Long Day's Journey into Night

I had a friend once tell me that he had just read this play and had decided it was overrated. From that point on, I never considered anything he had to say very important. He had pretty much revealed his inner workings and I saw him for the ignoramus he is. I have read this play numerous times, seen play versions with Ralph Richardson and Jack Lemmon playing James Tyrone. It's a beautiful play, a funny play, a play that works one over, and leaves one feeling totally satisfied. If you never really understood the idea of catharsis, watch or read this play. I don't see the play as having flaws, although a well-known dramaturg once told me he thought the play needed cutting. Personally, I think the play needs nothing. Cutting would turn it into another play, not the magnificent work it is. The "fat," as for as I'm concerned, is as important to it as duck fat is to a delicious confit. Still, there must be those who could like to turn it into a two-act, so the audience can get home by 10:00 to watch reruns of "The Golden Girls." If it were cut, the play would not be able to work its magic of making one feel that one has been through a long evening with the characters. These idiot editors would trim a Haiku if you let them. This play is just about as good as it gets in the modern theater we are taught to love.

The play was written in 1941-42, set in 1912, and published in 1956 (a few years after O'Neill's death, rather than the 25 that he had wished). There are heavy elements of autobiography throughout. It won both the Pulitzer and Tony Awards in 1957, and many critics regard it as one of the finest plays of the 20th century.

I heartily disagree with that last sentiment. There are five characters in the play - the four Tyrone's (James 65, Mary 54, Jamie 33, Edmund 23) and a serving girl who appears briefly. The Tyrone's are incredibly sick and dysfunctional - the three males drink alcoholically, Mary is an IV morphine user, James is a legendary miser, Jamie doesn't work, Edmund may be dying of consumption, and there are a host of other problems.

The biggest problem with the play, by far, is the utter inconsistency and hyperbole of the characters. Their changes aren't scene to scene or page to page, but rather from one line to the next. All four Tyrone's do this, and more often when they speak than not. They'll yell at each other and say utterly scathing and hurtful words, and then, one line later, catch themselves and cry what a poor relation they are and how much they appreciate the person they just verbally flogged. Then one line later they'll go back to the verbal flogging. This can be done once or twice, but the fact that this is the cardinal trait of all of O'Neill's major characters in this play is too much to overlook. I'm a therapist, and have worked with people with addiction and mental illness since 2004. I have seen hundreds of incredibly sick and damaged families, and many of them say and do unbelievable hurtful things to each other. And occasionally they utter nice lines to each other as well, but certainly not in the way that O'Neill has portrayed them. To summarize, he has overdone it. This may be because of his own childhood wounds, faulty memory, or his alcoholism and depression, neither of which he was ever able to really work through.

I do appreciate how much time O'Neill dedicates to blatantly focusing on alcohol and drug problems, rather than just having it be in subtext or euphemisms (Noel Coward's first play, the below average "The Vortex" grazes briefly upon a drug problem and then moves on). The fact that he did this in 1941 and set it in 1912 shows the family, if not social effects, that substance abuse has continually wrecked on American life.

The other bright spot in the play is the family's references to other literature, particularly Jamie's, and best used in the final scene when he quotes from various Shakespeare plays and poems by Rossetti, Wilde, and Swinburne. They are all well placed and much appreciated. Still, neither the explicit references to substance abuse nor the use of literature makes this a quality play. I suspect that if O'Neill's name (especially that it was released posthumously) was not attached to it, this play would neither have received the immediate awards nor the long-term looks that it has undeservedly enjoyed.

...does not exist. That seems to be the message of this dark, depressing -- and yet, enthralling and mysteriously beautiful drama. As bleak as it is, its essential humanity has rendered an immortal classic. O'Neill, of course, was not just the first major figure in American drama: he practically made it, giving it a legitimacy and relevancy for the first time. As with many subsequent American plays -- think of Death of a Salesman or most of Tennessee William's better-known plays -- it centers on a family. In this particular case, the family happens to be a close reflection of O'Neill's own; the character of Edmund is his alter ego. In fact, the play was so autobiographical that O'Neill would not have it performed until after his death. It recounts a day in the life of the family by offering interactions between every possible combination of the four members of the family. The play is stunning and stark in its brutal depiction of the Tyrone family, a series of frightfully honest vignettes that destroys the hallowed ideal image of the close, contented American family. All members of the Tyrone family have their demons and their reasons for the inhumanity that they show toward each other. O'Neill does not judge them: he merely presents them as they are, without pretense or adornment. Hardly even a glimmer of light appears in the play, and the ending comes and goes without leaving even a single shred of hope. With subject matter like this, why, then, has the play remained popular for half a century, and why does it retain its power? For one thing, its sheer, unabated emotion touches a deep, almost primal, human chord. It speaks to us in the brutally honest way that a television sitcom never could. Most people probably see more of themselves in the Tyrone than they would like to admit, even to themselves. Their quarrels are probably not as striking and unfamiliar as most people would like to think. The play touches the heart even as it touches the soul, leaving the reader (or the viewer) drenched in an overwhelming sea of emotion at play's end. It is a stunning play that cuts straight to the core of a large part of the darker side of the American experience. Unlike many great plays, it also reads very well and very smoothly on the page. Anyone interested in classic drama or American literature will find a dark goldmine here.

