmund and Tyrone return.

They immediately recognize upon seeing her that she has taken a large dose of morphine. Mary tells them that she is surprised they returned, since it is `more cheerful' uptown. The men are clearly drunk, and in fact Jamie is still uptown seeing whores and drinking. Mary says that Jamie is a `hopeless failure' and warns that he will drag down Edmund with him out of jealousy. Mary talks more about the bad memories from the past, and Tyrone laments that he even bothered to come home to his dope addict of a wife. Tyrone decides to pay no attention to her. Mary meanwhile waxes about Jamie, who she thinks was very smart until he started drinking. Mary blames Jamie's drinking on Tyrone, calling the Irish stupid drunks, a comment which Tyrone ignores.

Mary's tone suddenly changes as she reminisces about meeting Tyrone. Tyrone then begins to cry as he thinks back on the memories, and he tells his wife that he loves her. Mary responds, `I love you dear, in spite of everything.' But she regrets marrying him because he drinks so much. Mary says she will not forget, but she will try to forgive. She mentions that she was spoiled terribly by her father, and that spoiling made her a bad wife. Tyrone takes a drink, but seeing the bottle has been watered down by his sons trying to fool him into believing that they haven't been drinking, he goes to get a new one. Mary again calls him stingy, but she excuses him to Edmund, telling of how he was abandoned by his father and forced to work at age 10.

Edmund then tells Mary that he has tuberculosis, and Mary immediately begins discrediting Doc Hardy. She will not believe it, and she does not want Edmund to go to a sanatorium. She thinks that Edmund is just blowing things out of the water in an effort to get more attention. Edmund reminds Mary that her own father died of tuberculosis, then comments that it is difficult having a `dope fiend for a mother.' He exits, laving Mary alone. She says aloud that she needs more morphine, and she admits that she secretly hopes to overdose and die, but she cannot intentionally do so because the Virgin could never forgive suicide. Tyrone reenters with more whiskey, noting that Jamie could not pick the lock to his liquor cabinet. Mary suddenly bursts out that Edmund will die, but Tyrone assures her that he will be cured in six months. Mary thinks that Edmund hated her because she is a dope fiend. Tyrone comforts her, and Mary once again blames herself for giving birth. Cathleen announces dinner. Mary says she is not hungry and goes to bed. Tyrone knows that she is really going for more drugs.

Commentary

Notice that, as mentioned in previous sections, the play is structured around either waiting for meals or recovering from them. In this case, the family is biding time waiting for dinner to be served. However, the process of having meals together breaks down over the course of the day. Breakfast goes smoothly, but then lunch is stalled for a long time as the family waits for Tyrone to return from the garden. Dinner itself is a disaster; Jamie is not even home from carousing, and Mary does not attend because she has lost her appetite as she takes more drugs. The central activity of the family - eating together - has fallen apart as the day has gone on.

We also see a more fully developed idea of Mary's desire for a home. We learn that she dislikes Tyrone's idea of a home so strongly because she associates it with the death of Eugene, who died when Mary was traveling with Tyrone. Mary associates Tyrone with the traveling home of the theater actor; she thus symbolically spurns the way in which she was forced to live life with Tyrone.

The more Mary uses morphine, the more she tends to delve back into past memories. We thus get a better idea of why Mary uses morphine so much - it allows her to leave the present and live in the world of the past, when she was a little girl in a convent. We will see in the last act that Mary idealizes her youth so much that if she takes excessive doses of morphine, she can actually fall into a mental state in which she cannot distinguish between the past and the present. It is important to note, however, that while the men hate Mary's morphine addiction, they themselves are hardly better in their abuse of alcohol. While Mary certainly disappears mentally when she is loaded, the men do the same, even though they think their drug of choice is more acceptable. Of course, we can only assume that Mary will continue to lose more of her dreams as she gets older; O'Neill suggests in this play that people, as they get older, have a tendency to idealize the dreams of the past in such a fashion as to become disenchanted and hopelessly ineffectual in the present.

Of course, this is a very pessimistic outlook, but O'Neill clearly avoids despair by suggesting that there is some redemption through forgiveness. Mary reiterates that she cannot forget the past, but she says that she will try to forgive. While we cannot trust her to make such an effort, it seems that forgiving the past mistakes of Tyrone and her sons is the only way that Mary can stop trying to live in her past dreams and accept the present reality while thinking about a brighter future. Indeed, the title Long Day's Journey into Night has more than one meaning. If the play were simply about Mary, it could be called Long Day's Journey into the Past. There is a dual movement in the play; on one hand, the family is moving forward in time as symbolized by the passing of the day. On the other hand, all the characters, as they get increasingly drunk, travel mentally back in time to happier times when they think they had fewer problems. The title, in its ambiguous use of the word night, seems to suggest the dual nature of the play.

