English 3319 students:
For our Monday, November 1st, blog, during class time (1:00-1:50 p.m.), please publish a comment of at least two well-developed paragraphs about this Halloween-related prompt:
What are the haunting and haunted aspects of the end of Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill, from 2:35:00 to the end, 2:50:00 (the last fifteen minutes of the play).
Here is the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hncUJiK2Zsg
After you publish your comment, please comment in at least one well-developed paragraph to one of the other students' comments.
If you have any trouble publishing your comment, which you should compose in Word or an email and then copy and paste it into the comment box, please email me it to me so that I can publish it on your behalf.
Thank you,
Dr. Kornasky
Dr. Kornasky
What I see in the last parts of the movie is a dysfunctional family that is haunted by their pasts of their former selves. They were once a close family, but now all they do is scream and get mad at each other. In the end it is like the entire Tyrone family is haunting each other because they all hold their mistakes on one another and seem to resent and somewhat hate one another for their own shortcomings. At the very end of the movie something strange happens, they all sit down peacefully and listen to Mary as she remembers when she met and fell in love with James Tyrone. I think that it shows that while they may be dysfunctional and haunted by the past, them sitting down and listening to Mary without yelling shows they still love each other despite their grudges against one another.
ReplyDeleteOmar, I quite enjoyed reading your analysis of the ghosts in this play. You had some interesting things to say, most specifically about the family holding onto their mistakes and grievances. You said they appear to be "haunting each other" which is an excellent way of looking at things. All of their secrets that they have held over the years have to do with each other in some sort of fashion, so your idea that the Tyrone's are their own ghosts is quite interesting. Very well written.
DeleteThe ending definitely feels like a long overdue reconciliation between a highly dysfunctional family. Though it feels a bit uneasy in closing. All the cards are on the table, but what can they do with them? In the end, Mary does seem to be the unifying force that quells the arguing between the men, but she herself still seems to be haunted by her unfulfilled dreams and a reemerging morphine addiction. Their hauntings of each other may be terminal because of the very love you mentioned, driven on by the grudges that everyone is glaringly aware of now.
DeleteI think you made really good observations. The characters are all going through their own problems but they find a way to make it each others' but they managed to continue to love each other through it all.
DeleteTowards the end of Long Day's Journey into Night showcases a great many "ghosts" that have haunted the family for quite some time. As they characters converse with one another and reveal secrets that they had long kept close to the chest, we see that the ghosts that haunt them are found in the form of personal loss in each family member. As the play progresses, each family member takes their turn in revealing these dark secrets.
ReplyDeleteJames reveals that his stinginess is due to him staying in one acting job too long because of the money. James may have gained money, but he lost the ability to be diverse and versatile in his roles, spelling an early stagnation in his career. Similarly, Mary also lost her career when she fell in love with James. Although she does love him, there is clearly some regret on her part. Jamie also reveals that he has, in a way, lost a piece of himself, as he brutally tells Edmund that although he may love him, he wishes to watch him fail. This angst coming out from all the family members show that no matter what a family looks like on the outside, each member is still their own individual and harbor feelings unknown to the rest of the family
I really like how you say the dark secrets that they have all been holding are are like ghosts. It is really enjoyed how you explained what each person has been keeping secret, like it was haunting them until they let it all out.
DeleteBrooks, you have a very interesting analysis on this work. You make an excellent point about how each member of the family struggles with their own "ghosts" and how it effects them. I think it is interesting how each "ghost" that haunts this family is related to a loss in one form or another. I also really like how you end your statement on how despite the fact that they are a family, the hold their own secret feelings from the rest.