As professor Harold Bloom asserts in his excellent forward: "Eugene O'Neill is single handidly responsible for creating a vibrant and important American Theatre".
LONG DAY'S JOURNEY caps a brilliant artistic life with an autobiographical work that is difficult, complex, tragic, heartbreaking and filled with stunning poetry.
O'Neill's greatest gift was, arguably, his uncanny knack for spinning a poetic phrase. In a bold stroke, he populates the family Tyrone with a menagerie of fragile beings who find strength in language and discourse. It is little wonder that O'Neill demanded that LONG DAY's remain unproduced until after his death. He his boldly facing every personal and familial demon. With crashing honesty and a touch of jet-black humor, he leaves no stone uncovered as he weaves a horrifying tale of the ultimate dysfunctional family.
LONG DAY'S JOURNEY into night is not for the weak of back or the faint of heart. It is depressing to be sure. But among the rubble of these tortured lives, O'Neill finds the spiritual strength in these flawed and fallen angels and creates true linguistic magic. A certain must own for any theatre fan or practitoner. Simply suberb theatre.

I have written reviews of some of Eugene O'Neill's other plays elsewhere in this space. I have noted there that Iceman Cometh is my favorite for a variety of reasons, some of them political. Journey, however, may be O'Neill best play and not only because it is somewhat autobiographical. The trials and tribulations of a dysfunctional family that is ultimately clueless about solutions to what ails each of the four characters (father, mother and two very unlike sons)is very much the stuff of modern drama. The intervention of the gods would seem out of place here.

In O'Neill hands the tensions, misunderstandings and illusions presented are recognizable to today's audiences, even those who may themselves be troubled about finding solutions to some very disturbing problems. Althought this is a difficult play to read (and more difficult to watch performed)virtually everyone I know who has read and/or watch it has survived to the end. And was glad of it. That will tell as much as anything else that I could add that we are dealing with a master work of American literature. Enough said.

Although Eugene O'Neill saw much success as an author during his lifetime-being awarded three Pulitzer Prizes in 1920, 1921, and 1925, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929-his finest work, Long Day's Journey Into Night, was not published until 1956, three years after his death. This was due to its autobiographical nature, and the painful portrait that it paints of the O'Neill family. It earned him his fourth Pulitzer Prize in 1957.

The play is organized into four acts: the morning, afternoon, evening, and night of a pivotal day for the Tyrone family (representative of the O'Neills). The characters of Mary, James, Jamie and Edmund (representing Eugene O'Neill's mother, his father, his brother, and himself, respectively) are seen early in the first act as a loving and supportive family. However, as the day progresses, severe problems such as drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, and infectious disease are alluded to in increasing detail, which causes the play to be captivatingly suspenseful. Throughout the first few acts, each time a character lets a detail about a problem slip, another character is quick to either silence, or dismiss them.

I find that O'Neill's talent truly comes through in his ability to portray the complexities of the characters through their interactions. He expertly contrasts their powerful love for one another with the bitter resentment they feel as a result of their very difficult lives. The play seems to fall at a point where all the characters are at the ends of their emotional ropes. They frequently snap at each other, making scathingly hurtful remarks, then, upon realizing their indiscretion, lovingly seek to make reparations. Their emotional interactions seem so genuine that they remind me rather heartbreakingly of my own family (minus the addictions and diseases of course).

Though O'Neill's use of dialogue is at times poignant, I find that the source of my great sympathy for the characters comes mostly from their actions. Luckily for those of us who have not had the fortune of seeing the play performed, O'Neill includes detailed and eloquently written stage directions that enable us to picture the action. He includes every important fact, from the characters' facial expressions and voices, to the details of their movements.

Though I found the tragic story of O'Neill's family to be painful to read at times, I admire his courage at displaying it to the world, even if he did wait until he had died to do so.

James Tyrone had one stroke of good luck in a real estate venture and his wife taunts him with the fact. His family believes he is fair game for any piece of property the real estate agent can't unload elsewhere. Tyrone's son, Edmund, has no appetite. Jamie, Edmund's brother, is nearly thirty four years old and is unemployed. His father says he is always sneering. Edmund is ten yers younger than Jamie. Tyrone tells Jamie he wishes he would show gratitude. He says that Jamie had the talent to be a fine actor. Jamie notes that it is an Irish peasant idea that consumption is a fatal malady. Tyrone claims that Jamie was and is a bad influence on Edmund who does not enjoy his brother's strong constitution.

Edmund's illness comes at a bad time for him, he has just had some success publishing his pieces in the newspapers, and his mother, Mary Tyrone. Mary Tyrone states it is hard to live in an atmosphere of suspicion. She does admit that it is difficult for the members of her family to forget her long drug dependency. The sons, sneaking drinks before lunch, put water in the whiskey bottle. The sons and father learn that Mary Tyrone has started the desperate cycle of addiction again. The condtion of her eyes and resting in the spare room are signs. Edmund is heartsick and physically ill. Tyrone and Jamie are very disappointed.

