Critical Analysis Of Long Day's Journey Into Night

Eugene O 'Neill’s

Long Day’s Journey into Night

A Review

By Snježana Miličević

After reading the play thoroughly and analyzing the given text as well as some internet sources it becomes clear that “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is partly autobiographical play, giving us a bit of insight of O’Neill’s life and upbringing. It is also a representation of a day in a dysfunctional family and as such focuses on a few issues every family faces from time to time: controlling father, disengaged mother, sibling’s rivalry/jealousy, importance of stable “home” and money.

Before the play begins we are given a detailed description of the scene (Tyrone’s summer house) as well as the description of the mother character, Mary.

As the play begins everything seems normal or even perfect in the Tyrone family. The family just finished breakfast and mother and father enter the scene in seemingly idyllic way, in embrace, talking about normal things such as gain weight. But as the conversation continues we get the first glimpse of the family problems. And as the play progresses we get even deeper look into the problems that are clearly hidden from the rest of the world. And the seemingly idyllic family from the beginning of the play quickly turns into a clearly dysfunctional family.

We get a clearer picture of the “head of the family” - James Tyrone, who used to be an actor turned property owner. He has experienced poverty from young age and worked hard to get to where