Topic > Depiction of the Tyrone family in Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'neill

In the Tyrone family, they were shown to argue with each other all day and night. We saw how Edmund reacts to his father, James, when they discuss moving him to a sanatorium. James wants to take his son to a local sanatorium, rather than one of the more expensive ones. We also saw how James dismisses his eldest son, Jamie, as a failure and an overall terrible influence/role model for Edmund. Their arguments are also more common and normally take an aggressive and blunt tone. Mary also has instances where she exclaims how angry she was about the house. However, despite all these problems, something is always missing: the past. Mary was a morphine addict after having Edmund, and James was too cheap to pay for a better doctor. Although she has been in rehab, her addiction has overwhelmed her. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Even the story of Long Day's Journey into Night is just a normal day for the Tyrone family. Through Mary's arguments, the audience understands that she wishes she was still in the past, and it is also shown that it is her escape from reality when she uses morphine. When Mary is told to “forget the past,” she responds by asking how she could forget the past when “the past is the present… it is also the future. His depiction of how the past is present and the future suggests that all of his choices since then have led up to today and will always be present in his life. Each family member is subsequently stuck in the past and the “what-ifs” of life. Aside from Edmund, they all showed signs that they will only step forward into the past. Mary was in a covenant and had faith in the Virgin Mary. Once she married James, however, her faith waned. His solution to this problem was to live in the past. This shows how disconnected she feels from her family, especially her husband. Jamie liked poetry. He had been shown to recite rather long passages from memory; Jamie is also shown as a lazy and talentless slacker. He drinks all day and goes into town to visit women. Every day now he does nothing. “Forget everything and face nothing,” is what he tells his mother after she tells him they can't forget. During a conversation with Edmund, he apologized for being a bad influence and for even attempting to poison his younger brother with his own toxicity. Jamie's relationship with his family is aggressive and distant. His philosophy is to forget the entire past and as a result, he will not have to face anything. James also shares his regrets with his son Jamie. He burned out, instead of quitting a well-paying acting job and moving on to more challenging roles, he had to stick with his current one. Like his children, he is addicted to alcohol. His escape attempts stem from the story's current problems: Mary's addiction to morphine, Jamie despises him, and Edmund potentially dying and being partly responsible for all of this. He drinks to escape the reality of the situation and, like the others, tries to forget the past. With the youngest son they discuss the cost of taking him to a nice sanatorium; although they argue until Edmund has a coughing fit, they eventually come to an understanding. Edmund did not learn of his mother's addiction until much later in his life; During an argument, Mary had become angry because she didn't want him at first. This is announced again by James, and both times Jamie was reassured that the speaker was lying. Edmund is shown to be an alcoholic to cope with the.