Thinking activity on long day's journey into night

Here I am presenting my thinking activity on long day's journey into night : 

(1) Can we say that this play's main themes is addiction, past memory, escapism ?

                 The plot of Long Day's Journey into Night focuses on a dysfunctional family trying to come to grips with its ambivalent emotions in the face of serious familial problems, including drug addiction, moral degradation, deep-rooted fear and guilt, and life-threatening illness. 

*Addiction ,past memory , escapism : 

             In the play O'Neil showcases how hard people will work to avoid confronting their guilt. This dynamic is most evident in the way Mary tries to keep her family from focusing on her addiction. Mary's morphine addiction is balanced by the men's alcoholism. 

Although the morphine is perhaps a more destructive drug, alcohol does its fair share of damage to the Tyrone men. It is Tyrone's great vice, and it has contributed Mary's unhappiness.

             Addiction has been Jamie's response to life, and it is part of why he has failed so miserably. And Edmund's alcohol use has probably contributed to ruining his health.In many ways, Long Day's Journey Into Night is a play about a family that can't extricate itself from the past. 

For Mary , this obsession manifests as a form of nostalgia, one in which she tries to escape her present reality, which is bleak and depressing. The past is dominant theme in the play. 

              The past also become Refuge, but not in a positive way. Mary uses an idealized recreation of her Girlhood as escapist fantasy. As she sinks further band further into the fog of morphine,she relives her childhood at the Catholic girl's school. The past is ued to escape to face with the present. 

       Yes we can say that the main theme of the play's are addiction ,past memory and escapism. 

(2). "American dreams" capitalisation, failure of capitalisation ? Can we find these element what is the structure of this play ? 

     Capitalisation is said to provide the opportunity to achieve " The American Dream"in the play. With good work , ethics, financial sense. 

However, this dream is hopelessly outdated and become increasingly difficult to achieve.O'Neil in Long Day's Journey concern about this failure and reveals the reality of " The American Dream" in the capitalist society.

           He represents the failure of American man, American values, American culture. 

Mary's words show that Tyrone is a practitioner of " The American Dream" and he comes to this land for the financial success. 

             The Tyrones are hopeless people that by drinking and consuming morphine try to escape from the reality to their life. Tyrone is the result of capitalism.

              Tyrone's soul is destroyed by possessiveness and greed. 

(3) Can we say that all four character are in guilt of the past memory and they are dependent on each and they wanted to escape from past but could not. How do you look this concept ? 

              Surely we can say that all four characters of the play are in guilt of the past. They all are not independent but dependent on each other . They also wanted to escape from past but could not escape.

James Tyrone who is blamed by his son Jamie. He sent his wife Mary in senetoriam. But there is no great treatment of morphine addiction. And in past he make mistake on the birth of Edmund. 

He sent Mary cheap hospital and she became morphine addicted. This past memory dream to become nun and pianist. 

             But after meet with James Tyrone her dream not completed. She guilt about her past and also talks about it. The four characters has guilt.  

In the play , The four characters are wanted to escape from their past memory but they could not.

               They have addiction of alcohol and morphine. Mary taking morphine for escaping the past memory. The other three taking alcohol for escaping reality and past memory. They try to escape from past but they could not escape. 

4) Can you do comparison between Mourning Becomes Electra and Long day's journey into the night ? 

              Mourning Becomes Electra is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. And Long Day's Journey Into Night also written by him. Mourning Becomes Electra is play based on Greek play The Oristeia.

                 The same story telling about Greek legend in the O'Neill's play. Here he put the character of Ezra Mannon. Long Day's Journey Into Night is story about James Tyrone who is not king or legend. This story connect with O'Neill's own personal life. This play as semi autobiography. The both play has Oedipus complex.

 In Mourning Becomes Electra we find the psychoanalytic term Electra complex. Which represents girls sense of competition with her mother for the affections of her father. In this play Lavinia daughter of Christine and Ezra Mannon. Lavinia loves her father Ezra Mannon.

             Also we find the Oedipus complex which is the psychoanalytic term. That represents the children more affection to their opposite gender parents. Especially boy with his mother. In this play Orin the son of Christine and Ezra Mannon who loves his mother Christine.  

 In the play Long Day's Journey Into Night we have find Oedipus complex. Edmund is more connected with his mother. Edmund loves Mary and always worried about her morphine addiction and health. 

           Mary is the representative of Electra complex she has love for her father. She also loves his son Edmund. And she is more worried about Edmund's health. 

 In this both play we find psychoanalytic theory of Electra complex and Oedipus complex. Both play has character they have Oedipus complex term.

             Edmund and Orin both loves their mother. They more affected with their mothers Mary and Christine. The both play shows the psychoanalysis theory. 

(5) How do you read Mary's character as a feminist reader how do you interpret her character ?

* Mary's character: 

Mary Tyrone

            The wife of Tyrone and mother of Jamie and Edmund, she struggles from a morphine addiction that has lasted over two decades.  