DeleteAround 2:36:10 Jamie rather outright reveals a hateful jealousy for his younger brother, Edmund. This jealousy as described by Jamie comes across as Jekyll and Hyde-esque. Jamie himself admits to loving his brother intensely, but an increasingly aggressive side of him begins to manifest, as if he’s becoming possessed by a combination of alcohol and personal negativity. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jamie shows a striking duality in both his love and bitterness towards Edmund. The ‘living’ side of Jamie embodies the good, brotherly love and the ‘dead’ side reveals a malicious, deeply hateful jealousy. He remarks that Edmund is all he has, and that he loves him dearly, yet a breath later he threatens Edmund. His mannerisms become wild and aggressive and his speech to Edmund is laced with unbrotherly threat. It’s as if, in this brief drunken moment, Jamie allows the Hyde-esque dead side of him to overtake the living, brotherly side of him so that he may reveal his deepest emotions in a moment of unreserved candidness. This may seem like a bit of a reaching comparison, but I think the duality of man, as explored in the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde speaks to our ideas of every man’s natural, latent potential for good and evil. Jamie loves his brother dearly, but an inseparable part of him deeply resents him. He demonstrates this dual capacity for good, boundless brotherly love and admits to an underlying, evil jealousy that undermines his natural relationship with Edmund. It is this dead side of Jamie that haunts an otherwise pure relationship, just as the image of Hyde, and his capacity for evil haunted Jekyll.
ReplyDeleteNot long after this scene, around 2:41:33, Mary appears at the stairs and descends to play the piano. In a pale nightgown and dragging her wedding dress, she appears ghostlike and unaware of the familial struggle taking place behind her. Her unreconciled past, enhanced by her morphine addiction, haunts her. She acts as a ghost in her own home, drifting between the rooms lost in memory, unaware of the present and unable to recognize her delusion. When the camera pans out Mary is singularly illuminated in ghostly white at the table. While everyone else is darkened, aware of the present, Mary is illuminated by a simpler, idyllic past and appears like an apparition among her sons and husband.
I really like the comparison to Jekyll and Hyde. I think that the Modernist period deals heavily with the duality of man and the idea that not everything is as it appears. Jamie loves his brother, but is crippled by the fear that he is a failure, and as such acts out in a way that echoes the relationship between Cain and Abel. I also think this duality is present in the character of Mary. She is haunted by the ideal she had had for her life, to become a nun or to become a pianist, and the reality that she refuses to face. Her drugged mind takes her back to when she was innocent, before she had had faced great tragedies in her life. Both of these characters, Jamie and Mary, are faced with a reality they don't want to believe in, and both cling to facades and addiction in order to cope.
DeleteYour observation at the end of the play about Mary being illuminated is very interesting! I didn’t even notice that until you pointed it out. I think you explain her state of mind very well, it is obvious she is struggling and probably isn’t thinking correctly due to her addiction. Even though this family isn’t physically haunted, it easy to see that Mary has lost herself and his haunted by the “ghost” of her past.
DeleteThroughout Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, the Tyrones are each haunted by the ghosts of their past. Mary desperately wants to reconnect with Catholicism, to regain her connection with the Virgin Mary, and to feel safe and loved as she had when she was younger. This is evidenced by the way in which her mind, high off of morphine, brings her back to her convent schooldays, when she had planned to become a nun. In these days, she was beloved by the nuns who ran the convent, and she had wanted to stay in their presence and to be comforted by her religion for the rest of her days. However, the Mother Superior advised Mary to experience the world before committing to the convent life, and Mary ended up falling in love with James Tyrone and never returned to the convent. Through the meeting and marrying of James, Mary loses her child and becomes addicted to morphine after the birth of her third child. Had she become a nun, she would have been able to escape all of this heartache, and would have remained in the favor of the Blessed Virgin. The addiction that haunts her brings her mind back to when she truly had hope for the future, back to before she had experienced great tragedy, and back to when she felt loved and cared for.
ReplyDeleteJames Tyrone is haunted by his failure as an actor, and by his failure as a parent. He had wanted his first born, Jamie, to follow in his footsteps, to be a great actor, and to be an upstanding citizen. James had given up his aspirations of becoming a great actor in favor of a well-paying role, yet has never been able to enjoy the money he earned. He gave up his dreams and purpose, and could not even enjoy any of the reasons for which he abandoned his dreams. Knowing that he would never achieve what he had wanted do, James turns to his eldest son, Jamie and tries to make him into a son he could be proud of. However, Jamie is a washed-out alcoholic who can’t seem to get anywhere in life. Jamie has never been able to live up to the expectations his father has set upon him, and this fact haunts him. Jamie is a failure, and turns to alcohol as a means of coping. Jamie cannot handle the fact that Edmund is more successful than him, and thus attempts to destroy the only one he truly loves. Edmund is then, in turn, haunted by the fact that he is a burden to the family. Edmund is the one who was born to replace his dead brother, Edmund is the one who’s birth caused his mother to become addicted to morphine, and Edmund is the one who, having fallen ill with consumption, is threatening the already crumbling foundation of the family.
