THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STUDY OF EUGENE O’NEILL THROUGH LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
A THESIS
BY
NURIANTI
REG. STUDENT NO: 070705029
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LETTERS
UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, Thanks to Jesus Christ for His love, so I can complete my thesis. He gives me strength to bear the obstacles and makes me stand again when I stumble and almost fall. Everything is possible in Him.
I would like to thank the Dean of Faculty of Letters the Secretary of English Department Dr. Nurlela, M.Hum. I would like to thank my Academic Advisor Dr. Deliana, M. Hum and all lecturers of the English Department and other department who have given me valuable knowledge during the years of my study. Thank you for all the lessons. I will always remember all the good things that thaught to me.
I also want to dedicate my gratitude and much appreciation to Dra. Martha Pardede, M.S, my supervisor and Dra. Syahyar Hanum, DPFE, my co-supervisor, for the immense time, attention, guidance, suggestions and all corrections that given to me in doing this thesis. You have given me so much knowledge and encourage me to dig out for more information to my thesis. You make me find the pleasure in doing this thesis.
I would like to thank bang Samsul and bang Amran, for all the help and to all my classmates; my thesis-mates Debora, to MMM-mates Mitha, Abrina, Liana Li, Elisa, Windi, Bania and Andric. for another class mates, Liana Manurung, Eva, Vita, Maya, Dewi Maya, Rinandes, Elisabeth, Citra, and all ‘my people’, told you that all of you make this college time become easier and happier as well.
Tthanks for dozens of laugh, sympathy and love. I love the times we shared together. I also dedicate this thesis for all church’s friends, NHKBP Martoba-mates, I have done this during Christmas preparation and it’s nice to do both.
To all my seniors in 2005, special to ka Nony, all my seniors in 2006, especially to ka Miss, ka Debs, Ka Yosi, Ka Nur Fatimah, B’Reza and all my sister and brother. Thank you also to my juniors in 2008, 2009 and 2010. You guys make our campus getting bigger each day.
For the last, thanks to Samuel, for the link you gave me, I owe you much, we will meet someday. To mood booster Arif, Swarna, Harry, Cindy, ka Asdo, ka Femmy and all fellas out of town that often ask about my thesis progress. To Lastri, Dwee, Ika my ‘criminal-mates,’ okay, I miss you all already.
May God bless us all forever.
We deserve to get the best, Success is our ride!
Medan, Januari 2011 The writer
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS... i
ABSTRACT ... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... iv
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION... 1.1 The Background of Study ... 1
1.2 The Problem of Study... 3
1.3 The Objective of Study... 3
1.4 The Scope of Study... 4
1.5 The Significance of Study... 4
1.6 The Review of Related Literature... 5
1.7 The Theoretical Approach... 5
CHAPTER II METHOD OF STUDY... 7
2.1 Data Collecting Procedure... 7
2.2 Data Selecting Procedure... 8
2.3 Data Analyzing Procedure... 8
CHAPTER IV THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STUDY OF EUGENE O’NEILL THROUGH LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT... 14
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions ... 52 5.2 Suggestions... 52
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Background of Study
A literary work cannot be separated from the writer. Since literature is the picture of the real life, we can know more about a writer’s life from his or her literary work. Some writers express their feeling, ideas and experiences in their work that the reader can relate it to their life.
Long Day’s Journey into Night is one of literary works that deals with the
life of the writer. It is a four act play by Eugene O’Neill that completed in 1940. This play is about the Tyrone family that lives in a summer rent house and quarrel with each other. The family continuously revisits their old fights and opens their old wounds from the past then blames another. James Tyrone as the head of the family is constantly blamed for his own stinginess which may have led his wife, Mary, to morphine addiction when he refused to pay for a good doctor to treat her pain that caused by childbirth. Mary, on the other hand, is never able to let go the past or admit to the painful truth of the present, the truth that she is addicted to morphine and her youngest son, Edmund has tuberculosis. They all argue over Tyrone’s sons, Jamie and Edmund's failure to become success as their father has always hoped they would become.
Long Day’s Journey into Night deals with the autobiography of Eugene
O’Neill as the writer. In Tragic Drama and Modern Society, John Orr states that Long Day’s Journey into Night is specifically based on O’Neill’s family and
includes no one else (1981:189). Perkins in The American Tradition in Literature Tenth Edition (2002:1047) also state that In 1941 O’Neill had written a play on
his family which proved to be a masterpiece, Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956). It is an overwhelming tragedy based on the playwrights impression of the drama of love, madness and death played out between his frail parents.
Those two statements indicate that Eugene O’Neill wrote Long Day’s Journey into Night based on his family and his experiences as well. Eugene
O’Neill’s play Long Day’s Journey into Night is one of autobiographical play due to the use of the playwright’s personal life and his family as well.
The autobiography of Eugene O’Neill in Long Day’s Journey into Night can be studied by using the biographical approach. Hartoko in Pemandu di Dunia Sastra (1986:26) defines biographical approach as the study of literature which
describes the life of the author, gives information about his personal development and his work. Biographical approach is an approach to literature that tries to see the author’s real experience in his or her work. Biographical approach use information about an author’s life background in understanding and analyzing his or her work.
Long Day’s Journey into Night is at the highest point of a long among
represents how O’Neill in making peace with his troubled past and understanding his family and himself. (Quoted from
According to the explanation above, I am interested to analyze Long Day’s Journey into Night. This is because Long Day’s Journey into Night can be used to
study the autobiography of Eugene O’Neill. There are similarities between Eugene O’Neill’s life background and Tyrone’s family personal experience in the play. James Tyrone, Mary Tyrone, Jamie Tyrone and Edmund Tyrone reflect Eugene O’Neill’s family in his real life. Long Day’s Journey into Night is an interesting as well as the life of Eugene O’Neill himself.
1.1 The Problem of Study
John Gassner in Best American Plays Fourth Series – 1951-1957 (1958:134) states that In 1940, O’Neill composed the autobiographical play Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which he kept from both playgoers and readers during
his life time. This play also uses the autobiographical data of O’Neill himself. Based on the statement above, I formulate the problem of this study are:
1. Is it true that Long Day’s Journey into Night as the autobiographical play by Eugene O’Neill?
1.2 The Objective of Study
Related to the problem of study, the objectives of this study are:
1. To prove that Long Day’s Journey into Night is the autobiographical play by Eugene O’Neill.
2. To show how Long Day’s Journey into Night reflect Eugene O’Neill’s
autobiography.
1.3 The Scope of Study
In this thesis, the scope of study is limited and focused on the life background of four main characters in the play. They are James Tyrone, Mary Cavan Tyrone, Jamie Tyrone and Edmund Tyrone. Each of the characters reflects O’Neill’s father, mother, his elder brother and himself. The autobiography of Eugene O’Neill in Long Day’s Journey into Night includes his family background and their personal experiences.
1.4 The Significance of Study
1.5 The Review of Related Literature
I found some books which I used as sources of the data and information to support my thesis. These sources in finding the data and information are:
1. Best American Plays Fourth Series – 1951-1957 edited by John Gassner (1958). In This book explained the life background of Eugene O’Neill.
In this book I also found the statement that support to the statement of problems of my thesis.
