Long Days Journey into Night by Eugene

ONeill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (1888 1953) was an American playwright and
Nobel laureate in literature. He also won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize a
record four times. He was the first to introduce the technique of realism to
American theatre. His plays were among the first to include speeches in
American vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society, where
they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide
into disillusionment and despair. Most of ONeills plays involve some degree
of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Themes:

Family dysfunction
The haunting presence of the past
Mental health
Addiction/substance abuse
Denial and selfdelusion
Blame and forgiveness

Key terms:
Realism in literature, faithful representation of reality, especially of middleclass life. According to William Harmon and Hugh Holman, "Where
romanticists transcend the immediate to find the ideal, and naturalists plumb
the actual or superficial to find the scientific laws that control its actions,
realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the
here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable consequence" (from A
Handbook to Literature). Realist playwrights rejected the concept of the wellmade play and exaggerated theatricalism of earlier drama.
Characteristics (from The American Novel and Its Tradition):

Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. Selective

presentation of reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude, even at the
expense of a well-made plot
Character is more important than action and plot; complex ethical
choices are often the subject.
Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive;
they are in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to their social
class, to their own past.
Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and
aspirations of an insurgent middle class.

Events will usually be plausible. Realistic novels avoid the sensational,

dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances.
Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone may be
comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.

Classical unities of time, place, and action in tragedy:

unity of time: action limited to the duration, roughly, of a single day

unity of place: one general location
unity of action: a single plot

American Dream- a national ethos of the United States, a set of ideals in

which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an
upward social mobility achieved through hard work. The idea of the American
Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which
proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness. (Wikipedia)

Motifs
Motif: One of the dominant ideas in a work of literature; a part of the main
theme. It may consist of a character, a recurrent image, or a verbal pattern.
(From Dictionary of Literary Terms)
While reading the play, take note of the presence and significance of the
following motifs:

the fog and the foghorn

the sea
contrast of day and night
Marys glasses, hands, and hair
Edmunds illness`
consumption of alcohol and morphine
multiple quotations from Shakespeare, Baudelaire, Dowson, etc.