In this blog post, I explored Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’, focusing on the disintegration of the family, human despair, and the way people are compelled to look at one another until the very end.

Eugene O’Neill: The Voice That Shaped Modern American Theater

Eugene O’Neill is often introduced as the “foremost American playwright,” a title that signifies “America’s most important playwright.” Given the position he holds in American theater, this description does not feel like an exaggeration. This is because the American theater scene changed dramatically before and after O’Neill. In 1916, when ‘East of Cardiff’ premiered at the Provincetown Wharf Theatre in Massachusetts, American theater was divided between popular melodramas and sophisticated, modern plays imported from Europe that were not intended for the general public. O’Neill bridged the gap between the homegrown but crude popular theater and the elitist imported plays, introducing serious dramas that addressed social issues through the voices of the people living within them.
Thereafter, O’Neill continued his prolific writing career, experimenting with various styles and forms, and received consistent acclaim from both the public and critics. His works also laid the groundwork for the emergence of later playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. I believe that, through O’Neill’s influence, American theater broke free from the dominance of European theater, began to find its own unique voice, and ultimately ushered in a golden age of American theater.
It is also interesting to note that O’Neill’s life itself illustrates the process by which modern American theater was established. He was born in a Broadway hotel room as the son of a stage actor. His father, James O’Neill, had emigrated from Ireland and, after much hardship, achieved success as an actor. Although he displayed considerable talent as a Shakespearean actor, it was ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’, an adaptation of the novel by French author Alexandre Dumas, that brought him fame and fortune. Starring in this classic melodrama—a mix of intrigue, dramatic escapes, disguises, revenge, romance, and a happy ending—he enjoyed immense popularity from the 1880s through the period leading up to World War I.
His aversion to his father’s exaggerated acting style and the theatrical conventions of the time became a crucial starting point for O’Neill’s development as a playwright. In that sense, it does not seem like a mere coincidence that O’Neill rose to the firmly established position of “the father of modern American drama.” This is because the process of transcending his father—a symbol of old-fashioned theater—to become the father of a new kind of theater was intertwined throughout his life and work.
Another significant influence on O’Neill was his mother, Ella Quinlan, who came from a devout Catholic middle-class background. She was a pious woman who disliked Broadway. O’Neill’s consistent focus on the “absolute being” in his works also appears to have been influenced by his mother’s mystical religious inclinations. Furthermore, in the works of the Swedish playwright August Strindberg—whom he read intensively after deciding to become a playwright—he discovered a dark, fateful force that plunges human existence into an irreversible abyss.
Perhaps due to these influences, in O’Neill’s tragic world, humans constantly search for some power or entity to save them, but such forces are generally indifferent to them or even act as forces of destruction. The fact that humans, while yearning for salvation, cannot easily escape the fate that surrounds them felt like a key characteristic of O’Neill’s works.

An American Tragedy Depicting Fate and Despair

From the very beginning, O’Neill’s works depicted the plight of humans at the mercy of fate and their despair within an American context. Representative examples include the “Glencairn” series—four one-act plays centered on the sea and the lives of sailors—and “Anna Christie,” which portrays a woman on the streets trying to forget her past and make a fresh start. O’Neill sought to transform the theatrical stage into a venue for social and philosophical narratives, and he continued to conduct various experiments, such as ‘Emperor Jones’, which addressed slavery and imperialism; ‘The Hairy Ape’, which explored social inequality and human alienation; ‘The Great God Brown’, which utilized a masquerade; and ‘A Strange Interlude’, which examined women and Freudian theory.
His attempts to revive Greek tragedy on American soil were also impressive. In ‘Desire Under the Elms’, he transposed human desires—escalating to incest and infanticide—onto an American farming family, and positioned the elm tree covering the entire farm as a fateful symbol dominating the family. In ‘Electra in Mourning’, she wove the structure of the Greek tragedy trilogy ‘The Oresteia’ into the story of a distinguished New England family during the Civil War, portraying the love-hate dynamics among family members through the lens of Greek tragedy.
It feels only natural that these works were labeled “tragic realism.” While O’Neill dealt with realistic portrayals of people, families, and society, he also incorporated elements of Greek tragedy and a fatalistic worldview into his work. Culminating in his 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature, he established himself as one of the most widely known, translated, and performed playwrights since Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw.
However, just as his reputation as a playwright reached its peak, O’Neill faced serious criticism of his work. Young critics such as Lionel Trilling, Francis Ferguson, and Eric Bentley believed that O’Neill’s intensity, experimental spirit, and American identity alone were not enough. They argued that while his works succeeded in creating intense dramatic effects, they failed to transcend the limitations of one-dimensional characters and mechanical storytelling. Ferguson, in particular, criticized O’Neill as a “melodramatist,” pointing to his exaggerated language and simplicity.
Thereafter, although O’Neill’s name remained as a playwright until his death, he was all but forgotten on the actual stage, devoting himself to his final works—such as ‘The Iceman Cometh’ and ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’—amidst silence and illness. On the surface, these works might appear to be minimalist, realist pieces with a diminished experimental spirit. However, in terms of their deep exploration of the inner human experience, I felt they were, in fact, more intense dramas than any of O’Neill’s other works.