2. Eugene O’Neill Complete Plays edited by Chris Christopersen (1988). This book contains complete plays by Eugene O’Neill from 1913-1920 and his biography. I use this book as one of references to find the biography of Eugene O’Neill.
3. Facts about American Immigration by David M Brownstone and Irene Frank (2001). This book explain how the immigration experienced by the Irish starts from 17th century until 19th century. I use this book to analyze how James O’Neill’ family background affect the way he raise his sons miserly.
4. Tragic Drama and Modern Society by John Orr (1981). This book explains about O’Neill’s tragic drama and Long Day’s Journey into Night as well. 1.6 The Theoretical Approach
Biographical approach might be helpful in analyzing a literary work and conveniently to analyze the author’s own experience or his own life. In studying or appreciating a literary work by conducting the biographical approach, we will automatically deal with the biography of an author.
CHAPTER II METHOD OF STUDY
This study was conducted by applying analytical descriptive method. In Teori, Metode, dan Teknik Penelitian Sastra dari Strukturalisme Hingga Prostrukturalisme Perspektif Wacana Naratif (2004:53), Kutha Ratna states that:
“Metode deskriptif analitik dilakukan dengan cara mendeskripsikan fakta-fakta yang kemudian disusul dengan analisis. Secara Etimologis deskripsi dan analisis berarti menguraikan. Meskipun demikian, analisis yang berasal dari bahasa Yunani, analyein (‘ana’ = atas, ‘lyein’ = lepas, urai), telah diberikan arti tambahan, tidak semata-mata menguraikan, melainkan juga memberikan pemahaman dan penjelasan secukup-cukupnya”
“The Analytical descriptive method is done by describing facts and continued by analyzing those facts. Etymologically, description and analysis means to elaborate. Nevertheless, analysis that derived from Greek, analyesies (‘ana’ = up, ‘lyein’= decompose) have been given another meaning, not only to elaborate, but also to give the understanding and clarification sufficiently (My own translation)”. In this study I apply the library research by searching and collecting the references that contain and support the topics from the library. I also find suitable references from the internet in doing this study. In doing this thesis, I use some steps as follows:
2.1 Data Collecting Procedure
biography of Eugene O’Neill. I read the play many times to get full understanding about the content of the play.
I also read some American literature books that discuss Eugene O’Neill’s works. In that books stated that Long Day’s Journey into Night as the autobiographical play by Eugene O’Neill. Thus, I read the biography of Eugene O’Neill to know his autobiography that reflected in Long Day’s Journey into Night. I mark the important information from those sources which has parallel
analogies with the problems of this study.
2.2 Data Selecting Procedure
The second procedure is data selecting. All the data collected in the first step that significant and related to the topic of the study were being selected. All the information that had been collected was being selected and only the data that very significant were used in the process of making the analysis of this thesis.
2.3 Data Analyzing Procedure
CHAPTER III
THE FAMILY BACKGROUND OF EUGENE O’NEILL
In this chapter I am going to write down about the family background of Eugene O’Neill, since this play not only reflects Eugene O’Neill himself but his family as well. I also give some information about Irish immigrants that went to America and experienced bitterness, poverty then left scars in their future. Orr in Tragic Drama and Modern Society (1981:165) states that:
O’Neill was a second - generation Irishman from a catholic family which had known poverty on both sides of the Atlantic. His work has to be understood in the context of the second wave of immigration which took place in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the influx of the poor immigrants whose cheap labor helped to make the United States the most powerful industrial nation in the world.
a. Early Immigration
Many Catholics fled Ireland for America as the events of wars unfolded. These were Ireland’s “wild geese”, some of whom became the earliest Irish Catholics came as penniless indentured servants or redemptioners who had to pay off their borrowed passage costs and related expenses before winning their freedom. On the other hand, many of the early Irish Catholic who emigrated declared themselves Protestants after arriving in the North American colonies, as they encountered widespread discrimination in the colonies. This was partly due to English colonial laws and policies and partly because of the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Ireland. Many of the Irish Protestants who emigrated during and after the colonial period came seeking economic opportunity, though they were also fleeing religious and economic discrimination against them by the English rulers of Ireland. For most Irish Protestant immigrants, before and after the revolution, America was a land of greater freedom and opportunity than Ireland had offered. Many came to America, prospered and sent home money that paid for the passage of their families. They also sent home “America letters” that drew many others from their extended families, villages and towns. In short they began the kinds of “immigrant chains” that became the classic patterns of immigrantss from many countries.
a. The Main Wave of Irish Immigration
Catholic immigration to the United State from Ireland began to pick up during the 1820s, as translantic fare began to come down on the new “packet ships” that sailed to America regularly scheduled basis. Immigration statistics began to be kept by the U.S government in 1820. These showed that more than 35 percent of immigrants from 1821 to 1830 came from Ireland. Irish immigration picked up even more in the decade that followed, with almost 240.000 immigrants from Ireland arriving in America from 1841 to 1846.
b. Famine and Plague
In the mid-1840s famine and plague came to an overpopulated Ireland, dependent for most of its food on its potato crop. From 1690 to 1840, the Irish population had grown by more than four times, from an estimated 2 million people to 8.2 million. Most were poor subsistence farmers, working very small plots of land with little or no resources or reserves of any kind. In 1845, the European potato crop was infected and partially destroyed by a potato disease that had earlier appeared in North America. The crop failed again in 1847 and partly in 1848, largely coming back in 1849 that result Ireland’s Great Famine, together with a series of plagues. From 1847 to 1854 some 1.3 million Irish emigrants fled to the United States. After the famine and the plague years, the Irish kept on coming to America, but Ireland was still poor and ruled by Britain, while the United State was full of Irish American.
had been subsistence farmers in Ireland; however, less than 10 percent became farmers in the United States. Until the end of 1920s, Ireland was an un-free nation and one largely unchanged by the industrial revolution.
From the Irish point of view, the immigration may be divided into three periods. First the years before famine in 1844s, the second is the famine years and their aftermath roughly 1845-1855 (the potato famine). The third is the post famine migration which goes on until the onset of the Great Depression, Ireland not being adversely affected by the immigration act of 1924.
The famine years in Ireland burgeoning population and had inevitable effect of reducing in size the already small holdings of Irish farmers. As the Irish farmers plots grew smaller and smaller and rents grew higher and higher, more and more Irish farmers sold their grain and came to subsist largely on potato. An acre and a half of potatoes could feed a family of six. The economic deterioration was steady, although minor improvements were made in the political situation of Irish Catholics. All told, in the famine years something more than two million Irish went overseas. Most of them, nearly a million and a half come to the United States, and a third of a million went to Canada and many of those came sooner or later to the United States. The total emigration was about a quarter of the pre-famine population. More people left Ireland in the eleven years 1845-55 than it its previous recorded history.
Herby Miller argues that the famine years left enduring scars on the Irish and on Irish American psyches, exacerbating their attitudes. The Irish – particularly Irish Catholics – often regarded emigration as involuntary exile, although they expressed that attitude with varying degrees of consistency, intensity, and sincerity. This outlook reflected a distinctive Irish worldview that impacts their interactions among culture, class, and historical circumstance.