Ultimately, the family is haunted by the failure of societal and familial structures. Mary feels abandoned by the religion that had provided her comfort. Mary is haunted by what she perceives to be her failure of a mother, the only role she had seen as available to a woman, other than the convent. James is haunted by his inability to adequately provide for his family, not because he lacks the means, but because he lacks the character to do so. He is also haunted by the failure of his eldest son, who, according to ideal of primogeniture that was so pervasive in Western culture, should have been his pride and joy. Jamie, in turn, is haunted by his failure to live up to that ideal, and by the fact that his younger brother is more successful than he is. Jamie is torn between his love for Edmund, and his fear of not being the successful oldest son. Edmund is haunted by the death of his older brother; a shadow he feels he can never outgrow. Edmund is also haunted by the fact that he, the child, is viewed as responsible for his mother’s addiction. Where it is the mother’s job to be responsible for her child, the child is the one who gets blamed for the fate of the mother.
(Katherine Spitzer)
Katherine, I completely agree that each member of the family is haunted by their ghosts from the past. The family structure is in a constant state of dysfunction and Edmund’s pending death would be the cause of its destruction. I like how you talk about Mary’s haunting with her abandonment by her religion and how that ruined her. I never really thought about how if Mary had achieved her dreams, then she would never be experiencing the heartache she has been through.
DeleteLong Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill is full of haunting aspects. Throughout the whole play, the family is constantly haunted by the past due to O’Neill’s traumatizing childhood. However, in the last 15 minutes of the play, more haunting aspects of the rest of the family come to light. The father, James, is haunted by his Shakespearean past as an actor. Jamie is haunted by his alcoholism along with the responsibilities that come with being the oldest child, Mary is haunted by her failed dreams and her drug addiction, and Edmund is haunted by his being born and now his disease.
ReplyDeleteThe Tyrone family is trapped in a vicious cycle of pain that they cannot escape. The hauntings of their past create the problems in their present. James explains to Edmund that he is a miserly person, and therefore, his inability to spend emotions coincides with his inability to spend money and the important things in his life including his family. Jaime also explains to Edmund that he was trying to be a bad influence so that he can be seen as the better son, but his drinking problems diminished any hopes he had for doing anything great. Mary’s failures and Edmund’s birth led to her depending on drugs that worried and hurt her family. Edmund is haunted by the fact that his birth, and now his consumption, is one of the reasons his family is so dysfunctional. Ultimately, the Tyrone family simply cannot escape their mistakes from the past that haunt not only them, but everyone around them. At the end of the play, it becomes clear that this family is broken and haunted to a point of no return.
Each character in Eugene O’Neill’s play Long Day's Journey into Night is haunted by their own troubles. Mary is haunted by the death of her son and her morphine addiction. Towards the end of the play she is seen as a ghost when she comes down to play the piano. The weight of losing her second son and Edmunds childbirth was too much for Mary. She felt as if God was punishing her. Although she is present in the story her addiction has kept her locked up for years. She struggles with her relationship with James and partially blames Edmunds birth for her addiction. The father James Tyrone is haunted by his past and the mistakes he made during those times. At one point in his life James was a very successful actor. He was able to get the lead role in a play and make a lot of money from it. Although he was successful he stayed in that particular play for too long and by the time he stopped he was not able to take on more challenging roles because of his stagnation. James' miserliness has caused him much trouble and pain over the years. Including the pain each family member has endured.
ReplyDeleteTowards the end of the play we see Jamie come home and get into an argument with Edmund he goes back and forth about how he loves his brother but also wishes he was dead. Jamie is the eldest son and so he has had to carry the burden of each of his parents and brothers troubles. He is significantly older than Edmund and has witnessed first hand his mothers relapse and Edmunds struggles with his illness. The accusation from his mother that Jamie killed his brother on purpose also weighs heavy on his heart. We do not really know exactly why he started drinking but we can guess because of all these hardships why he has continued to drink. Jamie is perhaps the person who is most haunted in the play and struggles the most with his addiction.