How Families Hurt One Another

Among them, ‘The Long Voyage Home’ tells the story of the Tyrone family at a summer cottage in 1912. Above all, the fact that this play bears a striking resemblance to O’Neill’s own family history struck me powerfully throughout my reading. The play vividly portrays a father who, after much hardship, has built a reputation as a touring actor but cannot forget the passion he once held for Shakespeare in his youth, as well as how his unstable lifestyle and stinginess have a devastating impact on the other family members.
Mary, the mother of the household, is a drug addict. Her addiction stemmed from her stingy husband entrusting her care to a cheap quack doctor instead of seeking proper treatment, and that doctor’s indiscriminate administration of morphine. Now, Mary’s addiction has become a source of shame for the entire family. The family blames Mary for her addiction, while Mary shifts the blame onto the quack doctor, her husband, and Edmund’s birth.
The eldest son, Jamie, has never recovered from the shock of witnessing his mother take drugs and leads a wayward life. His dissolute lifestyle and cynical attitude have a negative influence on his younger brother as well. Meanwhile, Eugene, the child who died at a young age, is like a ghost that continues to haunt the family, lurking at the very bottom of their consciousness. Every member of the family, except Edmund, feels a certain degree of responsibility and guilt for Eugene’s death. However, when Edmund—a frail child born after Eugene’s death—contracts tuberculosis, then considered an incurable disease, his mother Mary, unable to bear her anxiety, turns to drugs once again.
The fact that the wounds of each family member are intertwined with those of the others makes this play all the more tragic. It is difficult to label any one person as the perpetrator, just as it is difficult to label any one person as the victim. This is because they are both inflicting pain on one another and, at the same time, being wounded by one another.
The time that passes on stage spans less than a full day—from morning through noon, evening, and into the early hours of midnight. Yet during that brief span, Mary’s consciousness travels back in time, from the recent past to an increasingly distant past. She travels from memories of her early married life to her father’s house before her marriage, and then all the way back to her days as a novice in a convent.
As real-world time and psychological time interplay in a contrapuntal relationship, the deeper the night grows, the deeper the abyss of the past into which Mary descends. The fog surrounding the summer cottage also grows increasingly thick. This fog seems to block any sincere yet painful communication between family members. Thus, their day becomes not merely a day, but, as the title suggests, a “long journey.”

A Family Trapped in the Shackles of Addiction

In this drama of a troubled family, “addiction” felt like a crucial motif. Mary is trapped in a drug addiction from which she cannot escape, while the rest of the family cannot put down their drinks. However, addiction does not merely serve to illustrate the characters’ problems; it also functions as the narrative device that drives the play.
Against the monotonous backdrop of the living room, the four main characters weave their stories as they move between the past and the present, reality and illusion. Mary, in particular, begins as a gentle and attentive mother at the center of the family, but as her morphine addiction deepens, she becomes a character who distances herself from those around her and attacks and criticizes their wounds and weaknesses.
It was striking to see how seemingly contradictory aspects of her personality coexisted within a single person. Mary acts both as the protagonist and as an observer commenting on her family. At times, she seems to calmly accept everyone—including herself—with the attitude that “what can we do about what life has done to us?”; yet at other moments, she fiercely condemns each person’s responsibility and unleashes venomous attacks. Eventually, she even says she forgives them, though she cannot forget their wrongs.
However, since the forgiveness and understanding Mary speaks of are induced by the effects of the medication, they lack lasting power. The hard-won understanding and empathy among family members fade in an instant, and once again, they tear at one another like mice trapped in a closed space.
The fact that complete reconciliation and forgiveness never materialize in their relationship makes the work all the more heart-wrenching. Mary ultimately remains stuck in her memories of her time as a novice, searching for the lost innocence and faith of the past. The sight of a person who has lost the strength to live in the present continually returning to a specific point in the past shows that the family’s tragedy does not stem solely from current conflicts.