CHAPTER IV
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STUDY OF EUGENE O’NEILL THROUGH LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
In this chapter I am going to analyze how the play Long Day’s Journey into Night can be used to study Eugene O’Neill’s autobiography. Eugene O’Neill
integrates his life into his play, as it can be found that he used the names of his own family in the characters of Long Day’s Journey into Night. The analysis is done by giving comparison of the characters in the play and the family members of Eugene O’Neill. I also describe the characters in the play reflect the experience of Eugene O’Neill’s family.
There are five characters in the play that reflect O’Neill’s family in his real life. From five characters there are two characters that have greater experience among others. They are James Tyrone and Edmund Tyrone. Other characters are Mary Tyrone, Jamie Tyrone and Cathleen. Besides reflecting the characters, O’Neill through this play also described the bitterness and poverty that was underwent by his father, James O’Neill. His father’s experience affected the way he raise his sons and treats his family. In the end of this chapter, we can see that most of characters in this play reflect the family in Eugene O’Neill’s real life
Edmund Tyrone in the play reflects the writer of its play, Eugene Gladstone O’Neill. O’Neill made himself as one of the character since this play has the autobiographical content. O’Neill’s portrayal in Edmund shows the incidents in his real life that can be used to study his autobiography in Long Day’s Journey into Night.
Mary Cavan Tyrone in the play is Mary Ellen “Ella” Quinlan O’Neill in his real life. She is O’Neill’s mother that had to accompany her husband on the road from one stage to another stage.
Jamie Tyrone in the play is James ‘Jamie’ O’Neill., Jr. in Eugene O’Neill’s real life. Jamie Tyrone in the play is the elder brother of Edmund those ten years older than him. In O’Neill’s real life his elder brother’s name was James ‘Jamie’ O’Neill., Jr., those also ten years older than him.
Cathleen is the last main character in the play. She is the Tyrone’s maid servant that helps Mary in Tyrone’s summer rent house. In Eugene O’Neill’s real life Cathleen was his first wife that married to him on summer 1909. Cathleen Jenkins was the daughter of prosperous middle-class family. I am going to analyze James Tyrone, Edmund Tyrone, Mary Cavan Tyrone, Jamie Tyrone and Cathleen in the play, and how they reflect O’Neill’s real life.
Ireland’s poor face starvation, disease, and eviction from their homes. All those things also experienced by James O’Neill and James Tyrone in the play.
Here I am going to describe how the poverty during the immigration of Irish revealed by James Tyrone as Eugene O’Neill wrote in his play Long Day’s Journey into Night. Eugene O’Neill showed the melodrama that come from the
desperation of poverty in a first-generation Irishman who knew the exploitation of his class and race at first hand (Orr, 1981:200). Times were worse for James family because James’s father could not get a job so he deserted the family, and went back to Ireland. James’s mother was left with six children to support. Two older brothers left the family to find work, and James at age ten was the ‘man of the family’ and had to work for 50 cents a week. James still remembers all that happened to his family and how they survived to keep alive.
Tyrone: What do you know of the value of a dollar? When I was ten my father deserted my mother and went back to Ireland to die. Which he did soon enough, and deserved to, and I hope he’s roasting in hell
(Act IV, p. 807 line 12-16)
Tyrone: ...My mother was left, a stranger in a strange land, with four small children, me and a sister a little older and two younger than me. My two older brothers had moved to other parts. They couldn’t help. They were hard put to it to keep themselves alive. (Act IV, p. 807 line 22-26)
James’s experiences during the wave of Irish immigration make him a very frightful man in spending money. A dollar is really matter for him since he and his mother had to work really hard to earn a dollar. In this play, James O’Neill is described as a penny-pincher or old miser. There are some facts in the play that prove he is a miser. Edmund says that his father is an old miser that only thinks about saving his money on property.
Edmund: ...I’ll let you get away with it! I won’t go to any damned state farm just to save you a few lousy dollars to buy more bum property with! You stinking old miser –
(Act IV, p. 806 line 1-3)
Edmund also blame James’s miserliness since James let them live in a cheap hotel not in a real home. In another case, Edmund sees that his mother’s addiction was caused by his father who brought Mary to a cheap doctor. Edmunds says that If Mary was sent to a good doctor, not to the cheap one, she would not be suffered in morphine addict as she first used it to endure the pain. Edmund knows that James intentionally keeps his money for another property instead of taking Mary to a good doctor.
Edmund: ...If you’d spent money for a decent doctor when she was so sick after I was born, she’d never known morphine existed. Instead you put her in the hands of a hotel quack who wouldn’t admit his ignorance and took the easiest way out, not giving a damn what happened to her afterwards. All because his fee was cheap! Another of your bargains!
(Act IV, p. 802 line 6-12)
Edmund: – and then you went to the Club to meet McGuire and let him stick you with another burn piece of property.
In Long Day’s Journey into Night it is described that James never provides his family with a real home; he thinks living in a hotel is a better way than having a home for an actor family like him. Edmund says that his father has to provide the family with a real home.
Edmund: Because you’ve never given her anything that would help her want to stay off it! No home except this summer dump in a place she hates and you’ve refused even to spend money to look decent, while you keep buying more property, and playing sucker for every con man with a gold mine, or a silver mine or any kind of get-rich-quick swindle! You’ve dragged her around on the road, season after season, one-night stands with no one she could talk to, waiting night after night in dirty hotel rooms for you to come back with a bun on after the bars closed!
(Act IV, p. 803 line 4-13)
Mary also says that James never gives the family a real home that they should have. Mary states that James always chooses the cheapest thing and doesn’t spend his money well. Mary always complains about James since he never understand that she really need to live in a home, not move from one hotel to another hotel. She grumbles on James that often enjoyed himself in the barrooms since they were married. Mary says her disappointed to James many times, but he never perceives it seriously. Mary, just like Edmund, blames James for he only spend his money on property and land.
Everything was done in the cheapest way. Your father would never spend money to make it right.
(Act I, p. 738, 739 line 39-40, line 1)
Mary: ...But you’ve heard me say this a thousand times. So has he, but it goes in one ear and out the other. He thinks money spent on home is money wasted. He’s lived too much in hotels. Never the best hotels, of course. Second-rate hotels. He doesn’t understand a home. He doesn’t feel at home in it. And yet he wants a home. He’s even proud of having this shabby place. He loves it here. It’s really funny, when you come to think of it. He’s peculiar man. (Act II, p. 749-750 line 35-40, 1-3)
Mary: ...And Mr. Tyrone never is worried about anything, except money and property and the fear he’ll end his days in poverty. I mean, deeply worried. Because he cannot really understand anything else. (Act III, p. 775 line 6-9)
James Tyrone in the play reveals his reason why he thinks spending money to have a home is not an important thing and it is more important to save money on property or land. His fear makes him often run from the reality and turns into alcohol in the barrooms. He finds his worried could be replaced by everyone that accompanies him drinking then he would pay for the drink. James afraid of turning into poverty again, his traumatic experience from his childhood during the Irish immigration affected his attitude and the way he spends his money. James thinks that having land is the safest way to save or to spend his money. From this dialogue we know that Tyrone afraid of losing his job and living without money.
James also likes to spend money on real estate investments. The depth of his obsession with land is revealed when he buys a piece of property right after agreeing to the junky sanatorium for Edmund. His real estate investments are really just another symptom of his miserliness. He thinks that buying land is a lot safer than keeping it in banks or in the stock market.
Tyrone ...but land is land, and it’s safer than the stocks and bonds of Wall Street swindlers (then placatingly). But let’s not argue about business this early in the morning.
