Long Day's Journey into Night

“’None of us can help the things life has done to us,’ noted Tyrone. ‘They’re done before you realize it, and… they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever” (O’Neill.) In Eugene O’Neill’s work Long Day’s Journey into Night, the author utilizes autobiographical elements to form each of his characters. His use of his own life experiences helps to present each of the characters not only as a member of the fictional Tyrone family, but also of Eugene O’Neill’s.

In O’Neill’s dedication to his wife, he says his play is a “play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood” (O’Neill). The play was said to be “so painful and personal” that O’Neill would not allow the publication of it until after his death (Gale, Eugene O’Neill). O’Neill spent much of his younger life, living in different hotels, and never in a permanent home, much like the characters in the play. When O’Neill wrote the play Long Day’s Journey into Night, he lived in his only real “home” located in New London, Connecticut (Gale, Eugene O’Neill).

The plays four main characters: James, Mary, Jamie, and Edmund Tyrone, are all corresponded to the members of Eugene O’Neill’s family. His father, much like James Tyrone, was an actor. He had risen from poverty, and had become one of America’s most famous actors. O’Neill’s father was also, much like James Tyrone, obsessed with finances. He chose to move his family around in hotels, never seeking a permanent home. He traveled the country performing in the play The Count of Monte Cristo, critics began to complain about his waste of artistic talent, and he too soon agreed (Gale, Eugene O’Neill) His waste of talent is alluded to in the conversation between Jamie and Tyrone in Act Four when Jamie quotes Rossetti, “Look in my face. My name is Might-Have-Been; I am also called No More, Too Late, Farewell” Tyrone responds saying his wishes not “to look at it” (O’Neill, 171).

O’Neill’s mother, Mary Ellen Quinlan (also referred to as Ella) had been born wealthy, and was raised in Catholic convent schools (Gale, Eugene O’Neill). Ella married James at a young age and traveled with him as he acted across the country. Ella had given birth to three children: Jamie, Eugene and O’Neill himself. Eugene though died at birth, and Ella grieved at her loss. Her husband did not allow her to grieve properly, sending her away to a sanatorium where she became addicted to morphine. She lost her faith in God, and attempted suicide (Gale, Eugene O’Neill).

Jamie O’Neill, O’Neill’s older brother, was coddled as a child. He was obsessed with his mother, and could not do anything (Gale, Eugene O’Neill). He too was an actor, but his dependence on drinking hindered him from full performances. He was also dependent on prostitutes and would not settle for a normal woman. Jamie realized his career was over, and attempted to dissuade his brother from becoming a writer (Stilling, Dictionary of Literary Biography).

Eugene O’Neill is a parallel to both Edmund, and his dead brother Eugene. When his mother Ella, attempts to commit suicide, he announced he would no longer be a Catholic. Instead he searched for an alternative, for both a mother and a God. He found his answer in Friedrich Nietzsche, who O’Neill quotes in his play, Long Day’s Journey into Night. His new faith encouraged “confidence in one’s inner resources” (Gale, Eugene O’Neill). He had noticed his mother’s addiction to morphine at the age of fourteen and feared she was insane (Gale, Eugene O’Neill)

Long Day’s Journey into Night was a work that O’Neill had attempted to write for years. His own family crisis of both drug and alcohol addiction has influenced many of his works. His plays depict his own suffering, as well as his family history.

Gale, Thompson. Eugene O'Neill. 2004.

Jensen, George H. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. John MacNicholas and University of South Carolina. Vols. VII: Twentieth-Century American Dramatists, Frist Series. 1981: Gale Research, n.d.

Stilling, Roger J. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. XXXI: Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature. Gale, 2007.