Long Day's Journey Into Night Essay

To give their works more life and depth, many authors incorporate their own experiences into their works. Khaled Hosseini, in his novel The Kite Runner, follows this pattern by using his experiences of growing up in Afghanistan and of helping a Hazara man learn to read and write to flesh out the relationship between his main characters Amir and Hassan. Writers use their own lives, beliefs, and backgrounds because the subjects come naturally to them and because retelling their own stories helps them to deal with any repercussions their actions may have had. The same holds true for Eugene O’Neill. O’Neill writes about morphine addiction, alcoholism, and an Irish-Catholic family in Long Day’s Journey into Night in order to face the family problems he grew up with as a child.
Since Eugene O’Neill discovered his mother’s addiction to morphine at a young age, the playwright had to live with his mother’s problems for much of his life, and he chose to deal with them through the medium of his plays. Both Ella O’Neill and Mary Tyrone, after complications while giving birth, use morphine at first to assuage their pains. However, the two mothers cannot, or perhaps refuse to, give up the relief that morphine gives them (Overview 1). Mary and Ella neglect their families and friends while under the drug’s influence; they choose to dwell in the past, ignoring the actual events that occur around them so that they will not have to deal with any hurt or pain. Eugene O’Neill sorts out his guilt for causing his mother’s addiction through Edmund Tyrone and his guilt for the same thing. Both feel that their births forced this reliance on morphine onto their mothers, but while Edmund does nothing to deal with his culpability, O’Neill does his best to understand his mother’s actions by fabricating a similar situation that he can understand in one of his final and most personal plays (Overview 1).
Eugene O’Neill portrays Jamie and Edmund Tyrone as alcoholics to document his troubles with his older brother and his own internal conflicts. Jamie O’Neill abuses alcohol to escape from the realities of his mother’s problems and his father’s emotional distance from the family just as Jamie Tyrone does in Long Day’s Journey into Night. Although the two have essentially the same addiction as their mothers, nobody ever recognizes the sons’ alcoholism as a problem while many look down upon the mothers; O’Neill presents this double standard in his play to instruct his readers about the hazardous effects liquor can have wreak on families. Although Mary’s morphine causes family troubles, the Tyrone men’s alcohol produces just as many negative effects, if not more (Overview 1). O’Neill attempts to posthumously fix his bad relationship with his older brother by giving Jamie Tyrone, Jamie O’Neill’s alter-ego, redeeming qualities such as his choice to visit a fat prostitute because she may lose her job. Much of the alcoholism in the O’Neill and Tyrone families results from their Irish-Catholic roots, so they cannot easily overcome it, since it is a natural part of their heritage.
Both Eugene O’Neill and the Tyrone family cope throughout their lives with both the stigma and pride that accompany an Irish-Catholic ancestry. James Tyrone especially displays his national pride, even saying to his own son, “And keep your dirty tongue off Ireland, with your sneers about peasants and bogs and hovels!” (O’Neill 34) The Tyrone men pride themselves on their ability to hold their alcohol, a very Irish trait. Eugene and Jamie O’Neill also drank often, sometimes forcing themselves to restrain their habit while with non-Irish (Overview 2). Immigrants from Ireland, often discriminated against merely for their culture, faced social ostracism; James Tyrone and James O’Neill know this very well as they went through it first hand, O’Neill in his acting career and Tyrone in his social connections. An important part of the Irish tradition, Catholicism plays a distinct role in both families. The Tyrones have effectually abandoned their religion, although not in name. Eugene O’Neill, too, gives up his religion soon after he realizes his mother’s addiction to morphine (Overview 3). O’Neill may have tried to atone for this desertion of his faith by writing about the Tyrone family and explaining how his upbringing affected his beliefs.
By baring his life, family, and emotions to the world in his Long Day’s Journey into Night, O’Neill enables his readers to relate more easily to his story and situation and to recognize their own struggles in his play. The audience can realize that others strain just as much as they do to survive and live a “normal” life. The playwright thus gives his audience hope despite the seemingly bleak ending of the work, where Mary reflects on the beginning of her relationship with James Tyrone. The play demonstrates the results regret can have and teaches its audience to forgive and forget, even if that means forgiving oneself, because the past cannot be undone.

Works Cited
“Overview: Long Day’s Journey into Night.” Literature and its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them. Vol. 3: Growth of Empires to the Great Depression (1890-1930s). Detroit: Gale, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Gale. LEE COUNTY LIBRARY SYSTEM. 20 Sept. 2008
<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=lees86285>.

O'Neill, Eugene, and Harold Bloom. Long Day's Journey into Night. New York: Yale UP, 2002.

College Essay

At the beginning of my freshman year of high school, I joined many clubs, eager to figure out which ones would suit me best. I tried Student Government Association and went to a few meetings of Chess Club, and though I enjoyed them for a short while, they simply did not feel right. I had always taken pleasure in watching professional ballroom dancing on television and had danced as a young child, so I made the decision to join the new Latin Dance Club. I have never since regretted that choice. I loved learning the new steps and listening to the music; dance club on Friday afternoons became my stress reliever and therapy. The Latin Dance Club soon became so important to me and a few other friends that we decided that our school needed a dance class.
During sophomore year, my friends and I took our idea, along with reasons the class would be beneficial and a list of students who would also like to take part in a dance class, to the school’s Dean of Academics. We explained to her that other students could also find a new and unique way to exercise and decompress through this course while gaining their fine arts credit. The administrator’s approval thrilled me, and I quickly requested a place in Dance Techniques I.
In addition to decreasing my anxiety levels, the Latin Dance Club and Dance Techniques exposed me to Hispanic culture. I learned more about the people, their music, their cuisine, and their relaxed way of life. Learning about the way others lived fascinated me, and it inspired me to delve into the Spanish language. I took higher level Spanish classes so I could learn more quickly, watched Spanish television programs, and began to listen to Spanish radio stations. I loved the idea that, by learning this language, I could increase the amount of people I could communicate with exponentially. Learning Spanish developed into a challenge I fervently attempted to win. In the spring of my junior year, I travelled to Ecuador. This new experience put my dreams and talents into perspective. Although I could understand most of the conversations, I never kept up with our guides and the locals. I realized that if I truly wanted to know the language, I could not give up, even though it sometimes felt as though I could never succeed, and I could not solely rely on my natural affinity for languages. Since then, I have made every effort to familiarize myself with Spanish, and I always seek out and take any extra opportunities to use it.
The influence Latin Dance Club has had on me extends even to my future, as I plan to continue studying Spanish at college. I hope to one day have full command of the language and I may even choose a career that will involve it. It broadened my horizons enough that my desire for knowledge now extends to other languages. I would like to one day study and learn French and Russian, among others. I changed profoundly simply because of a school club, from a young child content with her native tongue, to a young woman yearning to know more.