At the end of Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill, it becomes evident that all family members of the Tyrone family are haunted by their past. In the closing scene, Mary, James, and the two sons reveal secrets to each other that they have never talked about before. It shows clearly that the family is not harmoniously and that some topics should have been addressed a long time ago. Instead, everyone kept secrets to themselves. In particular the two brothers, Edmund and Jamie, are fighting with each other and screaming at each other. Furthermore, Jamie reveals his true feelings to Edmund. “What I wanted to say is, I’d like to see you become the greatest success in the world. But you’d better be on your guard. Because I’ll do my damnedest to make you fail. Can’t help it. I hate myself. Got to take revenge. On everyone else. Especially you.” Jamie was haunted by these feelings for a long time, and now finally confesses everything to his brother.
ReplyDeleteIn the following, the two brothers are sitting down at a table with their father and Mary appears after she played the piano. Mary reveals her thoughts about the past to her family. She tells everyone that she wanted to become a nun when she was young, but what stopped her was that she fell in love with James. Mary then says at the very end of the play that she “was so happy for a time”. This implies that Mary at least in parts may regret her decision that she made when she was young. She explains that she was happy when she married James, but apparently now she is not happy anymore. Her past decisions haunt her now in the present and lead to her having regrets. Furthermore, in this scene it becomes evident that the family still sticks together at least in some circumstances. When Mary revels in the past, her husband and the sons are quiet and listening which shows their support.
At the end of Long Day’s Journey into Night we can see the Tyrone family arguing about their issues and past mistakes. It starts out with the two brothers arguing about their past mistakes and troubles. Jamie explains his jealously to his brother Edmund. Jamie continues by telling Edmund he wants to see his succeed, but at the same time he is going to do everything in his power to make him fell because he feels he will never live up to him. In this story they are not haunted with physical ghost or abnormal spirits, but instead they are haunted from their own past mistakes. Each member of the family seems to not be able to let of their past and instead they let it loom over them.
ReplyDeleteTheir mother, Mary, eventually walks downstairs dragging a blanket, and mindlessly walking into the room without even acknowledging the argument that was taking place. Her appearance is almost ghost like because of her long white gown and her complete silence. She walks straight to the piano and begins playing like she is the only person in the room while the rest of her family just watches her. She eventually gets up and starts reminiscing on her past, talking about her father and her younger self. She begins to explain that she wanted to become a nun when she was younger. Her family just sits there in silence listening to her talk as if they’re not even there. After she goes on a bit about how she tried becoming a nun, she mentions that “something” happened to her. This sounds very ominous at first until she says “oh yes, I fell in love with James Tyrone” implying that marrying her husband may have been her down fall.
I enjoyed reading your comment, Camryn! I totally agree that all members of the Tyrone family are haunted by their own past mistakes and that they seem to cannot let go of their past. I like how you described Mary’s ghost like appearance when she enters the room and her acting as if she was alone in there while playing the piano. This is another haunting aspect of the play that I did not notice immediately.
DeleteCamryn, I really liked your response and totally agree that each character can't seem to let go of their past and as a result it just causes more problems for them in the present. I also liked what you said about marry and how she implies that marrying James caused her downfall. It's kind of sad for her to think about because I'm sure she imagines what her life would have been like if she wouldn't of married him.
ReplyDeleteEvery member of the Tyrone family is haunted by the ghosts of their pasts. Jamie is an alcoholic, and in this final scene, he admits to all the terrible things he has done to his brother, Edmund over the year. He breaks down shouting and begging Edmund to forgive him but to never trust him. Jamie says how he blames Edmund for everything that had happened to the family, all the ghosts that follow them. Jamie tells him that he’s all he has left and that he must save him from himself. Likewise, this confrontation pulls in the two boys’ father, James Tyrone. He calls Jamie a disappointment, and Jamie reawakens to continue fighting. Jamie mocks his father’s old career as an actor, telling him how seals do better work than actors. A bottle of booze is also being passed around throughout the entire argument, another issue the entire family struggles with.
