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Long Day's Journey into Night | Introduction

Although Eugene O'Neill had completed Long Day's Journey into Night by 1941, it was not produced until 1956, three years after his death. He had originally stipulated that it was not to be produced or published until twenty-five years after he died. However, before his death he gave verbal permission to the Royal Dramatic Theatre to stage it in Stockholm, Sweden, a country that had accorded him a special loyalty throughout his career.

The Stockholm production, which opened on February 10, 1956, was very successful and prompted wide interest in the play. Nine months later, on November 7, the play opened to mixed but mostly favorable reviews at the Helen Hayes Theatre in New York. Featured in the cast were Frederic March as James Tyrone, Florence Eldridge as Mary, Jason Robards, Jr. as Jamie, Bradford Dilman as Edmund, and Katherine Ross as Cathleen. Jose Quintero both produced and directed the play.

Carlotta O'Neill, the playwright's widow, saw to the play's publication in the same year. In 1955 she had copyrighted the work as an unpublished play, and in the following year she asked Random House to publish it. The editors declined, even though they held a sealed copy of the script that O'Neill had originally deposited with them. Mrs. O'Neill then offered the publication rights to the Yale Library, which arranged its release through the Yale University Press with the provision that the play royalties would be used to endow the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Fund at the Yale School of Drama. The published work met with great critical acclaim and won for O'Neill a fourth Pulitzer Prize.

Long Day's Journey into Night Summary

Long Day's Journey into Night is set in the living room of the Tyrones' shoreline summer home in New London, Connecticut, in August of 1912. The play begins in the morning and ends late at night on the same day.

The work is divided into four acts. It largely consists of painful disclosures and acrimonious exchanges among the four family members, as major crises mount and finally engulf the family in despair. Of central concern are Mary's relapse into morphine addiction, Jamie's continued descent into irreversible dissipation, and Edmund's grim discovery that he has tuberculosis and must enter a sanatorium.

Act I
The play, which opens just after breakfast, begins on a hopeful note, evident in the affectionate exchange between James and Mary Tyrone, but it is clear that Mary is being carefully watched by her family. Neither her morphine addiction nor Edmund's obvious ill health are honestly discussed. Instead, the characters fence around the truth with evasive banter, though, at times, resentment and disappointment surface. Tyrone upbraids Jamie, his eldest son, for encouraging Edmund, the younger son, to follow in Jamie's dissolute footsteps. Jamie, ever critical of "the Old Man," in turn derides Tyrone as a miser, ultimately to blame for Mary's addiction and Edmund's ill health because of his penny-pinching reluctance to pay for competent doctors. To the father and sons, it becomes obvious that Mary is growing unstable, but she blames her edginess on a lack of sleep caused by Tyrone's snoring and the foghorn that sounded throughout the previous night. After the men leave to take up outside chores, Mary sinks into an armchair, clearly in a state of nervous agitation that threatens the last vestiges of her self-control.

Act II, Scene I
The scene opens just before lunch. Edmund and Jamie sneak some of their father's whiskey and then resort to Jamie's usual trick of watering the remaining whiskey to disguise their actions. Their discussion shifts from Edmund's health to their fears about their mother, and Jamie grows distraught because Edmund has let Mary stay upstairs by herself. When she enters, it is evident to both of them that she has succumbed to the drug, smashing their hopes that she had finally shaken herself free of it. Jamie's sneering remarks about his father anger Mary, who excuses her husband's stinginess as the result of his hard life. She also fends off Jamie's insinuation that she has lapsed into her addiction again. Tyrone enters, and he soon realizes what has happened. After his sons exit for lunch, he remains behind with Mary, angry and defeated by her condition.

Act II, Scene II
The family returns to the living room after lunch. A telephone call from Dr. Hardy confirms the diagnosis of Edmund's sickness as tuberculosis. Edmund must keep an... » Complete Long Day's Journey into Night Summary