The Autobiographical Study Of Eugene O’neill Through Long Day’s Journey Into Night

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.

My special thanks to all my beloved family. My dearest father who support me endlessly, my late mother in heaven that watching me every time, wished you were here still. My aunty, my brother, my uncle, my cousins, my grandma and grandpa and all my family members that always pray me kindness, good health and spirit to complete my thesis. Its getting closer to my new better life. This is for you.

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

Judul skripsi ini adalah The Autobiographical Study of Eugene O’Neill Through Long Day’s Journey into Night. Skripsi ini menganalisa tentang autobiografi Eugene O’Neill di salah satu karyanya Long Day’s Journey into Night. Eugene O’Neill adalah salah satu penulis drama Amerika yang pernah mendapat penghargaan Noble untuk karya sastra. Metode yang digunakan adalah metode deskriptif analitik dengan mendeskripsikan lalu menganalisis data-data yang ada. Data dikumpulkan dari buku-buku dan internet. Teori yang digunakan adalah pendekatan biografis. Pendekatan biografis identik dengan riwayat hidup penulis. Tokoh-tokoh di Long Day’s Journey into Night, James Tyrone,Edmund Tyrone, Mary Cavan Tyrone dan Jamie Tyrone memiliki banyak kesamaan pengalaman hidup dengan anggota keluarga Eugene O’Neill dan O’Neill sebagai penulis. Kesamaan tersebut antara lain terlihat dari latar belakang keluarga serta kesamaan pengalaman hidup yang dialami oleh masing-masing tokoh di Long Day’s Journey into Night.

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 III THE FAMILY BACKGROUND OF EUGENE O’NEILL... 9

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

BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDICES

ABSTRACT

Judul skripsi ini adalah The Autobiographical Study of Eugene O’Neill Through Long Day’s Journey into Night. Skripsi ini menganalisa tentang autobiografi Eugene O’Neill di salah satu karyanya Long Day’s Journey into Night. Eugene O’Neill adalah salah satu penulis drama Amerika yang pernah mendapat penghargaan Noble untuk karya sastra. Metode yang digunakan adalah metode deskriptif analitik dengan mendeskripsikan lalu menganalisis data-data yang ada. Data dikumpulkan dari buku-buku dan internet. Teori yang digunakan adalah pendekatan biografis. Pendekatan biografis identik dengan riwayat hidup penulis. Tokoh-tokoh di Long Day’s Journey into Night, James Tyrone,Edmund Tyrone, Mary Cavan Tyrone dan Jamie Tyrone memiliki banyak kesamaan pengalaman hidup dengan anggota keluarga Eugene O’Neill dan O’Neill sebagai penulis. Kesamaan tersebut antara lain terlihat dari latar belakang keluarga serta kesamaan pengalaman hidup yang dialami oleh masing-masing tokoh di Long Day’s Journey into Night.

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.

Most of the plot of the play is repetitious. Each of Tyrone gives their arguments about one another and that occurs numerous times throughout the four acts and five scenes. All acts are set in the living room, where James Tyrone, Mary Tyrone, Jamie Tyrone and Edmund Tyrone meet and talk to each other.

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 great plays by Eugene O’Neill. It was never performed during Eugene O’Neill’s lifetime. On his twelfth wedding anniversary with his third wife, Charlotta Monterey, O’Neill gave her the script of this play with note to his wife. This play

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?

2. How is the autobiography of Eugene O’Neill reflected in Long Day’s Journey into Night?

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

Hopefully this study can expand the reader’s knowledge about the biographical approach. This study expected to contribute something useful to the readers who want to understand and appreciate literature in general and the works of Eugene O’Neill in particular. It is also expected that the readers will know about Eugene O’Neill’s real life.

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

I use biographical approach in doing this study. According to Wilfred Guerin in A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: Fourth Edition, Biographical approach can be defined as the approach that see a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of the author’s life and times or the life and times of the characters in the work (Quoted from

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.