               While she has broken the addiction several times, she always resumes her morphine use after spending more time with her family. She is on morphine in each scene of the play, and her use increases steadily as the day wears on.                                                                     Although she loves Tyrone, she oftentimes regrets marrying him because of the dreams she had to sacrifice of becoming a nun or a concert pianist. 

                     As a feminist reader I have put Mary's character in the centre of the play. Her character is most and more important in the play. She becomes morphine addicted.  

           She always guilt in her past memory. She has tension of her son Edmund. 

(6) How you see "Lacan's psychoanalysis " theory, and interpretation with special reference of "Long day's journey in to the night" ?

             Lacan holds that human psyche is formed of three orders (the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real) which mold theu nconscious mind and motivate human actions and reactions. He believes that in the formation of the first psychic order, the Imaginary, "the child, in the presence of his mother, begins to manifest his needs.

 It is here that he encounters the mother as a speaking subject". It is a world of satisfaction for the child where" the infant emerges from satisfaction, and not from frustration, to construct a world"  that is the realm of ideal completeness in which the child feels no lack or loss, since it is governed by the illusive joyful unity of the child and its mother.

Moreover there are no traces of language in this order. When the child is six-month old, Lacan holds, it starts to distinguish itself from its mother in a phase that Lacan terms the Mirror Stage in which the child sees its own image distinct from that of its mother, and thereby the illusion of unity with the mother crumbles down.

O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey Into Night, the play dramatizes one day of Tyrone family's life through which the personalities of its members are revealed via their memory and also their disputes each other. 

O'Neill shows that the mind of all four members of the family is haunted by the past, and all suffer from some lacks they try to compensate for by such means as drinking alcohol, using morphine, acting as an actor or a man of literature, while they constantly fail to do so, as they are entangled in the web of ideology and the law of the other imposed on them , though in different ways.

The noteworthy features of O'Neill 's play is the fogginess of the stage throughout the play that creates a gloomy atmosphere , and signifies the delving into the unconscious mind , since fog is the symbol of unconsciousness . 

(7) Do you find split personality in Mary's character ? How and where ? Explain in detail .

                In the play LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT we can find many characters . Among the female characters ,Mary Tyrone is the wife of Tyrone and mother of Jamie and Edmund, she struggles from a morphine addiction .

Mary Tyrone appears to possess the dual personality in marked way. She is a wife of Tyrone and mother of Jamie and Edmund, she struggles from a morphine addiction that has lasted over two decades.

            While she has broken the addiction several times, she always resumes her morphine use after spending more time with her family. This could be differently in her thought, mental disposition towards the sons , and verbal expression. 

The good breast role is to be found in her deep motherly affection and caring attitude for the younger son Edmund in the play. She shows deep sense of concern on his I'll health and possible tuberculosis. 

It makes her develop open and direct confrontation with her husband and accuses him of miserliness and saving money at the cost of Edmund's health. As a mother, she should have taken it her first responsibility to baby or take proper measure in that direction if she had to leave. 

                 She becomes directly responsible for his immediate death through measles. It is equally evident in her whole attitude after Eugene death.  

            Mary's conduct has ingrained in Jamie a deep-seated jealousy and a self-destructive attitude that is related strongly to Jamie's needcof caring mother.

 A positive motherly attitude would have developed his personality and rescued him from such negative traits as despair and extreme jealousy.

                It does not deny Oedipal , but projects the other destructive aspect of the mother as an object.  It was Edmund's birth that put her on the lifelong morphine addiction. 

(8)  Mary and Fog ! What is connection between Mary and Fog . Or Fogginess how she interpreted "Fog" ? What are the relevance of fog in this drama. 

           Long Day’s Journey into Night is a semi-autobiographical story written by Eugene O’Neill roughly on 1941- 1942. The play concerns the Tyrone family which were composed of parents James and Mary and their sons Jamie and Edmund. Mary and Jamie were each addicted to morphine and alcohol, respectively. 

The story deals with the family’s addiction to whiskey, the father parsimony, the mother’s addiction to morphine, and the younger son’s illness. 

              Resentment, blame, and accusation were expressed all the times by the family members for not taking responsibility and running away from the reality. The long journey that the title of the play referred to was actually a journey into the past.

Fog is a recurring metaphor in the play; it is a crucial symbol of the family's impenetrable confusion. It is referred to in the text as well as stag direction in this play. O'Neill uses the Fog outside the house as an atmospheric element that has an ominous presence this play. 

          Tyrone family members and the surrounding that O'Neill grew up in were tained by broken dreams, lies, disease, past issues, alcoholism and drug addiction.The symbolic implications of fog in the play are descriptive of the struggle in the minds of this deeply conflicted family. 

Fog can represent a number of different things in the play, but generally, for all of the characters, fog is dark, isolating and unstoppable. Fog represents Mary's mental state after she takes her medicine, which she is addicted to. Mary and Fog both connected. The Fog is easily identifiable as Mary's morphine high, representative of her cloudy mental state. 

Mary sinks back into her addiction as the night falls and slowly regresses further away from reality and her family. The fog signifies the state of mind that she is in. She can hide herself in the fog so that her family can be oblivious to her addiction.