The Tyrones have been married thirty six years. James Tyrone was a matinee idol. Fog and foghorn are present in the play. Growing up, Jamie had been a likable and brilliant student. Edmund wants to tell his mother the nature of his illness and can't. His father has concluded that Edmund has a morbid poet in him. In the end, Mary walks at night before the drunken James Tyrone, Jamie, and Edmund. Each of these summer residents of New London is caught up in a sort of Celtic gloom.

There's a good reason O'Neill insisted that Random House not publish this play until 25 years after his death, which would have prevented its production until 1978. The characters and the story are painfully drawn from O'Neill's own family life. Even though his immediate family members had all died, he surely was concerned about the hurt it could cause his surviving relatives and the impact of memories shared by his close friends. Random House ultimately honored the agreement but, fortunately for the history of drama, O'Neill's wife allowed the play to be published by Yale University Press and produced on Broadway in 1956, only three years after his death.

The volume is labeled here as a "second edition" but in truth it's simply a corrected edition that fixes relatively minor errors that were introduced in the 1956 publication. (Due to a production error, the first printing dropped a single line. The 61st printing in 1989 restored four lines that were dropped by the typist who retyped O'Neill's edited manuscript. Otherwise, it's the same play that was originally published fifty years ago.)

The play's power comes not from its plot; there is hardly any action at all. Instead, one sees O'Neill's family living out a single and typical day. James Tyrone, Sr., has spent his entire life playing one role in a nationally popular play, much like James O'Neill (Eugene's father), who starred in an adaptation of "The Count of Monte Cristo," appearing in some 4,000 performances between 1883 and 1912. Early in the play, Tyrone realizes that his wife, Mary, has suffered a relapse into her longtime morphine addiction. Similarly, just before he turned 13, Eugene O'Neill had learned of his own mother's morphine addiction (when she attempted to drown herself). The addiction, which lasted for more than a quarter of a century, resulted from the difficulties of Eugene's birth.

The two sons are modeled on Eugene and his brother. The older Jamie is an amiable, shiftless loafer and an alcoholic in training. (The real Jamie entered a sanatorium after a bout of alcohol poisoning and died soon thereafter.) And the younger Edmund, of course, is Eugene himself, who worked as a seaman on various freighters, attempted to commit suicide in a Manhattan saloon soon after his return to the States, and returned home to learn he has tuberculosis.

The play is set on a specific day in this family's life: the day Edmund finds out his diagnosis (which in Eugene's life would be in November 1912, only months before O'Neill began to write his first dramatic sketch). And it is certainly a long day's journey. O'Neill portrays his family brutally and lovingly: his mother is a ghost wandering the house in her dreamy universe; his father is a cheapskate concerned more about acquiring real estate than about spending a cent on his son's medical recovery; the brother begins drinking early in the morning and stumbles home nearly 24 hours later. Edmund is lost in his poetic musings.

And all four of them manage constantly to get on each other's nerves with well-practiced rituals of selfishness, denial, argument, insult, and forgiveness. Their incessant banter and taxing squabbles don't always read well on the page; that professional performances of the play don't wear on the audience is a testimony to O'Neill's mastery of the dramatic form. It is, I think, O'Neill's best work.

Long Day's Journey into Night draws a crystal clear picture of what happens when people who love each other try to fix people rather than problems, or when they perceive each other as doing so. Everyone has problems, but the Tyrones' problems, drink, morphine, tuberculosis, are especially difficult. Everyone is afraid to fix them because in fixing them they fear to be blamed for them. They pass blame like a hot potato, and they love each other dearly, and they're miserable. They can't stop hurting each other. Like the People's Front of Judea from Monty Python's LIFE OF BRIAN, they sit around and talk about problems, but the problem never goes away. What the world needs is not the absence of problems but the absence of judgment. Better to light a candle than curse the darkness. The Tyrones continue to curse the darkness throughout the play. The entire play does nothing but curse darkness. It's pitiful. Extremely emotional and well-written.

There are many themes in this story - drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, egoism, and blame. What makes the play so powerful is its ability to show us a family with horrible problems and horrible habits, but still make that family likeable. We still hope for them. A heroin-addicted mother torments herself with the past. Her egomaniac husband, a washed-up actor, postures and struts to cover his feelings of responsibility. Their sons battle depression and alcoholism, and neither ever feel good about themselves. A cycle of blame makes its way continually through the house, a run-down affair often shrouded in fog. This fantastic (if depressing) play is a meaty, moody work that is almost as good to read as it is to watch.

I love Eugene O'Neill--that's all there it to it. Forget Shakespeare (and all the others), with the exception of August Strindburg (for those who do not know, Strindburg was a hero of ONeill's, etc. although O'Neill, obviously went on to develope a voice all his own). When it comes to Eugene O'Neill you can either read his plays or watch them performed to get the impact--and I guarantee you, you will be impacted. When I first read this play ( twenty some years ago) it felt like I'd been punched in the stomach by a heavyweight. This man's life was turbulent, to be sure, plenty of pain and grief and sorrow--and he dealt with it by writing plays about it. Who can't relate to that? Read it, read all of Eugene O'Neill, America's greatest genius of the stage.