Wellek and Warren (1956:75) claim that the most obvious cause of a work of art is its creator, the author, and hence an explanation in terms of the personality and the life of the writer has been one of the oldest and best established methods of literary study. Thus, biographical approach has been regarded as one of the most well-known and appropriate methods in studying and criticizing a literary work. There is so much to be explored there in terms of the author‘s personality and life.

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

The first procedure is data collecting. I collect the main sources of the data which are Eugene O’Neill’s play Long Day’s Journey into Night, American Literature books that discuss about Eugene O’Neill’s literary works and the whole

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

The last procedure is data analyzing. Since I apply analytical descriptive method I analyzed the data by describing all the data selected, that continue with analyzing then giving the sufficient understanding. I analyze all the selected data to prove what has been planned in the objective of this thesis and finally I can draw the conclusion for my thesis.

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.

From the statement above it can be seen that O’Neill’s parents experienced the extreme childhood poverty since they were Irish immigrants. In order to know the background of Eugene’s father in raise his sons, I am going to give the history of the Irish immigrants. The history about the Irish immigrants is taken from David M. Brownstone’s book Facts about American Immigration and also from Roger Daniel’s book Coming to America. Catholic Ireland rose in 1641, massacring thousands of Protestants in the civil war. A final and decisive war came in 1689, as part of a series of Catholic-Protestant European wars. There a Protestant army drawn from all over Europe and led by William Orange smashed an Irish-French Catholic army. England would then rule rebellious, defeated Ireland for 230 years; the form of the even longer Catholic-Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland had been firmly set.

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

During the American Revolution, the North Atlantic was an unsafe place for immigrant ships as the United State were at war. After Napoleonic Wars began from 1793 to 1815, the Atlantic was again unsafe. Immigration to the United State from Ireland was very small during the whole period.

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.

The Irish immigrants are called ‘the great hungers’ since the famine was the major factor in the 1840s and early 1850s (Daniel, 2002:126). Another segment of Irish past was the Catholic Irish migration that has come out of Ireland in great numbers since the 1820s. The great majority of Catholic Irish immigrants

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.

By 1845 Irish immigration was growing and would undoubtedly have continued to grow at a quickening pace in normal circumstances. But the great famine which began in that year and its aftermath influenced not only Irish immigration, but also the whole Irish American community, for decades to come.

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.

Others fact was that few Catholic Irish were well prepared for either urban or rural success in America. Almost none had trades to enter the basic of an education. Large numbers of Irish were at the very bottom of the economic structure, overrepresented as common laborers or domestic servants. Finally both the exile motif and its underlying causes led Irish Immigrants to interpret experience and adapt to American life in ways which were often alienating, expedient and conducive to the survival of Irish identity and the success of Irish American nationalism. The wave of immigration to America also affects the numbers of American. In the next chapter I am going to analyze the effect of Irish immigration on O’Neill’s family as reflected in his play Long Day’s Journey into Night.

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

James Tyrone in the play is James O’Neill in Eugene O’Neill’s real life. Tessitore states in Extraordinary American Writers, “His father, James O’Neill, was a popular actor of the late nineteenth century, an Irish immigrant famous for playing the title role in the stage version of The Count of Monte Cristo. (2004:163)

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.

James O’Neill was born in Ireland in 1846 during the Potato Famine when 20% of the Irish population died of famine. The family like many Irish during this terrible time of hunger, moved to the United States when James O’Neill was nine. James O’Neill, Eugene’s father came to America in 1855 (Christophersen, 1919:1063). Based on the data, it can be assumed that James O’Neill came to America when its famine years. After the potato crops failed in the 1840s,

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)