(Act I, p. 720 line 23-26)
Based on the dialogue, it can be known that Tyrone family often move from one hotel to another hotel. In Eugene O’Neill’s biography it is also stated that O’Neill’s family moved from one hotel to another hotel. From O’Neill’s biography known that in 1889 until 1894 he traveled with parents across United States for up to nine months a year as father tours in Monte Cristo (Christopersen, 1919:1063). In 1907 Eugene O’Neill also lived in his parent’s apartment in Hotel Lucerne on Amsterdam Avenue and 79th Street.
O’Neill portrayed his father miserliness more clearly when James doesn’t let even one bulb to light the room. He asks Edmund to turn out the light since it will increase the bill. James considers that one light bulb is as much as a drink. He prefers to spend the money on a glass of a drink than to let a bulb on
Edmund: – One bulb! Christ, don’t be such a cheap skate! I’ve proved by figures if you let the light bulb on all night it wouldn’t be as much as one drink! (Act IV, p.793 line 13-15)
Mary: ... Please don’t think I blame your father, Edmund. He didn’t know any better. He never went to school after he was ten. His people were the most ignorant kind of poverty-stricken Irish. (Act III, p. 782 line 20-23)
It can be concluded that James’s experience as Irish immigrants obviously affected the way he spent on the money he had. His attitude toward money shows how James really afraid of losing his money since he found that earning money was never easy. His past reminds him that money is the most important thing to his family when they still lived as immigrant. James Tyrone still remember how hard he, his mother and his sisters earned money for their live. James’s strength can be seen from how he got over himself from the desperation of poverty in a first-generation Irishman who knew the exploitation of his class. This dialogue shows that James’s childhood is full of tragedy. He says that when he was a little man, he lived without insufficient food and his mother had to work really hard to earn money. James’s past create him to be a miser man.
Tyrone: ...We never had clothes enough to wear, nor enough food to eat. Well, I remember one Thanksgiving or maybe it was Christmas. When some yank in whose house mother had been scrubbing gave her a dollar extra for a present, and on the way home she spent it all on food. I can remember her hugging and kissing us saying with tear of joy running down her tired face, “Glory be to God, for once in our lives we’ll have enough for each of us”. A fine, brave, sweet women. There never was a braver or finer. (Act IV, p. 808 line 2-12)
As James Tyrone reflects James O’Neill, it can be seen that both Edmund’s father and Eugene’s father was an alcoholic. As quoted from died because of alcohol and his father, James O’ Neill also was an alcoholic. Eugene O’Neill continued to suffer from depression and his state of mind was not helped when his parents and elder brother Jamie O'Neill, also an died within three years of one another (1920-1923).
In the play, Mary’s dialogues show that Tyrone will be too much of alcohol when he came home. Mary also says to Edmund that James Tyrone started to give Jamie a teaspoonful of whiskey since Jamie still a baby. Mary blames James for giving Jamie whiskey and for being a bad role model for Jamie.
Mary: No, by the time he comes home he’ll be too drunk to tell the difference. He has such a good excuse, he believes, to drown his sorrows. (Act III, p. 774 line 33-35)
Mary: ... Poor Jamie! No, it isn’t at all. You brought him up to be a boozer. Since he first opened his eyes, he’s seen you drinking. Always a bottle on the bureau in the cheap hotel rooms! And if he had a nightmare when he was a little, or a stomach-ache, you remedy was to give him a teaspoonful of whiskey to quite him. (Act III, p. 782 line 1-8)
After blaming James, Mary then confess that she would never married James if she knew from the start that he is a drunken. It indicates that Mary regrets to marry James, but she doesn’t say it clearly.
Just like in Long Day’s Journey into Night, the Tyrone family is Irish American Catholic, Eugene O’Neill’s family is also Irish American- Catholic. Both O’Neill’s and Tyrone’s family are Irish-American Catholic. In the play also described that James Tyrone and Mary Tyrone is Irish-American, as in the prolog of the play:
Mary is fifty-four ... her face is distinctly Irish in type. Her voice is soft and attractive, when she is merry; there is a touch of Irish lilt in it. James Tyrone is by nature and preference a simple, unpretend-cial man, whose inclinations are still close to his humble beginning and his Irish farmer forebears..
(Act I, p.718, 722-723)
James Tyrone admits himself as a Catholic that rarely goes to church but frequently pray. Edmund asks if James ever prayed for Mary.
Tyrone: It’s true I’m a bad Catholic in the observance, God forgive me. But I believe! And you’re liar! I may not go to church but every night and morning of my life I get on my knees and pray.(Act II, p. 759 line 21-24)
Edmund: Did you pray you mama? (Act II, p. 759 line 25) Tyrone: I did. I’ve prayed to God these many years for her (Act II, p. 759 line 26)
Eugene O’Neill described James Tyrone in the play has the same occupation with his father James O’Neill. James Tyrone in the play works as an actor in Broadway.
Tyrone: ...Yes, maybe life overdid the lesson for me, and made a dollar worth too much, and the time came when the mistake ruined my carrier as a fine actor.
(Act IV, p. 807 line 3-5)
In The American Tradition in Literature Volume II it is stated: “O’Neill was born in a Broadway hotel on October 16, 1888, and was christened Eugene Gladstone O’Neill” (Perkins, 2002:1045). In Encyclopedia of World Drama (1972:348) also stated that: “Eugene Gladstone O’Neill, American dramatist was born in New York City on October 16,1888, the third child of the prominent actor James O’Neill (1847-1920) and Mary Ella Quinlan O’Neill.
In the play Edmund is a child of Broadway. It can be seen from Jamie and James Tyrone’s dialogue when they have argument about Edmund. Jamie, the elder brother of Edmund feels really proud of being a child of Broadway. He never takes himself away from Broadway’s life.
Jamie: ...you can’t imagine me getting fun out of being on the beach in South America, or living in filthy dives, drinking rotgut? No, thanks! I’ll stick to Broadway, and a room with a bath, and bars that serve bonded Bourbon
(Act I, p.733 line 14-18).
Jamie feels really proud of himself as being a child of Broadway even though he doesn’t have any job in his age, and its annoy Tyrone. James Tyrone says that it’s better to be Edmund that doesn’t always count on him as Edmund ever worked in a news paper.
Tyrone: He’s been doing well on the paper. I was hoping he’d found the work he wants to do at last. (Act I, p. 733 line 26-28)
Another character in the play that can reveal and reflect Eugene O’Neill’s life is Edmund Tyrone. As I stated before that Edmund Tyrone in the play represent Eugene O’Neill himself, I am going to write the reflection of O’Neill in his own play Long Day’s Journey into Night. Edmund Tyrone in the play described as a son that replacing Tyrone’s second-died baby, whose name is Eugene. Eugene’s died is after contacting with Jamie who has measles. Mary told James that she never wanted another baby after her second baby died. Tyrone suddenly tries to stop Mary from her past memories, but Mary keeps on continue her remembrance about Edmund, as in:
Mary: ... I blame only myself. I swore after Eugene died I would never another baby. I was to blame for his death...Jamie would never have been allowed, When he still measles, to go in the baby’s room.