It is the best. Read it and you will experience an AMERICAN bearing his soul as only Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Goethe could. For all the genius of Shakespeare's Hamlet and King Lear, none of his plays tore into who he actually was as honestly as O'Neill did in LDJIN. If you read this play, you will see the reality of four human beings as they actually are: free from the facades we put up everyday to make it through our lives, free from artifice. Only Tolstoy writes with this kind of emotional precision and depth. O'Neill is the first American who can legitimately be ranked among the greatest writers in the history of the world.

I was quite surprised to see the extent of stage direction the playright provides, but it does make the play "read" better than most plays do. Very interesting. This is such a well crafted, meticulously plotted drama. And what a powerful story. I'd never read any of O'Neil's works before...and had only seen a production of "The Ice Man Cometh." This is so heart-wrenching and so simple a story. That's not "simple" in a pejorative sense at all...just that its emotions and truths are not buried under mounds of plot devices and flowery language. This play is just tragic and true. I would LOVE to see this performed someday

"Long Day's Journey into Night" is Eugene O'Neill tackling with the personal demon that haunted him for the rest of his life: his family. This stark, realist drama is an honest, straightforward portrayal of a family teetering on complete breakdown. Set in Edwardian America, it details the personal turmoils that plague each member of the Tyrone family. James Tyrone is a stage actor whose control over his family is as flimsy as his personality. Firmly believing in his right as to deserving the respect that he feels entitled to being the patriarch of the house, the frailty of his reputation becomes glaringly apparent as he confronts his distracted wife and severely affected and acerbic sons. His wife, Mary, is a woman whose schizophrenic flights are a sad and annoying canvas portraying the ravages of time and circumstance on an individual. James Jr. and Edmund are their two equally suffering sons, the former a drifting and embittered character seeking solace in sarcasm and drink; the latter ( a model of the author himself ) an intelligent, sensitive, and highly literate adventurer and man of letters sidetracked by an illness which brings his family's relations to near implosion while making them closer.

The style of the writing reminds one of black and white films of the 30's and 40's: everyday life tinged with the theatrical. The characters are real but cliched. The clockwork precision of the acting and language reveal O'Neill's limitations as a dramatist, and never throughout this play does he advance beyond the written norm like his idol Strindberg did in his great plays. The dialogues are good, especially in the heated arguments between the members of this domestic hell, like the scene where Edmund and his father open up to each other over bottles of booze, and Mary's pathetic method acting to hide the truth which she is not equipped to face. These alone make up for the overall banality of the play and it's dissapointing ending.

Conservative in style and substance yet painfully honest in it's subject, "Long Day's Journey into Night" is the academe's avant-garde play. A masterpiece to the printed word's squares and a pedestrian tome to those who know better.

BY FAR the greatest American play ever written about family alcohol and drug use and the various dysfunctional dynamics that go with that territory.

As the store promised, one minute after purchase, it was on my Kindle.

As an author with my debut novel in its initial release (and a former drama coach), I am a great admirer of the works of Eugene O'Neill. LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, simply put, is the finest play ever written by an American playwright. It tells the tale of a troubled family--the competing egos, ambitions, delusions, and escapes of the varied family members. It is largely based on O'Neill's family. This play has won every award imaginable, and it is still frequently staged. LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is immortal. It belongs to the ages, and it will survive forever.

A Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill is a short, autobiographical play that acts as a single snapshot into O'Neill's childhood. Focusing on issues rarely addressed in its day, A Long Day's Journey depicts the struggles within a family over alcoholism, drug addictions and the sickness and death of children. These subjects were frequently brought up in O'Neill's childhood, as his father and older brother were both alcoholics and his mother was addicted to drugs. O'Neill, himself, suffered from tuberculosis as did the character Edmund, who closely represents O'Neill in the play. An interesting detail to note would be that within the play, Edmund's mother and father talk about a son, named Eugene, who died years previously. It seems as though O'Neill tried to write himself out of a play he wrote about his childhood.

A Long Day's Journey has four main characters: James, the father, Mary, the mother, Jamie, the older brother, and Edmund, the younger brother. The play begins and ends with all four characters conversing together, but the middle of the play focuses on conversations held between only two or three of the family members. This allows the present characters to speak freely about the absent ones and gives the audience a disturbingly real view of how characters feel about each other. This also makes the play, though autobiographical, unbiased in the information it gives its viewers. If the play were written from Edmund's point of view, we would not hear the other characters talking about him. This unbiased view is important in maintaining the realism of the play; every character gets to voice their fears, doubts, and opinions when others are not present, ensuring that the audience gets the raw truth.

