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Long Day s Journey into Night In the later part of the 19 th century a new movement swept over the American literature. Naturalism was a theory that believed that composition should be based on objective human beings. Naturalists concentrated on the harsh aspects of life, believing that life rarely works out, as people want it to. Authors viewed life and human behavior as an experiment controlled by instinct, emotions, and social conditions. In Long Day s Journey into Night, Eugene O Neill describes a journey that a person takes in life in order to find his or her self. This piece describes a family consisting of James Tyrone, Mary his wife, and their two sons James and Edmund.
As the play unfolds, the relationship between the characters becomes pellucid and their divinities are shown. By describing the struggle that each character goes through, O Neill illustrates that as each person loses control of their life, they lose their identity. Tyrone fought his entire life to overcome his difficult youth. His father abandoned him when he was young and he had to work hard to support his family.
Tyrone was an incredible actor with potential to get even better. Once he discovered his talent, he realized that he did not have to work hard to become a success. Tyrone had a chance at easy money, and he took it. By doing so he ensured the security for himself and his family, but also he lost control of the direction of his life.
I d lost the great talent I once had through years of easy repetition never really working hard Yet before I bought [into temptation] I was considered one of three or four young actors with the greatest artistic promise (2025 - 2026). Tyrone had given up his love of the theater for a large sum of money. In losing this love he lost himself. Mary was a dreamer with high goals and was willing to work hard to achieve them. She gave up her life partly when she married Tyrone.
Mary went form a self-sufficient individual to a housewife whose primary goal was to take care of her husband, but she continued her struggle to create the life she thought she deserved. However when her second born baby died, the spirit inside her died too. Mary was so consumed by guilt and grief that she lost control, fell apart, and turned to drugs to avoid reality. She blames Tyrone: Above all, I shouldn t have let you insist I have another baby because you thought that would make me forget (1196). Once she started the drugs, the blame, guilt, and grief disappear but so did her life. Mary lost her struggle through her marriage, the loss of her child, and her drug addiction.
Jamie lost himself in his feelings of inadequacy. Because his younger brother, Edmund was never really wanted, Tyrone and Mary felt guilty and tried to protect him from all the miseries of the world. Ever since the day Edmund was born, Jamie was overpowered by jealousy. Never wanted you succeed and make me look even worse by comparison.
Wanted you to fail. Always jealous of you. Mama s baby, Papa s pet! (2034). Jamie s struggle was about self-discovery because long ago he had given up trying to succeed. His jealousy made him give in to his internal conflict and he was left completely absorbed by this feeling. Edmund was born as a replacement for the dead son, and never really had an identity.
His identity was everything that Eugene, the dead son could have been. He never really belonged and felt that no matter what he did he never could. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong (2028). Edmund s true self was never really lost, because it was never really found.
He was trying to relieve the pressures placed on him by his family s ideas of who and what he should be. By leaving his house he temporarily escaped his family, but had to come back because he ran out of money and determination. He returned to his family and abandoned his own identity in the process. Through the Tyrone's, O Neill illustrates the significance of the human struggle.
Long Day s Journey into Night emphasizes how crucial it is to keep one s life intact. By taking the life s journey it is important to keep motivated in order to survive. O Neill proves that struggle, no matter how hopeless, acts as an assuring factor that guides a person to lead an emotionally stable life.
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Research essay sample on Journey Into Night Lost Control
