Student: José Martínez Hernández e-mail: jomarhe5@alumni.uv.es

English Philology. First cicle, first course.

English Theatre XIX & XX Centuries Group B ( evenings ).

Play: Long day's journey into night by Eugene O'Neill.

In this play, the author releases many features that can be better understood reading his biography, since it contains a big autobiographic load.

"Was written in 1940 and released in 1956 after his death "

New Haven and London, Yale University Press.

There are four main characters:

James Tyrone. The strict father. Particularly harsh on his son Jamie. Famous good looking actor that choose not to improve his acting career, instead playing always the same character in the same succesful play as this was an inmediate and good revenue. His main feature, apart from the fact that he likes the booze ( and unwillingly entices the children into it ) is that he is very avare, very stingy, to the point preferring cheap doctors, thus putting healths at risk. He even keeps the whiskey under a lock. His past helps in that, as he was very poor in his early youth ( when he was about ten ) and his biggest fear is, in spite of doing well and having ( and dealing ) a bit in property, to end in the poorhouse.

Mary Tyrone. The mother. A ghost of what once she was. Portrayed as nice and caring, but with serious problems. Blaming his husbund she is bitter because she does not like the life that she had to live in order to follow him in his job as an actor, nor she likes the house, plus she falls always in denial. Denial about her son health ( he is seriously ill with compsumption, but she keeps saying that is only a bad cold ), and worse, about her condition of addicted to morphine as a result of a bad medical advice after his son's ( Edmund ) birth.

Jamie. The older brother. Unsuccesful. A failure. Although he is kind to his brother Edmund, he uses to be very hard on everyone, particularly on his father, as he thinks he is the one to blame for many nasty things, like his mother´s addiction to morphine, the fact that he is a drunkard, etc...

Edmund. He is the character that represents the author. With literary capabilities that even granted him a prize, he is very fond of his brother, with whom he shares the money whenever he has it. He lived once out of the family as a sailor in a ship, and he remembers watching the idealised sea like the only time he felt out of himself and absolutely free and in peace with everything. He is very ill, and later on is known that the disease is tuberculosis.

The plot. The characters first introduced, among some laughing, the story of a rich neighbour being beaten up by another one, a pigkeeper. From there they start building a thick and overwhelming atmosphere, and the sense of oppression ( and suspicion ) is really hard, being the main issue that everyone is hoping that Mary has been able to keep away from morphine, what later on proves false. There is constant blaming. His father is really hard on Jamie, saying he has disgraced his family, after all his expectations of him being the one that would carry his name in honour. Jamie, the elder brother, has a sharp tongue ( language used as a weapon ) that always spits the driest truth in the worst possible way, blaming James for his own condition of drunkard, for his mother condition, for not seeking the best place money could buy for Edmund's recovery,etc... He seems to be to too fed up with life to give a damn about anything anymore... He even tells the most cruel truth to his brother. Jamie is a failure ( and his father is always remembering him that, and comparing him with his brother because Edmund is not a failure, or at least not so much - he won some literary prize for journalism - ) and Jamie feels bitter for that, and he tells his brother -when he is full of booze. that he loves him, but that he has to be careful, because at the same time he love him, deep down he wants Edmund to fail in life. Truth showing its most harsh side. That is shown as well when Jamie makes a drunkard and out of place comment when his mother -after another shot in the arm- enters the room ( " The mad scene - Ophelia enters " ) which grants him a slap from his brother.

There is not a resoluting end, it is an end where things remain where they were, everyone staying with their own despair and problems. It ends without great changes or big happenings, but in a problematic and aimless continuity as so often real life does. For this play is about real life, the author's life.

There is a lot of quoting verses, mostly from Shakespeare. And a conversation of Edmund defending his books ( Voltaire, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde ) against his father, that supports only Shakespeare.

There is a constant presence of the mist, of the fog, which symbolises trouble, problems, difficulties. And there is as well present the annoying sound of the foghorn , that always reminds of it.

All action takes place indoors, in the family's house, and the feature of the light is also dim light is also present, allowing a discussion over sparing money on electric power.

All characters mean well, but they cause -for different reasons- a lot of trouble to the others.

A good but very hard play, mostly knowing that it is autobiographic.