Act III also more clearly shows us the relationship between Edmund and Mary. It is important to recognize that Mary has never stopped seeing Edmund as her little baby son who replaced Eugene, the baby in whom Mary had so much hope. On the one hand, Mary has trouble seeing Edmund as anything other than her invulnerable baby whom she can cure of anything. The prospect of Edmund dying, however, is particularly troubling for Mary because she thinks that Edmund may be God's way of punishing her. So on the other hand, she associated Edmund with her own negligence and potential punishment from God. This double-sided viewpoint leaves complicates their relationship in a fashion that, for a literary standpoint, enriches the characterization of both Mary and Edmund.

Act IV, Part One Summary

The time is midnight, and as the act begins a foghorn is heard in the distance. Tyrone sits alone in the living room, drinking and playing solitaire. He is drunk, and soon Edmund enters, also drunk. They argue about keeping the lights on and the cost of the electricity. Tyrone acts stubborn, and Edmund accuses him of believing whatever he wants, including that Shakespeare and Wellington were Irish Catholics. Tyrone grows angry and threatens to beat Edmund, then retracts. He gives up and turns on all the lights. They note that Jamie is still out at the whorehouse. Edmund has just returned from a long walk in the cold night air even though doing so was a bad idea for his health. He states, `To hell with sense! We're all crazy.' Edmund tells Tyrone that he loves being in the fog because it lets him live in another world. He pessimistically parodies Shakespeare, saying, `We are such stuff as manure is made of, so let's drink up and forget it. That's more my idea.' He quotes then from the French author Baudelaire, saying `be always drunken.' He then quotes from Baudelaire about the debauchery in the city in reference to Jamie. Tyrone criticizes all of Edmund's literary tastes; he thinks Edmund should leave literature for God. Tyrone thinks that only Shakespeare avoids being an evil, morbid degenerate.

They hear Mary upstairs moving around, and they discuss her father, who died of tuberculosis. Edmund notes that they only seem to discuss unhappy topics together. They begin to play cards, and Tyrone tells Jamie that even though Mary dreamed of being a nun and a pianist, she did not have the willpower for the former or the skill for the latter; Mary deludes herself. They hear her come downstairs but pretend not to notice. Edmund then blames Tyrone for Mary's morphine addiction because Tyrone hired a cheap quack. Edmund then says he hates Tyrone and blames him for Mary's continued addiction because Tyrone never gave her a home. Tyrone defends himself, but then Edmund says that he thinks that Tyrone believes he will die from consumption. Edmund tells Tyrone that he, Tyrone, spends money only on land, not on his sons. Edmund states that he will die before he will go to a cheap sanatorium.

Tyrone brushes off his comments, saying that Edmund is drunk. But Tyrone promises to send Edmund anywhere he wants to make him better, `within reason.' Tyrone tells Edmund that he is prudent with money because he has always had to work for everything he has. Edmund and Jamie, by contrast, have been able to take everything in life for granted. Tyrone thinks that neither of his sons knows the value of money. Edmund, delving into his deeper emotions, reminds Tyrone that he, Edmund, once tried to commit suicide. Tyrone says that Edmund was merely drunk at the time, but Edmund insists he was aware of his actions. Tyrone then begins to cry lightly, telling of his destitute childhood and his terrible father. Tyrone and Edmund, making amends, agree together on a sanatorium for Edmund, a place that is more expensive but substantially better. Tyrone then tells Edmund of his great theatrical mistake that prevented him from becoming widely famous: he sold out to one particular role, and was forever more typecast, making it difficult for him to expand his horizons and find new work. Tyrone says that he only ever really wanted to be an artist, but his hopes were dashed when he sold out to brief commercial success. Edmund begins laughing `at life. It's so damned crazy,' thinking of his father as an artist.

Edmund then tells some of his memories, all of which are related to the sea. He reflects on moments when he felt dissolved into or lost in the ocean. He thinks that there is truth and meaning in being lost at sea, and he thinks he should have been born a `seagull or a fish.'

Commentary

This is the first time we see real interaction between Tyrone and Edmund, a relationship that has not been explored extensively in the play before this point. They argue much over Edmund's obsession with literature, and it becomes clear that Tyrone wishes to exert his authority over Edmund by dictating what Edmund ought to read. One of Tyrone's great dreams is to see his sons grow up to be like him, and he clearly thinks that Edmund's interest in literature leads him down a different path. Nevertheless, it is interesting that Tyrone and Edmund are both intellectual figures. Tyrone is fascinated by Shakespeare and the art of acting; he admits that his only dream was to be an artist. Edmund laughs at this simply because Tyrone tells Edmund that his pursuit of art will get him nowhere in life. Tyrone seems to be at conflict with his own interest in art as opposed to his son's interest in what Tyrone perceives to be bad influences.