O'Neill's play is full of the raw truth. His father really was a famous actor and his mother was addicted to drugs. His childhood was spent, as mentioned in the play, traveling from hotel to hotel as his father toured the country. The complaints and arguments within the play were probably exhausted in O'Neill's childhood and he probably had many opinions of his own; but he still managed to leave himself out of his work, allowing his character to be represented without his person beliefs overruling those of his family. By giving each character opportunity to speak without judging what they have to say, and by writing himself in without making himself the star, makes this autobiography truly unique. A Long Day's Journey Into Night is a simple yet elegant snapshot of family life.

Eugene O'Neill saw success as an author during his lifetime. O'Neill was awarded three Pulitzer Prizes between 1920-1925. However, O'Neill's final and poignant piece Long Day's Journey into Night was first published in 1956-three years following his death. O'Neill requested that Long Day's Journey into Night be published twenty-five years following his death, due to its autobiographical nature, but his wife, Carlotta, never followed his request. Long Day's Journey into Night earned O'Neill his fourth Pulitzer Prize in 1957 posthumously.

Long Day's Journey into Night is organized into four acts-morning, afternoon, evening, and night of a pivotal and difficult day for the Tyrone family. The characters Mary, James, Jamie and Edmund are seen as a typical family: loving and supportive, but also separate and unique. However, as the day progresses, O'Neill continuously alludes to severe problems within the family unit including drug addiction, depression, alcoholism, and a serious infectious disease, with increasing detail.

Throughout the entirety of Long Day's Journey into Night the characters would further explain a past problem, through coded speech. For the Tyrone family, the past is never to be spoken of, but is always hanging around the next corner.

I found that O'Neill's talent is shown through his ability to portray the complexities and the sensitive nature of his characters through their interactions. He is able to contrasts the powerful love they feel for one another with the unique bitter resentment they feel as a result of their difficult, emotionally draining lives. The ending of Long Day's Journey into Night ends with each character emotionally drained by the other members of the Tyrone family. Long Day's Journey into Night shows the Tyrone family continuously snapping at one another, making hurtful remarks and then recognizing the pain they have inflicted upon their love one, trying to lovingly make reparations. The interactions of the Tyrone family, remind me of a typical American/Canadian family.

While O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night is a play to be witnessed through performance, O'Neill's eloquent writing style and knowledge of the stage allows the reader to create a picturesque portrait of the Tyrone family. While Long Day's Journey into Night is a purely honest recount of how the O'Neill family interacted with one another; it can be emotionally draining to read, due to the character's frequent emotional roller coaster. Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night offers its readers a better understanding of their own personal family life.

In Long Day's Journey Into Night, O'Neill gives readers a tragic/comedic/suspenseful play which portrays a loving family experiencing the hardships that some family's must face throughout their lives. The play takes place during one August day in the 1900's in the Tyrone's summer home. A day that's outcome would change everything.

One of the main reasons I believe the play was written so well is because of the connection to O'Neill's real life experiences. All of the characters in the play actually reflect O'Neill's real family, with the exception of Edmund who is really Eugene himself.

Although the play is clearly meant to be dramatic, O'Neill offers some comedic relief to lighten up the mood at times, mostly from the 2 brothers (James and Edmund). I found it also very suspenseful the way O'Neill led on that something was wrong with the mother (Mary) but the reader doesn't receive any information on what exactly it is until one of the last acts, which for me made the play very interesting because I wanted to keep reading to learn exactly what was going on. I found the play very easy to read also because of the scene description at the beginning of every Act therefore, in the unfortunate event that you have not seen the play (like myself) the description helps you imagine exactly what the scene would look like.

I also found the play very refreshing in the sense that it was not completely full of happiness and love, the family did not sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after.

O'Neill delivers a very heartfelt tragedy, the play was written to be dramatic, with the mother's morphine addiction and her fall from rehabilitation, and also Edmund's sickness. However, with all of these obstacles the family must overcome the family clearly continues to love one another unconditionally. The reader can see how obvious this love is between the parents and the children, husband and wife and the boys to one another. Readers can see this because O'Neill wrote about something he knew much about, and wrote it from his heart. In his dedication to his wife O'Neill writes, "I mean it as a tribute to your love and tenderness which gave me the faith in love and enabled me to face my dead at last and write this play write it wish deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones." So it would seem as if O'Neill forgave his family which gave him the strength and courage to write one of the best stories I have ever read.

If one needs the ultimate example of a classic American play, I would have to say the play about the most un-classic, untypical (or is it?) American family...Eugene O'Neill's "Long Days Journey Into Night." Set in the chlostrophobic New England summer house of the Tyrone's, and spanning over the course of one day, the Tyrone family--the stingy, retired actor James, the lonely opium addicted wife Mary, drunken Jamie, and sensitive, ill Edmund--avoids, denys, confronts and retreats from all their demons, until it is finally night, and they no longer can.
Depressing, huh? Well, of course it is...but within it is something so powerful, so strangely beautiful, that the reader (or viewer) is enthralled. One sees seemingly strong James, ashamed of himself for selling out his acting abilities for financial security. Mary, lonely from James' years of touring, has turned to an opium addiction that she can not seem to confront. Jamie, from hate of his father's stinginess and his own self-blame, loses himself in alcohol and whores. And sweet, artistic, tubulcular Edmund (O'Neill's alter ego) plays witness in the deteration of his family's web of pain, denial and lies. All they want is for morning to come, another day to let the fog come in around them so they can forget again.
In a way, isn't that what we all want to do sometimes? Just forget what's going on around us, even for a while. I would recommend this play as absolutly essential to read--for the fan of the theatre, literature, or a layman. Anyone can relate to the pure, raw emotion and guilt O'Neill conveys. Buy it now, you'll thank me later.