ReplyDeleteAs the fighting comes to a lull, the mother of the family, Mary comes downstairs in her nightgown and drags her wedding dress across the floor. She plays the piano for a while, before joining the men. She is on morphine once again and appears to be delusional. She is stuck in a dream-like state due to her addiction and talks about her childhood desire to be a nun. As the play comes to a close, she tells them that she loved her husband and was happy for a time, but in her altered state, it sounds as though she regrets it.
Hi EmaLee! You catch very interesting aspects! The family members' emotions switches in every second and also they honestly talk about how they have felted. At the very last scene, Mary tells she was happy felling in love with her husband but it was a past tense, so it really sounded like she does not now! Nice work!
DeleteIn the last 15 minutes of Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neil, the family of James has quarrels haunting one another. They are also all haunted by their past and difficulties. James tries to endure difficulties in repeated situations in the family. He is haunted by his mistakes and his past as an actor; Jamie by his addiction to alcohol; and Edmund by his birth and bad health. They cannot help their gloomy time. The person who has the most difficult time is his wife, Mary. While Jamie has a hallucination due to alcoholism, the hallucination of Mary is being haunted by going through the dream of walking between reality and memory like a ghost, is emphasized.
ReplyDeleteMary slowly walks downstairs from the second floor and plays the piano as if she is a soulless person or a ghost. She then comes to her family in the living room. Mentally relies on morphines to remind her memories, Mary tries to stay in past happy times which seems like she is being a ghost. She wants to be rewarded by her family by summoning the current mental pain to past memories. The play ends with Mary recalling the time she wanted to be a nun and fell in love with James. This work describes the fall of a family caused by the lack of communication. Their own tragic family story, which may seem ordinary family, gives bitterness to audience.
I agree with this analysis of the play's final moments. Each family member is haunted by their past decisions, all of which are made evident in the last fifteen minutes. I also agree about the lack of communication being a primary cause for the family's falling out. Good work!
DeleteThat was also made by Aaron McGuire.
DeleteModernism in the play Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neil is heavily influenced by the haunted nostalgia of the family and their struggles. Each character carries their own burdens and sins which in the end pile up on one another. James Tyrone, for example, was an actor that never grew as he was stuck with pursuing one role throughout his career. The father although he carried himself confidently and full of pride, turned to alcoholism and became a “cheap” man, or “miser”, that could not fulfill the expectations of his wife and children. The eldest son, James Taylor Jr, clearly had major issues that evolved as his father and mother raised him. Jamie grew up witnessing his father turn to whisky but never admit it was a problem and experienced first-hand what his mother was dealing with. These incidents are all exposed in Act IV of the play.
ReplyDeleteAs James Jr. stumbles drunkenly and begins to have this conversation with the youngest brother Edmund, O’Neil, writes James to fully lose all control and tell his brother the reality of the Taylors life from his point of view. James reflects on the second brother's death and how the birth of Edmund is what pushed their mother to do drugs. James, just like his father, who will not take his own actions into consideration, fixates on making Edmunds's life hard just as his father did to him his whole life. He knows that he's purposely causing his brother to experience a great amount of torment but to him, it seems fair. This “night” the title refers to is not just this one night in setting but is the taunting loop of their hardships and family issues. They live this night every day drowning in alcohol, drugs, pain, sickness, and jealousy. The family suffers each and every day trying not to show the public eye how their reality truly is. Their ghosts of the past and even present life are what makes this play haunting because accepting the reality of a difficult life seems to be the most difficult thing.
Hello, I enjoyed reading your response. I agree that the characters mainly appear to be haunted by the ghosts of their pasts and their regrets. All of the characters had a lot of potential to be very successful in the past, but due to their addictions and mistakes they have wasted that potential. The only one who seems to still have a chance to use his potential is Edmund, because his younger and not quite as consumed by addiction as the other members of the family. However, he seems to be haunted by the pasts of the other family members, who, as you mention, make Edmund’s life harder through their actions or belief that he caused his mother’s addiction.
DeleteHey Zoe! I love your analysis of the play here, as you've dug deeper into the actual content of the whole work to get a good idea of what issues the family is wrestling with as a whole. I didn't realize James' upbringing could have such a powerful effect on Jamie's own relationship with his family, and, as you pointed out, the way pieces kept falling as a result of these smaller failings really makes sense. I also love how you pointed out that their night is a continuous cycle of the same issues they face daily suffering into the night, making this type of thing an almost nightly ritual. I wonder if somehow that's supposed to be the most relatable and haunting part of it all? Either way, great analysis!
