Long Day's Journey Into Night- Biographical Criticism

Jillian Palmer
AP English
Often times, in a piece of literature, the author’s own experiences, whether it be triumphs or tragedies, reflect in the lives and experiences of the characters of the work. In Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Eugene O’Neill’s history and life closely mirrors the life of Edmund Tyrone. Through the Tyrone family, O’Neill accurately portrays his own family members and their dysfunctional lives. In the context of O’Neill’s work, he, again, displays similar childhood and adolescent experiences. From Edmund’s college experiences to his adult life, O’Neill reveals the similarity of experiences in his own adult life. Through O’Neill’s portrayal of the Tyrone family, his own life is revealed in spectacularly accurate detail.
Through biographical criticism, it is observed that while uniquely dysfunctional, Edmund’s and O’Neill’s family members mirror the other’s identically. O’Neill, like Edmund, was born into a severely dysfunctional family. Each member of their families suffered from his or her own disorder and struggle. Like Edmund’s mother in the play, O’Neill’s mother also suffered from a drug addiction. Their mothers’ problems destroyed both families foundations and contributed to much of the dysfunction. Their brothers were severe alcoholics and acted as poor influences in their lives. Edmund followed in the foot steps of his failure of a brother, who, himself, had no positive influence. O’Neill, also, after encouragement from his brother, joined the stage life and began his unstable life. These two families were both led by fathers who loved the theatre more than his family. Edmund’s and O’Neill’s fathers pulled their families after them as they struggled to become successful actors. Both of them, however, were futile in their attempts. Their fathers were not “family men, but men with families.”
O’Neill’s and Edmund’s childhood and adolescent years were filled with instability and uncertainty. They spent their days and nights, not in homes, but in different hotels, while their fathers acted. The absence of a home caused disorder and turmoil. Edmund’s mother complains to his father about never having a home: “Even traveling 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…” O’Neill explained a similar situation to a reporter in 1932, “Usually a child has a regular, fixed home, but you might say I started as a trouper. I knew only actors and the stage. My mother nursed me in the wings and in dressing rooms.” O’Neill and Edmund both attended numerous boarding schools, when they received an education at all.
Even O’Neill’s and Edmund’s adult lives seem to be very similar. O’Neill, after being suspended from Princeton for a prank, took many different job opportunities; however, most of them failed. He began searching for gold in Central America, took many clerical jobs, fell destitute for times, drinking his days away at a local bar “Jimmy-The-Priest’s”, and finally returned to his love, the sea, as a seaman for an American line. When he no longer craved an adventurous lifestyle, he settled down for a more quiet lifestyle. Edmund desired this lifestyle, as well. After he was expelled from his prominent university, Edmund took up many jobs and found his love for the sea: “ God, Papa, ever since I went to sea and was on my own, and found out what hard work was, and what it felt like to be broke, and starve, and camp on park benches because I had no place to sleep…” Finally, both O’Neill’s and Edmund’s lives were crippled with tuberculosis. O’Neill spent six months in a sanatorium. In the sanatorium, O’Neill became a avid reader and artist. Although, the play ends before the audience discovers Edmund’s fate, all can predict that he spends time in a sanatorium, in order to regain his health.
O’Neill’s own life percolates through to his various works, like Long Day’s Journey Into Night. In his works and his life, O’Neill reveals the idea that a family is not always ordinary and normal, and most often, families are very unique and dysfunctional. Each individual family unit has struggles and obstacles and triumphs, as well. The members may not get along, but because they experience these ups and downs together, they embrace a measure of respect for each other. Although they may feel hatred toward one another for their faults, the love and respect that they have for them will always be superior.

Work Cited
1. "Eugene O'Neill." American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974. Literature Resource Center. Gale. LEE COUNTY LIBRARY SYSTEM. 21 Sept. 2008.