In Long Day's Journey Into Night, O'Neill gives readers a tragic/comedic/suspenseful play which portrays a loving family experiencing the hardships that some family's must face throughout their lives. The play takes place during one August day in the 1900's in the Tyrone's summer home. A day that's outcome would change everything.

One of the main reasons I believe the play was written so well is because of the connection to O'Neill's real life experiences. All of the characters in the play actually reflect O'Neill's real family, with the exception of Edmund who is really Eugene himself.

Although the play is clearly meant to be dramatic, O'Neill offers some comedic relief to lighten up the mood at times, mostly from the 2 brothers (James and Edmund). I found it also very suspenseful the way O'Neill led on that something was wrong with the mother (Mary) but the reader doesn't receive any information on what exactly it is until one of the last acts, which for me made the play very interesting because I wanted to keep reading to learn exactly what was going on. I found the play very easy to read also because of the scene description at the beginning of every Act therefore, in the unfortunate event that you have not seen the play (like myself) the description helps you imagine exactly what the scene would look like.

I also found the play very refreshing in the sense that it was not completely full of happiness and love, the family did not sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after.

O'Neill delivers a very heartfelt tragedy, the play was written to be dramatic, with the mother's morphine addiction and her fall from rehabilitation, and also Edmund's sickness. However, with all of these obstacles the family must overcome the family clearly continues to love one another unconditionally. The reader can see how obvious this love is between the parents and the children, husband and wife and the boys to one another. Readers can see this because O'Neill wrote about something he knew much about, and wrote it from his heart. In his dedication to his wife O'Neill writes, "I mean it as a tribute to your love and tenderness which gave me the faith in love and enabled me to face my dead at last and write this play write it wish deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones." So it would seem as if O'Neill forgave his family which gave him the strength and courage to write one of the best stories I have ever read.

If one needs the ultimate example of a classic American play, I would have to say the play about the most un-classic, untypical (or is it?) American family...Eugene O'Neill's "Long Days Journey Into Night." Set in the chlostrophobic New England summer house of the Tyrone's, and spanning over the course of one day, the Tyrone family--the stingy, retired actor James, the lonely opium addicted wife Mary, drunken Jamie, and sensitive, ill Edmund--avoids, denys, confronts and retreats from all their demons, until it is finally night, and they no longer can.
Depressing, huh? Well, of course it is...but within it is something so powerful, so strangely beautiful, that the reader (or viewer) is enthralled. One sees seemingly strong James, ashamed of himself for selling out his acting abilities for financial security. Mary, lonely from James' years of touring, has turned to an opium addiction that she can not seem to confront. Jamie, from hate of his father's stinginess and his own self-blame, loses himself in alcohol and whores. And sweet, artistic, tubulcular Edmund (O'Neill's alter ego) plays witness in the deteration of his family's web of pain, denial and lies. All they want is for morning to come, another day to let the fog come in around them so they can forget again.
In a way, isn't that what we all want to do sometimes? Just forget what's going on around us, even for a while. I would recommend this play as absolutly essential to read--for the fan of the theatre, literature, or a layman. Anyone can relate to the pure, raw emotion and guilt O'Neill conveys. Buy it now, you'll thank me later.

I recently re-read "Long Day's Journey into Night" on a vacation flight and was surprised to find how well it stood up in my second reading.

The first time I read the play was when I was in my late teens and I could easily relate to melancholia of Edmund.

With age and time, I am less melancholic and perhaps less Edmund-like but "Long Day's Journey into Night" is a wonderful play. The most personal (autobiographical) of O'Neill's work: it also is his most universal work.

On every page, the American Dream/nightmare comes through with a brilliance perhaps not equaled elsewhere.

If a professional or quality amateur production of this work is not readily available to you, I highly recommend you pick up a copy. Enjoy!

Convinced by my computer teacher to read this play, I checked it out in the library and read it in within days. The result: A very dissatisfied reader.
Something like this won the Pulitzer Prize? If any of his plays should have won it (which a couple of them did), it should have been All God's Chillun Got Wings, not this pointless play.
The family in this play was MUCH too dysfunctional. All they did all day (which the whole play was in one day) was argue and argue and argue. And when at times it seemed as if the arguing would end, one of the four characters said something that would spark up a new argument.
Woe be to my computer teacher for suggesting me this book, for it bore me into tears.