DeleteThroughout Long Day’s Journey Into Night, the characters are haunted by their pasts, particularly by what they could have become had they not slipped into addiction. They are therefore left with many regrets that haunt them. In the final minutes of the play Mary plays the piano and talks about how she used to play it but has stopped, and says she plans to practice every day. It is clear that she is haunted by missed potential; she feels she could have been a concert pianist but is now unable to do so. She also appears to be haunted by her religious beliefs. She was at one point very religious, but now she obsesses over and worships morphine rather than God. She reminisces about her days in the convent, clearly feeling haunted by the memory of the time when she was truly religious. She also mentions that she found her wedding dress, so she is haunted by the time when she was happy in her marriage.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the other characters appear to be haunted by the mother. They describe her as being like a ghost at one point in the play, and the way she is presented is certainly ghost-like. She seems to haunt the house: one can hear her moving throughout much of the second half of the play, but she is unable to be seen until the end. When she finally does make an appearance, she barely interacts with the characters, instead playing the piano and talking to herself before finally sitting down and talking about her past life with the other characters. The fact that Mary seems to be so fragmented and disconnected from the other characters as well as the situation at hand means she appears to haunt the house in much the same way a ghost would.
The Tyrone family are haunted by ghoulish reflections of their past in this section of the play. Each family member, at some point in their career or their personal lives, failed themselves and their family, thus straining their relationship with the others forever. Mary’s morphine addiction causes her to move about the house as a ghost, wailing and dwelling on her past experiences almost exclusively, emerging from the upstairs chamber dressed in her wedding gown and what she believes is a nun outfit. This reflects her desire to stay in the past, sober or not, and her inability to play piano well shows how fractured her memory of her experiences truly is. She lives her life in a bit of a delusion, unable to understand she’s not living in her circumstances as they are in reality, separating from her physical realm like a ghost.
ReplyDeleteWhilst Mary lives in an almost literal ghostly past, her family members are otherwise haunted by their failures in life and how they’ve affected their relationship with their family. Whilst James Tyrone is the eldest member of the family, he is arguably the greatest failure of the bunch, dwelling on his failure to diversify his craft and losing his talent for acting outside of his greatest role, and thus, running out of work. As a result, he was stingy, and failed to properly care for all of his loved ones, like his son, his addicted wife, and in a way, for his firstborn son Jamie. This haunts him into his old age, realizing he wasted so much of his life and happiness that he now cannot correct. Edmund and Jamie are haunted by one another just as much as their own failure, as well. Edmund failed to become the poet he’d always longed to become, and even to that day, struggled to survive a spat of tuberculosis. Jamie, realizing his younger brother is more so the son his father wanted, and struggling to find work due to taking advantage of his success, resents Jamie and feels like a corpse, or ghastly shell, of himself. To signify all these ghosts have truly overpowered them, the family sits in silence by the end, unable to truly fix any of their issues, allowing them to haunt their shoulders as they watch one another wither away. This in itself is a haunting fact, an unavoidable doom brought about by their own mistakes and regrets.
This reply was posted by Matthew Fields
DeleteHi Matthew,
DeleteI like what you said in your post. I especially like the way you highlighted how Mary's addiction has made her become viewed as a ghost. It is interesting how in the play she is even dressed in all white and moves quietly throughout the house as if she was not even really there.
Each member of the family is deeply haunted. I like that you mentioned how you can see it within their body language. Shoulders hunched over and their faces glum. I like how you expanded on each family member's failures, making it easier to understand how O'Neill was highlighting this within the final minutes of the play. Great comment!
Throughout the last fifteen minutes of Long Day's Journey Into Night, we see each member of the family being haunted by their past decisions in a climatic boiling-point confrontation between the two brothers as well as the appearance and actions of the father and mother. We see Jamie and Edmund arguing, with Jamie revealing that many of the decisions he has made and will make in life are done with the intention of ruining Edmund, which are juxtaposed by his also-presented desire to care for Edmund. We also see the father, James, projecting his desires for Jamie to follow in his footsteps and lamenting that the glories of his youth will not be passed on, all without truly considering the feelings of Jamie. Finally, we see Mary come down the staircase. After playing the piano, we see her reminisce on her past, disregarding the presence of her family or the argument that had unfolded. She ends by stating that her previous plans for life were changed when she fell in love with James and that she had been happy for a time, implying that she too is being haunted by her past decisions. With all of these motivations, emotions, and revelations being made about the past and present actins of the family, the truly haunted nature of the Tyrones is made known.