Tyrone: Are you back with Eugene now? Can’t you let our died baby rest in peace? (Act II, p. 765 line 33-38, 766 line 4-5)
Mary: he was born nervous and too sensitive, and that’s my fault. And now ever since been so sick I’ve kept remembering Eugene and my father and I’ve been so frightened and guilty
(Act II, p. 766 line 26-28)
Mary feels so guilty because she lost her second son. According to Mary, Jamie jealously never wants to have any siblings and it’s made their second son, Eugene, died. Another Mary’s regret is to have another baby after Eugene’s died and for this, she blames her husband James who ask her to have one more child.
In Eugene O’Neill’s real life, it is also stated in his biography that he had a died brother that died before he was born. Eugene O’Neill’s died older brother whose name is Edmund. Edmund died in 1885 of measles contracted from Jamie (Christhophersen, 1988:1063). The difference is, if in the play the died baby’s name is Eugene, in the real life of the writers, the died baby’s name is Edmund. In the play, the second son of Tyrone is Eugene and the last is Edmund. While in O’Neill’s real life the second child in his family was Edmund and the last was Eugene O’Neill himself.
Edmund Tyrone in the play and Eugene O’Neill in the real life are both ever sailed. Eugene O’Neill ever worked as a sailor for almost eighteen months. As stated in Encyclopedia of World Drama (1972:353): “Late in the spring of 1910, O’Neill left the company and began a series of sailing for more than eighteen months, took him to South America and England.” Christophersen also states that In October 1990, O’Neill sailed with Stevens and his wife, Ann, to Amapala, Honduras, traveled back to Tegucipala, and began prospecting along Rio Seale without success in Mid-November. In 1910 O’Neill sailed from Boston on Norwegian steel barque Charles Racine June 4, and arrived in Buenos Aires August 4. In July 1911 O’Neill sailed Southampton, England, and returned August 26 as able-bodied seaman on liner Philadelphia. (1988:1065-1066). On November 1942, O’Neill sailed to Bermuda and rent cottage in Paget Parish on south shore (1988:1072)
Jamie: Besides its damned rot! I’d like to see anyone influence Edmund more than he wants to be. His quietness fools people into thinking they can do what they like with him. But he’s stubborn as hell inside and what he does is what he wants to do, and to hell with anyone else! What had I to do with all the crazy stunts he’s pulled in the last few years – working his way all over the map as a sailor and all that stuff . I thought that was a damned fool idea (Act I, p. 733 line 6-13)
Edmund also remind his father that he ever earned money for himself by working as a sailor. Edmund told his father about his experience during sailing to Buenos Aires
Edmund: ...they’re all connected with the sea, here’s one, when I was on the Square head square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades the old hooker driving fourteen knots. (Act IV, p. 811 line 31-34)
Edmund: Don’t lie about it. God, Papa, ever since I went to sea and was on my own, and found out what hard work for little pay was, and what it felt like to be broke, and starve and camp on park benches because I had no place to sleep. I’ve tried to be fair to you because I knew that you’d been up against as a kid.
(Act IV, p. 805 line 22-27)
One of bad experience that written in the play and also experienced by Eugene O’Neill himself is both Eugene O’Neill and Edmund Tyrone ever suffered in Tuberculosis and entered sanatorium.
stated that in October he suffered a mild attack of the tuberculosis and was sent by his doctor to Gaylord Farm, a private sanatorium near Wallingford where his health improved rapidly.
In the play it can be seen that Mary shows her worried every time Edmund cough. It can be known also from Tyrone that already planned Edmund to enter a sanatorium as Dr. Hardy said before. Mary is afraid to send Edmund to the same sanatorium where she ever entered. She hates Doctor Hardy as she knows that Doctor Hardy cannot recover Edmund from his tuberculosis. Mary also regrets James’s plan to separate her from Edmund, if Edmund finally enter the sanatorium
Jamie: What did Doc Hardy say about the Kid? Tyrone: It’s what you thought. He’s got consumption Jamie: God damn it!
Tyrone: There is no possible doubt, he said. Jamie: He’ll have to go to a sanatorium
Tyrone: yes, and the sooner the better, Hardy said, for him and everyone around him. He claims that in six months to a year Edmund will be cured (Act II, p. 760 line 12-21)
Mary: ...how dare your father allow him? What right has he? You are my bab! Let him attend to Jamie. I know why he wants you sent to a sanatorium. To take you from me! He’s always tried to do that. (Act III, p.788 line 2-5)
Edmund Tyrone in the play described as a man that not continues his college deliberately. After fails to continue his college, Edmund starts to ruin his health. Tyrone states that Edmund is not deserve to get better specialist because he will only dissipate the money like he had done in the collage. It can be seen from Tyrone’s dialogue when he gives his reason to Jamie for sending Edmund to the cheap Doctor Hardy.
Tyrone: ...And what could the finest specialist in America do for Edmund, after he’s deliberately ruined his health by the mad life he’s led ever since he was fired from college? Even before that when he was in prep. School, he began dissipating and playing the Broadway sport to imitate you.
(Act I, p. 731-732 line 38-40, 1-3)
In his real life, Eugene O’Neill also left his college. As Christopersen (1988:1064) states that in 1907, O’Neill suspended at end of second semester for poor scholastic standing after failed to take any final examinations. From Encyclopedia of World Drama, it is known that O’Neill entered Princeton
University in 1906 but spent most of his time dissipating. (1972:349)
As what I had analyzed before, both Eugene O’Neill and Edmund Tyrone love to writ poems. In his biography, it is stated that Eugene started writing poetry intermittently in 1915 after became friend with Terry Carlin, an alcoholic that deeply influenced by Nietzsche (Christopersen, 1988:1067). Eugene O’Neill ever wrote poems for the local paper in 1912. O’Neill contributed his poems in New London Telegraph started from summer of 1912. It is in the same year when he
should enter a sanatorium in Connecticut.
In the play, Edmund is a young man that has talent to write poems. He also memorize a poem from Baudelaire. Mary also admits that Edmund loves to write poems. But she doesn’t like Edmund’s poems since its show the pessimist that want to die. Jamie indeed discourage Edmund and tell that his poem is not cheery.
Edmund: Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken. (Act IV, p. 797 line 5-7)
Mary: do you hear Edmund? Such morbid nonsense! Saying you’re going to die! It’s the books you read! Nothing but sadness and death. Your father shouldn’t allow you to have them. And some of the poems you’ve written yourself are even worse! You’d think you didn’t want to live? (Act II, p. 767-768)
Jamie: Your poetry isn’t very cheery. Not the stuff you read and claim you admire. Your poet with the unpronounceable name, for example. (Act II, p. 759 line 2-5)
As the child of an actor that should act in different plays, both Eugene O’Neill and Edmund Tyrone often moved and lived in one hotel to another hotel. Tessitore in Extraordinary American Writers states that James and his wife frequently traveled to different cities with his acting troupe and Eugene were born in a hotel in New York’s theater district. Though his wife disliked theater and the wandering lifestyle of its actors, O’Neill joined his father on the road and acted in some production as a child. Eugene O’Neill in one of his quotation stated that “born in hotel and die in hotel too”.
In Long Day’s Journey into Night, Tyrone often moves from one hotel to another hotel due to James’s work as an actor. It makes Mary always complains and says that she tired of living in a summer rent house because she never felt that as a home. Mary remembers that they never stayed in the best hotel. Mary then tells how her feeling to Cathleen when she realizes that summer will and they have to move to another hotel again.
