Blameless guilt
Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night
This family story takes place on a single day in August 1912. From morning to midnight every possible family catastrophe occurs that the Tyrones – Mary, James, James jr. and Edmund – are capable of.
The day begins brightly, both inwardly and outwardly, the sun shines and the parents give the impression of being an affectionate couple that obviously seems to enjoy each other’s company after Mary’s absence. The scene is the somewhat dilapidated family summer house by the sea, it is the only fixed abode they have.
Everything would appear to be harmonious if it were not for the searching and questioning looks directed towards the mother, and if it were not for the hopeful entreaties suggesting that now everything is all right. However, fog suddenly descends around the house and at the same time “the fog” inside the house becomes increasingly dense. The sons and the father do not spare each other of sharp remarks and they are always on the brink of a quarrel. Mary needs a break to “take a rest” more and more frequently but they all suspect that she is injecting herself with morphine. The men take strength from a more ordinary drug, whisky; their rest breaks are outings to the nearest town and its pubs.
All of them have more than one reason why they are as they are: their impoverished background, the resulting miserliness and the “sold” acting talent of James. Mary was subjected to the wrong medical treatment during the difficult birth of Edmund and given morphine. This results in her addiction and she is pursued by a sense of being to blame for the death of one of her children. James junior has failed as an actor and he is envious of his younger brother; Edmund has failed as a writer and in his attempt to lead a free life. This in itself would be enough but all losses and feelings of guilt are more or less directly linked to one another so that they need take no blame for feeling guilty: “Nobody can do anything about what life has made of us”.
They all feel they are victims, all inseparably linked to one
another, all ghosts who wander around nebulously through the past. There
are only brief moments of clarity and honesty towards themselves and the
others. Edmund asks, “Who looks life in the face voluntarily?”
It is better to turn away, the family members agree on this. They constantly
delude themselves and they drift further and further from one another
without being able to break away completely. Where their own words no
longer suffice, they flee like actors of themselves into quoted literature.
Their own misery can no longer be mentioned but poetry transcends it.
“Stammering is the eloquence innate in us foggy people”. At
the end of the day there is no longer any hope, only a memory, “Yes,
I remember, I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a time.”
They remain still.
Hans-Joachim Ruckhäberle
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