Long Day's Journey Into Night Tragedy Analysis

Long Day’s Journey into Night is a semi-autobiographical play by Eugene O’Neill, centered around a family dealing with addiction and their own downfalls. Many critics have argued whether Long Day’s Journey into Night is a tragedy or not. While it has arguments for both, it would have to be considered a tragedy because of the characters and the ending. Those two aspects of the play make it a tragedy. However, it cannot be considered a tragedy in the classic sense of the word. Long Day’s Journey into Night is a modern tragedy because it has four tragic characters struggling with their fatal flaw, which will ultimately be their downfall, and the ending does not give a hint as to what the resolution for the characters might be. Instead of focusing …show more content…
O’Neill had an unhappy childhood and unsatisfying relationships with his parents and older brother. His family, the inspirations for the characters of Long Day’s Journey into Night, had their own demons that persisted through their lives. Not only is O’Neill writing about the characters in a tragic family situation, he lived in one. Another theme that O’Neill frequently featured in his plays was the idea that the characters are wearing masks. The masks are the guard that the characters put up in order to hide their true emotions or motivations from the other characters. In his thesis, scholar Roger Curtiss Rasco writes that although the theme of masks dwindled later in O’Neill’s career, the influence shows in Long Day’s Journey into Night because “the mask was and is an effective method of indicating the presence of both truth and falsehood at the same time” (Rasco, 104). With the characters of this play, they are always concealing the truth behind their …show more content…
Taking into consideration the characteristics of tragedy, this play features many elements that would be typical of a tragedy; a family that has a lot to lose, tragic characters with fatal flaws, moments of realization, and a tragic ending. One could argue that Long Day’s Journey into Night is missing a crucial element of any theatrical or literary work; a protagonist. The entire Tyrone family could be considered protagonists, if the only criteria was that the protagonist be the main character or characters. However, a protagonist also needs to be a champion for change. None of the characters in this play fit that standard. In the end, all of the characters have an emotional breakdown but none of them seem to be heading for any change in their lifestyle. Mary falls back on her morphine addiction, Jamie and Edmund are still drinking heavily, and James is still miserly and living in the