Mary: He thinks money spent on a home is money wasted. He’s lived too much in hotels. Never the best hotels of course, second-rate hotels. He doesn’t understand a home
(Act II, p.749 line 37-39)
Mary: ...I’m so sick and tired of pretending this is a home you won’t help me! You won’t put yourself out the least but! You don’t know how to act in a home! You don’t really want one! You never have wanted one – never since the day we were married! You should have remained a bachelor and lived in second-rate hotels and entertained your friends in barrooms. (Act II p.753-754)
Mary: ...the summer will soon over, thank goodness. Your season will open again and we can go back to second-rate hotels and trains. I hate them too, but at least I don’t expect them ro be like a home, and there’s no housekeeping to worry about
Mary keeps on talking about living in the hotel. She tries to make excuse for that since James work as an actor.
Mary: ...I kept making excuses for you. I told myself it must be some business connected with the theater. I know so little about the theater....I didn’t know how often that was to happen in the years to come, how many times I was to wait in ugly hotel rooms. I became quite used to it (Act III p. 783 line 30-32, 37-39)
That’s how Eugene O’Neill described himself in the play as the son of a matinee actor that often moved from one hotel to another hotel. They don’t have a real home that every family supposed to have it.
Mary Cavan Tyrone in the play reflects Mary Ellen “Ella” Quinlan O’Neill in O’Neill’s real life. In the play Mary is Edmund’s mother that addict to the morphine after giving Edmund birth. Mary states herself was so fine and healthy before Edmund’s birth. Edmund has changed her condition. Then Mary blames the cheap doctor to whom James’s sent her. The doctor gives her the medicine that easily stops her pain, but later on she knows is as morphine
Mary: I was so healthy before Edmund was born. You remember, James. There wasn’t a nerve in my body. Even travelling with you season after season, with week after week of one-night stands, in trains without Pullmans, in dirty rooms of filthy hotels, eating bad food bearing children in hotel rooms, I still keep healthy. But bearing Edmund was the last straw. I was so sick afterwards, and that ignorant quack of a cheap hotel doctor – all he knew was I was in pain. It was easy for him to stop pain. (Act II, p. 765 line 21-29)
Mary: it makes it so much harder living in this atmosphere of constant suspicion, knowing everyone is spying on me, and none of you believe in me, or trust me. (Act, I p. 740 line 5-8)
Jamie: is she coming down to lunch? Edmund: of course
Jamie: No of course about it. She might not want any lunch. Or she might start having most of her meals alone upstairs. That’s happened, hasn’t it? Edmund: Cut it out, Jamie! Can’t you think anything but –? You’re wrong to suspect anything. (Act II, p. 746 line 18-25)
Tyrone: Up to take more of that God-damned poison, is that is? You’ll be like a mad ghost before the night’s over!
(Act III, p. 790 line 33-35)
From that dialogue, Edmund, Jamie, and Tyrone, know that Mary still use the morphine after she is back from sanitarium. Tyrone assumes that Mary will not have the lunch and decide to go upstairs is because she will use the morphine as she always does in the spare room. But Mary still denies and pretends that she doesn’t understand what Tyrone meant. By pretending Mary tries to be an innocent. She goes to another topic when somebody starts to distrust her. Mary’s reason for her restless at night is Edmund’s condition. She says that she really worry about Edmund’s health. In fact, she cannot sleep because she will use morphine when others already slept, as in:
Mary: I don’t know what you’re talking about, James. You such mean, bitter things when you’ve drunk too much. You’re bad as Jamie or Edmund.
(Act III, p. 790 line 36-39)
Mary: stop suspecting me! Please, dear! You hurt me! I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about you. That’s the real reason! I’ve been so worried ever since you’ve been sick.
Based on the dialogue it can be known that Mary also ever entered to a Sanatorium. Mary knows that her mind could not be burdened by anything after she returned from sanatorium.
Tyrone: ...I had it here waiting for you when you came back from the sanatorium. I hoped it would give you pleasure and distract your mind.
(Act II, p. 763 line 19-21)
Mary: ...But I do know you should be the last one – right after I returned from the sanatorium, you began to ill. The doctor there had warned me I must have peace at home with nothing upset me, and all I’ve done is worry about you. But that’s no excuse! (Act II, p. 769 line 21-28)
In that dialogue, Mary makes Edmund as the ‘black-sheep’ of her worry. The truth that happened to her is she become addicted to the medicine that given by Doctor Hardy. In the play, Mary starts using morphine is after giving Edmund birth, and it is a wrong prescription from Doctor Hardy to endure her pain in that time. Starts from that time, Mary always use morphine and become addicted to it. The medicine that she used to ask Cathleen to buy is actually kinds of morphine.
Mary: what are you talking about? What drugstore? What prescription? Oh, of course, I’d forgot them. The medicine for the rheumatism in my hands. What did the man say?. Not that it matters, as long as he filled the prescription
(Act III, p. 776 line 16-21)
Same as Mary Cavan Tyrone in the play, Mary Quinlan O’Neill, as written in Eugene O’Neill biography, was a morphine addict. O’Neill first knew about his mother addiction on summer 1903. “O’Neill learnt that mother is morphine addict when she attempted to throw herself into Thames River outside cottage while undergoing withdrawal. In 1914 O’Neill’s mother overcame morphine addiction during stayed at convent. (Christopersen, 1988:1064)
In Encyclopedia of World Drama stated that In 1900, O’Neill was transferred to the De LaSalle Institute in Manhattan and lived at home with his mother, who had become addicted to morphine. That was same with Edmund in the play; he knows that Mary is addicted to morphine. As he asks his father about Mary’s addiction to morphine
Edmund: after you found out she’d been made morphine addict, why didn’t you send her to a cure then, at the start?
(Act IV, p. 802 line 1-3)
Besides addicted to morphine and ever entered to a sanitarium, both Mary Tyrone in the play and Mary O’Neill in his real life was a girl that has talent to be a pianist after studied in a convent school. Mary states that she loves and used to play piano before married to James Tyrone. She remembers her father always support her to go to Europe. Mary doesn’t make it real since she already in love and decide to marry James. Mary’s greater plan is become a nun. For the same reason, her marriage forces her to forget all her plans in the past.
Mary: The girls in the Convent who had seen him act, or seem his photographs, used to rave about him
(Act III, p. 775 line 35-36)
music teacher both said I had more talent than any student they remembered. My father paid for special lessons. He spoiled me. He would do anything I asked. He would have sent me to Europe to study after I graduated from the Convent. I might have gone – if I hadn’t fallen in love with Mr. Tyrone. Or I might have become a nun. I had two dreams, to be a nun that was the more beautiful one. To become a concert pianist that was the other.
(Act III, p 776, 777 line 37-40, 1-8)
In Eugene O’Neill’s biography, it is also stated that his “mother, daughter of Irish immigrants, was born 1857 in New Heaven, Connecticut and moved with her family to Cleveland, Ohio, where her father became a successful storeowner. She attended St. Mary’s Academy. Convent school in Notre Dame, Indiana, studied piano, and married James O’Neill in 1877” (Christopersen, 1988:1063).