In Mrs. Mcwains class, I have read Long Dya's Journey into night. This is the story of and Irish American family trying to struggle through thier every day lives and problems. As with most of O'neill's plays, each character struggles to overcome basic human problems and, in character with his style, ultimatly fail. Mary, the mother, can not accept anyything that will corrupt her image of the perfect family and denies any problems that come her way. Tyrone's excessive pride (McWains class, McWains class, Mcwains class) is his down fall. Jamie has given up on life, and Edmunds apathy prevents him from being able to help himself or his family. I personally enjoyed this book, however I hesitate to recomend it to the average reader looking for a new work to enjoy. O'neill has a style that is critcally acclaimed but very...well...boring. If your looking for an American classic though, Long Days Journey into Night (and to read it is a LONG days journey) is the one to pick. (from a student in MRS. MCWAINS CLASS)

LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is a great play, but sitting through the acting of all the acts can be a very tough experience. It is a heartwrenching tale of a pair of brothers who are as different as night and day. When I was in high school a lack of girls required that I play the challenging part of Mary Tyrone, once a youthful beauty revelling in her ability to love and be loved, her body a wonderland as they say nowadays, but now only a shrivelled up hag, left on the shelf who finds solace in her needle full of morphine. Her husband, she thinks, doesn't understand her. The surprise in the play is that she finds out, oh yes he does understand her-only too well.

She wears bedraggled clothes of the turn of the century period, which she has pathetically tried to keep clean, ironed and pressed, but which her morphine habit have caused to look wrinkled and generally dishevelled. She knows how she has fallen apart and it is part of her agony that she no longer looks very trig. Poor thing, she is always fussing with her hair (in my case, a long gray wig which my mother attempted to tie up in the middle like an old fashioned chignon. It kept falling out of its ribbon as I attempted to totter across the stage, imitating someone in the last throes of drug addiction, about which I knew very little. I imagined that I would always be seeing invisible people and monsters, like Ray Milland in Billy Wilder's LOST WEEKEND. And I would misplace things like my yarn and my spectacles, dropping them on what I thought was a book shelf but was actually thin air. I feel sorry for my fellow actors, three lovely guys totally upstaged by my antics, but I didn't know any better. The play lasted a considerably long time. We only had three performances though, and for the third we brought on two understudies for my two sons had quit the play and joined the basketball team instead, less stress.

What is with this other review? "Long Day's Journey into Night" is not a page-turner and it can seem extremely turgid at times but to call these faults would be missing the point. It is about the relationships between people whose lives are excrutiatingly unhappy. There is nothing they can do about it if they're not peppy enough for some people. At least they're honest and free with their feelings about their lives and this gives a remarkable glimpse into the darker and lonlier side of the human condition.O'neil was the master of misery and only he could have possible written this play. The characterizations are refreshingly thurough and the language is memorable. If you want excitement, I hear John Grisham delivers.

Eugene O'Neill's play "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is a Pulitzer award winning, autobiographical play about his family. I must admit that though Eugene O'Neill is considered by some to be the father of American Theater, I did not enjoy reading this play. The Tyrone family's insane dysfunction with their constant bickering and apologizing was very annoying and frustrating to read. I also disliked the fact that after four acts of continuous yelling and tension O'Neill offered no conclusion. The day in the life of the Tyrone family gets progressively worse until it finally peaks and the play just ends. No happy ending, no hope for the future, just despair. "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is a wholly depressing read that I really could have done without. However, after learning more about Eugene O'Neill's background, and the extent to which the play is based on his life, I began to have a greater appreciation for this play. O'Neill did lead a very hard life, therefore the frustration and despair I felt while reading this play demonstrates O'Neill's talent to engage his audience and to convey the emotions of the characters in a very real manner. While O'Neill's depressing end did not satisfy my craving for a happy ending, it was appropriate for the play as Eugene's own family never got a happy ending. I did like the clever way O'Neill showed the Tyrone family's desire but inability to forget their troubles through the dialogue. At the beginning of the play the audience is presented with a normal, loving family. The audience soon however, gets the suspicion that something isn't quite right, and that the family is tense. Slowly the family's skeletons are exposed through arguments between the family members, but the characters always feel regretful for bringing the subject up. Thus showing that no matter how hard the Tyrone family tries to pretend that all is well, their skeletons are always with them and resurface to continually remind them of the truth. Although I still believe "Long Day's Journey Into Night" to be thoroughly disheartening to read, the reader's emotional response to this play leaves no doubt to O'Neill's exceptional writing.

Wow, what a depressing and dull read. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to actually sit there and watch this on a stage. I appreciate the style O'Neill brought with him when it came to details. That was really unusual and interesting. However, none of the characters were even somewhat likable and the story was so depressing. After reading this I am much more grateful for my family. We have our problems but nothing like this. I think it is worthwhile to take a look at this play because O'Neill's style is so different, but don't be surprised if you hate it.

Eugene O'Neills portrail of his family's love of detruction is almost beautiful. Its the perfect american tragity. The tyrone family have a certain lovely ness to there brokenness, they hurt one another with an unseen pleasure.