Why Does Chasing Past Dreams Become a Nightmare?

As the film nears its conclusion, Mary’s presence becomes even more intense. Just as suddenly as the piano performance began, it ends, and Mary appears in the doorway. She wears a sky-blue robe over her nightgown and, on her bare feet, luxurious shoes adorned with tassels. Her face is paler than ever, and her eyes appear enormous, shining like polished black gems.
She looks eerily young. Her face seems to have been stripped of all worldly experience. It looks as if the innocence of a young girl has been carved into marble, and a shy smile plays on her lips. Her white hair is braided into two plaits that fall down to her chest. She wears an old-fashioned wedding dress made of white silk lace draped over her arms; it trails on the floor because she has let it hang so carelessly, as if she had forgotten it was even there.
Mary hesitates in the doorway and looks around the room. She wears a bewildered expression, like someone who came to fetch something but has forgotten what it was. Her family members are all looking at her, but Mary seems to perceive them merely as objects placed within the room. They appear to be naturally situated in the room, like furniture or windows—things one fails to notice when absorbed in something else.
In this scene, Mary greets the night looking much like a mad Ophelia. I felt that this image symbolizes family relationships that have reached a dead end. It is also a scene that shows how blindly pursuing past dreams and ideals can ultimately turn into a nightmare.

Why Is ‘Long Journey Into Night’ an Anti-Familialist Drama?

In that sense, O’Neill’s family drama can be viewed as a starkly anti-familialist work. Familialism has established itself as a powerful ideology among the Western middle class by presenting the image of the “harmonious family” as the healthy basic unit of society and promoting it as mainstream and ideal. However, this play reveals a reality that clashes head-on with that idealized image of the family.
Family is a relationship from which one cannot escape, nor can one simply cast it aside. The play seems to pose the question: as we watch that family crumble, is there ultimately nothing we can do but silently stand by and watch?
The character who best embodies this attitude is the second son, Edmund. He considers himself a “man of the mist”—a psychological nomad who wishes to break free from all human bonds and taste freedom by becoming a bird or a fish. Yet, until the very end, he neither falls asleep nor turns away, but faces the miserable sight of his mother.
This stance felt like not only Edmund’s attitude within the play but also the attitude the playwright demands of the audience. It means not turning away from the pain of reality or seeking easy solutions, but staring it in the face until the very end. It is said that O’Neill wrote in his 1917 diary that what he sought was for the audience to leave the theater uplifted after witnessing a character on stage struggle against eternal contradictions and ultimately be defeated. Reflecting on this after reading ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’, I feel that this statement resonates deeply with the meaning of the tragedy the play portrays.

A Work That Showcases the Beginning and End of the American Family Drama

‘The Long Voyage Home’ is a play for which O’Neill sealed the manuscript and handed it over to a publisher in 1942, agreeing to a contract stipulating it would be published 25 years later. Three years after O’Neill’s death, his third wife, Carlotta Monterey, renegotiated the terms and sent the manuscript to Yale University Press, leading to its publication in 1956. This event reignited interest in O’Neill, and director José Quintero played a significant role in that process. Having drawn parallels between his own troubled family history and O’Neill’s family dramas, he breathed new life into ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ through his brilliant interpretation, which served as the catalyst for the “Eugene O’Neill Revival.”
It is no exaggeration to say that, following this, a distinct subgenre known as “family drama” became firmly established in the United States during the latter half of the 20th century. From Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’, Edward Albee’s ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’, Sam Shepard’s ‘Buried Child’, to Marsha Norman’s ‘Goodnight, Mom’—which continues to be performed in Korea—American family dramas have been adapted in various ways while realistically depicting human alienation and disillusionment.
In these works, the family becomes a setting that reveals the process by which relationships between people disintegrate. The family appears as a crucial backdrop where a shattered reality clashes with the illusion of hope—a distorted version of that hope. It is a space far removed from rosy dreams like “Home, Sweet Home,” where hasty resolutions to difficulties or happy endings are not permitted.
Consequently, after reading ‘Long Journey into Night’, it becomes difficult to view the family as a space through the same lens as before. While the family is a warm space where the closest people gather, it is also a space where each member’s wounds, guilt, desires, and memories collide most deeply. O’Neill did not shy away from this reality but brought it directly onto the stage.
Ultimately, it feels as though the current state of the 20th-century family was already laid out—from beginning to end—in O’Neill’s family drama ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’.