After compare and analyze Mary Cavan Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night with Mary Quinlan O’Neill in his real life, it can be concluded that
Mary also as one of character that can be used to study Eugene’s autobiography. In Eugene O’Neill’s real life Mary Ellen O’Neill was the emotionally fragile daughter of a wealthy father. Her father died when she was seventeen. She never recovered from the death of her second son, Edmund, who had died of measles at the age of two. She later became addicted to morphine as a result of Eugene O’Neill’s difficult birth.
Another character is Jamie. In the play Jamie Tyrone is Edmund’s elder brother.
In Eugene O’Neill’s biography by Christopersen it is stated that “their first son, James Jamie O’Neill, Jr. was born in 1878. Both in the play and in the real life, Jamie is an alcoholic. In his biography, his elder brother, James “Jamie” O’Neill ever suffered severe alcoholic relapse in January 1922. In June 1923 Jamie was committed to sanatorium after suffering acute alcoholic breakdown (Christopersen, 1988:1071).
Same with Jamie Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night, Jamie Tyrone is a dissolute alcoholic; it can be seen from the dialogue when Mary warns Edmund not to follow his brother to drink in someplace. Mary knows that Edmund like to share and do many things together with Jamie. This dialogue also shows that Jamie often spends his time with women in the barrooms that work as whore.
Mary: I suppose you’ll divide that ten dollars your father gave you with Jamie. You always divide with each other, don’t you? Like good sports. Well, I know what he’ll do with his share. Get drunk someplace where he can be with the only kind of woman he understands or likes.
(Act II, p. 770 line 19-24)
James Tyrone finds him come home in a too much of drinking alcohol Then Tyrone says that that the only thing Jamie can do are wasting money and drinking whiskey, as in
Tyrone: ... Get him to bed, Edmund. I’ll go out on the porch. He has a tongue like an adder when he’s drunk. I’d only lose my temper (Act IV, p.813 line 7-9)
Tyrone: ...he loves to exaggerate the worst of himself when he’s drunk. A sweet spectacle for me! My first-born, who I hoped would bear my name in honor and dignity. A waste, a wreck,a drunken hulk, done with and finished.
In Long Day’s Journey into Night, Jamie Tyrone is described as a young man that finds the comfort outside from the women who work as a slut or whores. James and Edmund know that Jamie spend his money and his time at the bar with the whores, as in:
Tyrone: I’ve lost all hope you will ever change yours. You dare tell me what I can afford? You’ve never known the value of a dollar and never will! You’ve never saved a dollar in your life! At the end of each season you’re penniless! You’ve thrown your salary away every week on whores and whiskey!
(Act I, p. 730 line 22-27)
Edmund: What? Did you go uptown tonight? Go to Marnie Burns?
Jamie: sure thing. Where else I could find suitable feminine companionship and love. Don’t forget love. What is a man without a good-woman’s love? A God-damned hollow shell. (Act IV, p.815 line 20-25)
Both in the play and in Eugene O’Neill’s real life, his elder brother Jamie is an alcoholic. In his real life, Jamie’s died because of his suffered in alcohol. Besides addicted to alcohol, Jamie Tyrone in the play and Jamie O’Neill in Eugene O’Neill’s real life is a man who incurably from prostitutes. In Encyclopedia of World Drama Volume 3 L-R it is said that O’Neill was under the
From the analysis of both Jamie in Long Day’s Journey into Night and Jamie O’Neill in Eugene O’Neill’s real life, it can be seen that there are things that Eugene O’Neill had portrayed from his brother into his play. Just like how Eugene O’Neill’s described the previous characters, James Tyrone, Edmund Tyrone and Mary Cavan Tyrone, he also described Jamie Tyrone by giving the tragedy and the past that Eugene possibly could not forget.
Besides the same experiences that reflected by James Tyrone, Edmund Tyrone, Mary Cavan Tyrone and Jamie Tyrone, there is one character that also can be analyzed have autobiographical content. She is Cathleen. Cathleen is one of the character in the play that works as Tyrone’s servant. She helps Mary in housekeeping. But in Eugene O’Neill’s real life, Cathleen was the first wife of Eugene O’Neill. O’Neill married to Cathleen Jenkins in 1909 but divorced in July 1912. It can be seen in the play that Cathleen is the Tyrone’s maid servant
Cathleen: ...here’s the whiskey. It’ll be lunch time soon. Will I call your father and Mister Jamie, or will you?...Mister Tyrone! Mister Jamie. It’s time (Act II, p. 743).
Another aspect that I am going to analyze is the scene of this play which use only the living from Act I until IV. Eugene showed that the concentration on the family and the use of the family living-room in its play is a family matter. The scene in the act one really describes O’Neill’s family who loved literary and came from Ireland.
Farther back is a large, glassed in bookcase with sets of Dumas, Victor Hugo, Charles Lever, three sets of Shakespeare, The World’s Best Literature in fifty large volumes. Humes’s history of England, Thiers’s History of the Consulate and Empire, Smollett’s History of England, Gibbon’s Roman Empire and miscellaneous volumes of old plays, poetry and several histories of Ireland. (Act One, Scene, p. 717)
In order to make the reader easier and make the analysis above simpler as well, I also make it in the table form. James Tyrone in the play reflects James O’Neill in Eugene O’Neill’s real life.
James O’Neill James Tyrone
James O’Neill was one of the Irish immigrants that experienced poverty, depression and hunger. He went to America in 1855 when it was famine years. O’Neill’s father was an Irish immigrants that famous for playing the stage version of The Count of Monte Cristo. Same as described in the
play, O’Neill’s father was a popular actor in the late of nineteenth century.
James O’Neill was an alcoholic he ever suffer from depression and his state of mind was not helped when his parents and his elder brother Jamie O'Neill, also an another (1920-1923).
It can be assumed that O’Neill’s father was an alcoholic just like his elder brother, Jamie O’Neill.
In the play James Tyrone told Edmunds how his life and an his family was so hard during they were Irish immigrants,
We never had clothes enough to wear, nor enough food to eat. Well, I remember one Thanksgiving or maybe it was Christmas.
When some yank in whose house mother had been scrubbing gave her a dollar extra for a present, and on the way home she spent it all on food...(Act IV, p. 808)
In the play, James Tyrone always have whiskey before meal. He also give Jamie a tea spoon of whiskey when Jamie still baby
Mary: ... Poor Jamie! No, it isn’t at all. You brought him up to be a boozer. Since he first opened his eyes, he’s seen you drinking. Always a bottle on the bureau in the cheap hotel rooms! And if he had a nightmare when he was a little, or a stomach-ache, you remedy was to give him a teaspoonful of whiskey to quite him.
James O’Neill’s and James Tyrone’s are Irish-American Catholic.
James O’Neill James Tyrone
According to his biography. O’Neill’s were Irish-American Catholic. Christophersen (1988:1063) in Eugene O’Neill Complete Plays 1912-1920, states Eugene O’Neill’s
father was an Irish immigrants-Catholic with a religious father. His mother was catholic that ever wanted to be a nun before met with James O’Neill
Mary is fifty-four,... her face is distinctly Irish in type. Her voice is soft and attractive, when she is merry, there is a touch of Irish lilt in it. Edmund Tyrone is ten years younger than his brother... he looks like both his parents, but he’s more like his mother. His big, dark eyes are the dominant feature in his long, narrow Irish face (Act I, page 718, 722-723)
Tyrone: It’s true I’m a bad Catholic in the observance, God forgive me. But I believe! And you’re liar! I may not go to church but every night and morning of my life I get on my knees and pray
(Act II p. 759 line 21-24)
Edmund Tyrone in the play reflects Eugene O’Neill. Both Edmund Tyrone and Eugene O’Neill’s are replacing child for each family’s died baby.
