The Reality of Many

Long day’s journey into night it’s an autobiographic play written by Eugene O’Neill in 1941-1942 which by its name you cannot guess about what it is about. But one you read the play or watch the performance you realize in the very first lines or minutes that the play can be understood by anyone who belong to the human species. (Don Dale, 1999)(One may think the main thematic of such play is no longer attractive for the public. Yet its plot is so close related to the reality of many families nowadays that in my opinion this play is timeless)

Why? 

The play depicts the dynamics of a regular family composed by the father, the mother and their two children. But not a “regular” family such as the ones we watch in a TV-show or a sitcom where everybody can solve their problems right away and continue to be a happy smiley family. No, in this play all characters find themselves living in a regular family, more specifically O’Neill’s family; which like any family has lots of flaws and weaknesses.

And as many regular families one of their most recurrent flaw is that they are always trying to escape their problems. Take for example the fact that they are all the time blaming on each other and taking no responsibility for their mistakes, what’s more they do not even acknowledge such mistakes. A situation where this is clearly notorious is that through the whole play, the three men in the family continuously refuse to accept their mother’s morphine relapse, they blame each other.

 

For example Jamie blames Edmund for the mother’s relapse since he did not stayed with her. Although both of the brothers know what is really happening the do not admit or talk openly about their mother’s addiction.

While that is going on the mother, whose name is Mary, does not care about any of the situations that surround her, she is only interested in what she had in the past and does not had in the present. To do this she uses morphine, in this way she blocks the reality from her life; a recurrent metaphor of her situation is the fog concept and how she describes it:

 “It wasn't the fog I minded, Cathleen. I really love fog. [...] It hides you from the world and the world from you. You feel that everything has changed, and nothing is what it seemed to be. No one can find or touch you anymore.”

For her the fog and the morphine are one and the same since both keep the real world out of her life, she does this to avoid problems.

The beauty of this play is that it does not try to beautify reality. In our lives we make mistakes, we do not talk about them; pretend nothing has ever happened just like in the play. What's more, we can actually see ourselves potrayed inin some pats of the play. The only difference is that O’Neill’s autobiographic play is a lot more dramatic than our daily routine problems. 

References

Don Dale. (1999). Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" on PBS-TV's "Great Performances. 17-08-2015, de style weekly Sitio web: http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/eugene-oneills-long-days-journey-into-night-on-pbs-tvs-great-performances/Content?oid=137690

O'Neill, E.. (1956). Long Day's Journey into Night(pp). USA