When I first read "Long Day's Journey Into Night" I almost cried. It may seem odd to some, but this book revealed itself with opposite feelings of sadness, despair and tremendous joy that return constantly. I know my words can't describe the beauty of the play, but I'd like to say that I'll keep this beautiful play forever in my heart. Why are the most beautiful things so sad?...

Bloom's introduction frames this American masterpiece with precision and insight. In my opinion, O'Neill's best play, Long Day's Journey Into Night is better read than performed as the nuance and poetry of his stage direction and descriptions of gestures are what make this play extraordinary. A dark and depressing book, it accurately depicts the ravages of addiction and its impact on the family.

It's a wonderfully sad story about the struggles of a family's struggles. In each of the characters you can feel a hint of yourself, and you feel the true pain of each of them. O'Neill's writing makes you feel like you are really there, which might might not be the place that you want to be. It's extremely sad and depressing, but abolutely wonderful.

Why, pray tell, is this play so revered? It is
the most boring, over-hyped, and predictable play
I have ever encountered. If you don't know everything that will happen by page five,
there is something seriously wrong with you. If
it were written particularly well, I could give it
some slack--but, REALLY! Save your money and read
some Tennessee Williams, who really IS America's
greatest playwrite.

Eugene O'Neill may have been the father of American theatre, but the excellent writing he became known for is not portrayed in Long Day's Journey into Night. O'Neill's characters were shallow, pathetic and seemed to have great moodswings.The father-son relationship between James Tyrone and his son, Jamie, is meanspirited, and they tend to blame eachother for the family problems. Tyrone regularly refers to Jamie as a useless failure, and a drunk, not only to his face but to other family members, and in turn Jamie refers to his father as a man who would rather save a dime then save the life of his son, Edmund. Tyrone says such things as "You'd be content to sit back like a lazy lunk and sponge on me for the rest of your life!"(p.32) and comments to Edmund that, "If he's ever had a loftier dream than whores and whiskey, he's never shown it."(p.131). The characters of the parents are pathetic, the mother all fluttery and drugged, and the father as the stereotypical old, cheap, and mean failed celebrity. The only seemingly normal relationship is between Edmund and Jamie as for the most part they exchange brotherly love. The relationships and conversations between the family members seems entirely unnatural, they go from scathingly angry to chipper in a matter of seconds. It is as if they entire family is bipolar.

Long Day's Journey into Night was based on the life of O'Neill himself, with the character of Edmund as O'Neill. The mother of O'Neill was truly a drug addict who had lost the son between O'Neill and his older brother, and his father never accepted O'Neill for who he was. These sad beginnings continued throughout the life of O'Neill and was evident in the writing of this piece. If the characters in Long Day's Journey into Night are closely based on his family members then O'Neill had a more sad life than anyone could possibly imagine.

LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is a great play, but sitting through the acting of all the acts can be a very tough experience. It is a heartwrenching tale of a pair of brothers who are as different as night and day. When I was in high school a lack of girls required that I play the challenging part of Mary Tyrone, once a youthful beauty revelling in her ability to love and be loved, her body a wonderland as they say nowadays, but now only a shrivelled up hag, left on the shelf who finds solace in her needle full of morphine. Her husband, she thinks, doesn't understand her. The surprise in the play is that she finds out, oh yes he does understand her-only too well.

She wears bedraggled clothes of the turn of the century period, which she has pathetically tried to keep clean, ironed and pressed, but which her morphine habit have caused to look wrinkled and generally dishevelled. She knows how she has fallen apart and it is part of her agony that she no longer looks very trig. Poor thing, she is always fussing with her hair (in my case, a long gray wig which my mother attempted to tie up in the middle like an old fashioned chignon. It kept falling out of its ribbon as I attempted to totter across the stage, imitating someone in the last throes of drug addiction, about which I knew very little. I imagined that I would always be seeing invisible people and monsters, like Ray Milland in Billy Wilder's LOST WEEKEND. And I would misplace things like my yarn and my spectacles, dropping them on what I thought was a book shelf but was actually thin air. I feel sorry for my fellow actors, three lovely guys totally upstaged by my antics, but I didn't know any better. The play lasted a considerably long time. We only had three performances though, and for the third we brought on two understudies for my two sons had quit the play and joined the basketball team instead, less stress.

Boring as hell!
Heard about this great work by O'Neill for years and finally got to read it. Maybe this makes a decent play. Maybe if you sit and watch you can
enjoy the performances and emotions, etc.
But reading is bruatally boring.
On and on and on....
Maybe I am conditiioned by TV and movies for getting to the point a
lot faster.

This is one of my favorite books. I purchased it here as a gift for a friend.

This is the story of one day in the life of a family, considered to be a bit autobiographical, and not published until after Eugene O'Neill died, it is depressing but well told tale. This is the story of a family battling addiction and secrets. It has amazing dialogue. I am not a person who can re-read a story, but I find myself reading this play probably every year. I do not know why, but I enjoy it, the melancholy sticks with me, and makes me want to re-read it again.

There is something about it that lingers with me every time I read it- and I can't encourage you enough to read it for yourself. This story won the Pulitzer Prize- it is that good!

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