Eugene Gladstone O’Neill Edmund Tyrone
In Eugene O’Neill’s real life, it is stated in his biography that he had a died brother that died before he was born and named Edmund. Edmund died in 1885 of measles contracted from Jamie. (Christhophersen, 1988:1063).
Edmund Tyrone is a son that replacing Tyrone’s second-died baby, whose name is Eugene
The difference is, if in the play the died baby’s name is Eugene, in O’Neill’s real life the died baby’s named was Edmund. In the play, the second son of Tyrone is Eugene and the last is Edmund. While in O’Neill’s real life the second child in his family is Edmund and the last is Eugene O’Neill.
In the play it can be seen from the dialogue that Mary feels so guilty because she lost her second son, Eugene that died because of measles from Jamie.
Mary:.. But we mustn’t allow Jamie to drag Edmund down with him, as he’d like to do. He’s jealous because Edmund has always been the baby – just as he used to be of Eugene. He’ll never be content until he makes Edmund (Act III, p. 780-781)
Edmund Tyrone in the play and Eugene O’Neill in the real life are both ever went sail and worked as a sailor.
Eugene Gladstone O’Neill Edmund Tyrone
As stated in Encyclopedia of World Drama O’Neill left the company and
began a series of sailing on spring 1910. Christophersen also states that In October 1990, O’Neill sailed with Stevens to Amapala, Honduras. He traveled back to Tegucipala, and begun prospecting along Rio Seale without success.
In the play, it can be seen that Edmund told his father about his experience as sailor in the sea, as in:
Both Eugene O’Neill and Edmund Tyrone ever suffered in tuberculosis and entered sanatorium.
Eugene Gladstone O’Neill Edmund Tyrone
In his biography O’Neill developed persistent cough in October 1912, and was diagnosed as having tuberculosis in November. He entered Fairfield Country State Sanatorium in Shelton, Connecticut on December 9, but left after two days. On December 24, he entered Gaylord Farm, private Sanatorium in Wallingford, Connecticut (Christopersen, 1988:1066). In Encyclopedia of World Drama also
stated that in October 1910 he suffered a mild attack of the tuberculosis and was sent by his doctor to Gaylord Farm, a private sanatorium near Wallingford, Conn., Where his health improved rapidly. (1972:351).
In the play Mary shows her worried every time Edmund cough. James Tyrone also plans to enter Edmund to Doctor Hardy, to whom he ever sent Mary. Mary doesn’t agree with James’s plan since she knows that Hardy is a cheap doctor that cannot help Edmund.
Jamie: What did Doc Hardy say about the Kid?
Tyrone: It’s what you thought. He’s got consumption
Jamie: God damn it!
Tyrone: There is no possible doubt, he said.
Both Eugene O’Neill and Edmund Tyrone got fail to continue their college. Eugene Gladstone O’Neill Edmund Tyrone
In his real life Eugene O’Neil left his college in 1907 after suspended at end of second semester for poor scholastic standing after failing to take any final examinations. From Encyclopedia of World Drama, it is known that O’Neill
entered Princeton University in 1906 but spent most of his time dissipating.
Edmund Tyrone doesn’t continue his college deliberately then starts to ruin his health. It can be seen from Tyrone’s dialogue when he gives his reason to Jamie for sending Edmund to the cheap Doctor Hardy.
Tyrone: ...And what could the finest specialist in America do for Edmund, after he’s deliberately ruined his health by the mad life he’s led ever since he was fired from college? Even before that when he was in prep. School, he began dissipating and playing the Broadway sport to imitate you.
(Act I p. 731-732 line 38-40, 1-3)
Both Eugene O’Neill and Edmund Tyrone love to write poems
Eugene Gladstone O’Neill Edmund Tyrone
Eugene started to write poetry intermittently in 1915 after becomes friend with Terry Carlin, an alcoholic that deeply influenced by Nietzsche. (Christopersen, 1988:1067). O’Neil also wrote poems for The London Telegraph In August 1912.
Edmund is a young man that loves to write poems, but his mother doesn’t like his pessimistic poems about life
The last reflection that found from Edmund Tyrone is both Eugene O’Neill and Edmund Tyrone often moved and lived in one hotel to another hotel
Eugene Gladstone O’Neill Edmund Tyrone
Tessitore in Extraordinary American Writers states that James and his wife
frequently traveled to different cities with his acting troupe, and Eugene was born in a hotel in New York’s theater district. Though his wife disliked theater and the wandering lifestyle of its actors, O’Neill joined his father on the road and acted in some production as a child. Eugene O’Neill was born and died in a hotel. His life as a child of actor forced him to follow his father’s show from one country to another country.
In the play, Tyrone often moves from one hotel to another hotel. It makes Mary always complains and says that she is unhappy because she never felt how to live in a real home.
Mary:... He thinks money spent on a home is money wasted. He’s lived too much in hotels. Never the best hotels. Of course. Second-rate hotels. He doesn’t understand a home.
(Act II p.749 line 37-39)
Mary tells how her feeling to Cathleen Mary:... I’m so sick and tired of pretending this is a home you won’t help me! You won’t put yourself out the least but! You don’t know how to act in a home! You don’t really want one! You never have wanted one – never since the day we were married! You should have remained a bachelor and lived in second-rate hotels and entertained your friends in barrooms.
(Act II p.753-754)
Mary Cavan Tyrone in the play reflects Mary Quinlan O’Neill in O’Neill’s real life. Both Mary in the play and in O’Neill’s real life are a morphine addict.
Mary Quinlan O’Neill Mary Cavan Tyrone Eugene O’Neill started to know that his
mother is a morphine addict is on summer 1903. In 1914 O’Neill’s mother overcame morphine addiction during stayed at convent (Christopersen 1988: 1067). Mary starts to use morphine after giving birth to his died baby, Edmund. She was a fragile daughter from the wealthy father. Her father was died when she was seventeen. She was a beautiful wife of a popular actor, James O’Neill.
Mary states that James is responsible for her pain, since he sent her to a cheap Doctor Hardy. In the play, James Tyrone, Edmund and Jamie spy Mary since they consider she still use morphine Mary: I was so sick afterwards, and that ignorant quack of a cheap hotel doctor – all he knew was i was in pain. It was easy for him to stop pain (Act II, p. 765 line 27-29)
Mary: it makes it so much harder living in this atmosphere of constant suspicion, knowing everyone is spying on me, and none of you believe in me, or trust me
(Act I p. 740 line 5-8)
In the play Mary’s addiction is known by Edmund. Edmund asks his father about Mary’s first addiction.
Edmund: after you found out she’d been made morphine addict, why didn’t you send her to a cure then, at the start?
Mary Tyrone in the play and Mary O’Neill in his real life was a girl that has talent to be a pianist after studied in a convent school
Mary Quinlan O’Neill Mary Cavan Tyrone
In O’Neill’s biography, it is stated that Mary was a daughter of Irish immigrants that born in Connecticut, 1857. She moved with her family to Ohio where her fat