ReplyDeleteAnother haunting aspect of the story can be found through the apparent inspiration for the story. Due to the knowledge of O'Neill's life, it is widely concluded that Long Day's Journey Into Night is largely autobiographical. Remarkable similarities between the characters of the story and O'Neill's family create a seemingly-tortured narrative of the downfall of O'Neill's family life through his own perspective. In doing so, the narrative becomes inherently haunted by the internal conflicts of the author, creating a harrowing story that echoes the very events and conflicts that inspired its creation.
This post was made by Aaron McGuire, sorry I keep forgetting to mention that!
DeleteIn the play Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill, each of the characters is haunted, metaphorically, by the decisions and experiences of their lives. James Tyrone, the father of both Jamie and Edmund and the husband of Mary, is haunted by his past experiences as a successful traveling actor. Since Tyrone was abandoned as a child and had to support himself financially, he has a very intense valuing of money. It is displayed as stinginess throughout the play, and it has affected a lot of his decisions, such as him not paying for a proper doctor when Mary was giving birth. Mary Tyrone, the mother of both Jamie and Edmund and the wife of Tyrone, is haunted by her morphine addiction and her own dreams she abandoned when she married Tyrone. Mary was given morphine by the cheap doctor Tyrone hired for her pain following her delivery of Edmund. Mary fell to a morphine addiction because of this, and she is unable to consistently break it. Edmund, the youngest son of Mary and Tyrone and Jamie’s brother, is haunted by the feeling of responsibility for Mary’s addiction and his tuberculosis. Edmund struggles slightly with alcoholism, like much of the family, yet he works hard and seems to be heading towards success. Jamie, the oldest son to Mary and Tyrone and Edmund’s brother, is haunted by his alcoholism and his many failed attempts at becoming prosperous. Jamie knows he has disappointed his parents with his decisions and is envious of Edmund’s potential.
ReplyDeleteEach member of the family is deeply haunted by these aspects of their lives and each one is highlighted within the final minutes of the play. Tyrone apologizes to Edmund, admitting to his stinginess with money that clearly affected his son’s lives. However, Tyrone is unable to stop himself and turns off each light in the room. He leaves himself and his son in the dark because he is set on saving even the smallest bits of money. Shortly after, Edmund and Jamie get into a rather intense confrontation. Jamie admits that he is so bitter about his own failures, he hopes for Edmund to fail as well. Jamie shares that Edmund makes him feel inadequate and he knows his failures will be even worse if Edmund were to succeed. Edmund speaks out when Jamie mocks or talks negatively of their mother, Mary, his guilt for her addiction being very noticeable. Tyrone also talks negatively of Jamie to Edmund when he thinks that Jamie has drifted off to sleep because of his alcohol use. Jamie is still awake, however, and this references how haunted Jamie is by disappointing his parents. Mary comes down the stairs silently and is dressed in all white and her complexion is fair, making her to resemble a ghost. The three men are silent as they watch her walk into the room and begin to play the piano. Mary playing the piano is in reference to the dream she sacrificed when she chose to marry Tyrone. The men see her as ghost because her addiction has become so awful. The hauntings of each family member has led to a dysfunctional family, sharing feelings of guilt, shame, and depression.
Towards the end of Long day’s Journey Into Night there are many revelations that come to light amongst the members of the Tyrone Family. There many secrets revealed that have been kept for years and years that are just now surfacing. Although they are just now being told there are many problems within each other that have always affected how they each view each other as well as live their lives. They all take turns to come clean with whatever it is they were holding on to for so long.
ReplyDeleteWith each revealed secret was more baggage being addressed, this made it clear that they are not the perfect cookie cutter family they were making themselves out to be.
