Discussion Topic
Literary references and parallels in Long Day's Journey into Night
Summary:
Long Day's Journey into Night contains numerous literary references and parallels, including nods to Shakespearean works, Greek tragedies, and other classical literature. These references enrich the characters' dialogues and underscore themes of family dysfunction, addiction, and the inescapable past. Eugene O'Neill uses these allusions to deepen the emotional complexity and highlight the timeless nature of the family's struggles.
What are the literary references in Long Day's Journey into Night?
The male characters use many allusions in the play. James Tyrone, an actor steeped in knowledge of Shakespeare, has an abundance of quotes at hand, and the family's living room is filled with well-worn (indicating that they have been read) volumes of books from authors such as Shakespeare, Balzac, Poe, and Oscar Wilde. This establishes from the start that this is a literary family, easily able to refer to literature.
Shakespeare allusions abound, taken from Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, The Tempest, Richard III, and Julius Caesar, notably all tragedies, which underscores the tragic pain of this play. The Shakespeare allusions are primarily concentrated in act 4, scene 1, but one allusion appears in act 1, when the cynical Jamie, as his father snores, quotes Othello:
The Moor, I know his trumpet.
Equally sardonic is the quote from Rudyard Kiplings Mother O' Mine:
If I were hanged on the highest...
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hill,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose love would follow me still.
This is an example of an ironic appropriation of a sincere original that shows the pain the sons experience. Mary, caught in the dream world of morphine addiction and emotionally divorced from her children, is the opposite of a mother whose love will follow her sons. The love Kipling describes is what they crave but have not had, which has left them wounded and scarred.
Allusions also reinforce scathing assessments of character, as when Edmund quotes Baudelaire's Epilogue to describe Jamie:
I love thee, infamous city! Harlots and
Hunted have pleasures of their own to give,
The vulgar herd can never understand.
Edmund sees Jamie as hopelessly dissipated, addicted to alcohol and prostitutes: these are methods of drowning his pain that are both self-destructive and destructive towards his family.
Throughout the play, though particularly in act 4, the allusions reinforce the family's painful dysfunction arising from its tragic past.
What literature parallels Long Day's Journey into Night?
Eugene O’Neill’s play Long Day’s Journey into Night parallels Death of a Salesman and The Humans.
Death of a Salesman is a 1940s play by Arthur Miller. In Long Day's Journey into Night, James Tyrone is an actor who took on a role that limited his potential. The main character of Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, is a salesman. Like James, Willy's profession winds up limiting him. Willy can’t seem to figure out an identity separate from that of a working salesman. Both men are frustrated and make poor choices. They drink, have affairs, and don’t treat their families kindly. Through James and Willy, O’Neill and Miller demonstrate the toxicity of the American dream.
Stephen Karam’s The Humans also parallels O’Neill’s play. This contemporary play, which was recently adapted into a movie, touches on the disappointments of a hardworking father and features a mother who isn’t entirely well. In The Humans, both of the children, two daughters, have substantial struggles.
Other plays that parallel O’Neill’s play include two Tennessee Williams plays, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie. Similar to O’Neill’s play, these works revolve around contentious families, financial strain, and various physical and mental afflictions.