The ghost that haunts them is really their past that they can not seem to let go. As this ghost wanders around from room to room it is almost unaware of the problems that are being faced in the present times. There are many issues that are being argued over but there seems to be so much relevance to the ghost who haunts them. This play is something that many people who watch it might be able to relate to simply because there are many things that people hold onto for years on end and they allow those regrets or mistakes hold them back from being or doing better. Their family is dysfunctional but they choose to love each other anyway because they are all each other have.
Hi Renee! I genuinely enjoy your take on the play and how you use the "ghost" concept to your advantage in this post. It is true that the ghost wonders to each room bringing forth the baggage of the family which is incredibly haunting. The family are forced into loving each other because of their bond and being the only ones left just as you say along with James in the end. The secrets they have were only be heavily weighing the family down and once they were revealed the family were able to speak out about the issues they were experiencing. Great post!
DeleteIn the last minutes of this movie, we see the ghosts of the family and their various ghosts in their closets. Some are haunted by their loss or by their past mistakes. The whole Tyrone family is haunted by their former selves and each other. This leads to conflicts and arguments that split the family apart from the inside. These internal conflicts isolate the characters and give them a long list of grief.
ReplyDeleteThe surprising element of the ending was of course how Mary recounts how she met and fell in love with James Tyrone, giving a distraction from the otherwise conflict-filled air. This short breath of fresh air is short-lived due to Mary realizing that James was indirectly his downfall because she had her plan for life set but it all fell apart when she met James. While the play is haunted by O'Neill's personal issues.
This post is by Arabella Peña
From Wyatt Hase:
ReplyDeleteIn the last 15 minutes of the pay the most haunting and haunted moments of the final exchanges between the Tyrone family take place. Starting with the two brothers, Jamie and Edmund exhibit their most pathetic qualities in one of their most intense conversations. Jamie, who is the oldest of the siblings and incredibly inebriated, blames his brother for all the problems that he has experienced in his life, either indirectly or directly. In what appears to be a bipolar psychotic episode, Jamie goes on to flip flop from positive and negative topics of discussion, showing support for his brother and disdain for his brother’s efforts in the same breath. Jamie, in this moment, seems as if he has reached the tipping point in his life and is no longer able to separate existence from tragedy. Edmund, on the other hand, witnesses this event take place and does nothing to stop it. Just as he has through his life, Edmund seems not to care about the craziness before his eyes. His lifelessness in life and in this moment shows that he will probably never live up to his potential, especially if he is sick with Tuberculosis and may die as a result. Like his brother, Edmund is also an alcoholic, although to a lesser degree.
Their parents, James and Mary, showcase a similar climatic expression of their repressed emotions in the last 15 minutes of the play. James, who is a miserly and narcissistic man, seems to acknowledge his faults as a parent and yet still blames his son Jamie for all the problems in his own life, even when many of their roots begin with him and the way he has treated Jamie as he grew up. Moreover, despite claiming to care about Mary, James still clearly despises her for her morphine addiction. Mary, the character who appears to have suffered the most as a member of this family, exhibits her desire to escape from reality in her constant and progressive use of morphine. Under the effects of morphine, she lives between dream and reality, and she therefore fantasizes about her past and her lost potential to find long-lasting happiness. Hauntingly, in the last minute or two of the play, in a dreamlike state she communicates her dissatisfaction with her husband and the life he has suffocated her with.
From Jayden Scott:
ReplyDeleteIn a moment of weakness, in candidacy, a brother admits what he wants for his brother, which is to be the greatest ever, and then admits that he must be the downfall of it, because he is hurt, and he is jealous. He wants the world for his sibling, but he also wants the world, and cannot get it, so will try to keep it away from his sibling. This is the ugly truth told beautifully, the confusing recounted plainly: no one is impervious to greed, even in their own kin, and they are not impervious to malice, even for their own kin. Jr. is haunted by his past, and by his future, as he knows he is his own undoing, so he wishes to do the same unto Edmund.
Another example of haunting is the pain of the two parents. Throughout the play Mary holds resentment towards Jamie for killing Eugene, and possibly getting her addicted to morphine. Sr. is haunted by the pain of being poor, and makes poor and greedy decisions because of this, which Mary also holds resentment for. Mary resents, Sr. ignores, Jamie destroys, Edmund ignores/accepts. They each embody the haunting of their traumas, and are haunting in themselves as they loom over each other's well being.