Tyrone: ...I was the man of the family, at ten years old! There was no more school for me. I worked twelve hours a day in a machine shop, learning to make files. A dirty barn of a place where rain dripped trough the roof, where you roasted in summer, and there was no stove in winter, and your hands got numb with cold. Where the only light came through two small filthy windows, so on grey days, I’d have to sit bent over with my eyes almost touching the flies in order to see. You talk of work? And what do you think I got it for? Fifty cents a week! It’s the truth! Fifty cents a week! And my poor mother washed and scrubbed for the Yanks by the day, and my older sister sewed, and my two younger stayed at home to keep the house. (Act IV, p. 807-808 line 30-40, 1-2)

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: Oh, 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 bit. You don’t know how to act in a home! You don’t really want one – never since the that we were married you should have remained a bachelor and lived in second-rate hotel and entertained your friends in barrooms! Then nothing would ever have happened. (Act II, p. 732-733, line 36-39, 1-3)

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.

Tyrone: A stinking old miser? Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe I can’t help being , although all my life since I had anything I’ve thrown money over the bar to buy drinks for everyone in the house, or loaned money to sponges I knew would never pay it back But of course, that was in barrooms, when I was full of whiskey. I can’t feel that way about it when I’m sober in my home. It was at home I first learned the value of a dollar and the fear of the poorhouse. I’ve never been able to believe in my luck since. I’ve always feared it would change and everything I had would be taken away. But still, the more property you own, the safer you think you are. That may not be logical, but it’s the way I have to feel. Banks fail, and your money’s gone, but you think you can keep land beneath your feet. (Act IV, p. 806 line 22-36)

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 seems like not to blame James’s miserliness, but she harshly mentions that James people were the most ignorant kind of poverty-stricken Irish.

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)

Tyrone: ...Her one’s fear was she’d get old and sick and have to die in the poorhouse. It was in those days, I earned to be a miser. A dollar was worth so much then. And once you’ve learned a lesson, it’s hard to unlearn it (Act IV, p. 808 line 14-18)

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.

Mary: ...but I must confess. James, although I couldn’t help loving you, I would never have married you if I’d known you drank so much. (Act III, p. 783 line 20-22)

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.

Not that is indulges in any of the deliberate temperamental posturing of the stage star. He is by nature and preference a simple, un pretentical man, whose inclinations are still close to his humble beginning and his Irish farmer forebears. But the actor shows in all his unconscious habits of speech, movement and gesture. These have the quality of belonging to a studied technique. His voice is remarkably fine, resonant and flexible, and he takes great pride in it. (Act I, p. 718)

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) Tyrone: You and Broadway! It’s made you what you are. Whatever Edmund’s done, he’s had the guts to go off his own, where he couldn’t come whining to me the minute he was broke. (Act I, p.733 line 15-17)

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.

Mary:.. But we must not 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)

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)

In the play Jamie says that Edmund is fool since he worked as a sailor. Jamie also claims that Edmund’s appearance is like a fool man. That’s the way Jamie looks down his brother.

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.

In his biography it is stated that O’Neill developed persistent cough in October 1912, and was diagnosed as having tuberculosis in November. On December 9 he resigned his newspaper job and entered Fairfield Country State Sanatorium in Shelton, Connecticut, 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 (1972:351) also

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)

If in the play Eugene O’Neill describes Edmund as man that suffer in tuberculosis, Eugene O’Neill in his real life had more than one illness during his life. He had stroke that later on discovered to have intestinal cancer in 1920. Eugene O’Neill also ever contacted with malaria after he sailed. Tremor in 1944 caused occasional shaking of entire body. His doctor said that it was Parkinson’s as the primary cause of the tremor. The last one that caused him death was pneumonia in 1953.

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)

After knowing that both of Eugene O’Neill and Edmund Tyrone fail to continue their study in university, it can be concluded that even though failed in study, it doesn’t mean that Eugene O’Neill in the real life and Edmund Tyrone as the character in the play lack in knowledge. Edmund Tyrone in the play shows his excitement to the poetry. Eugene O’Neill is the real figure besides wrote poems, he also wrote some plays that won Pulitzer Award and Noble Prize for literature in 1936. That fact shows how Eugene O’Neill naturally has talent in writing poems and plays.

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)

Even if O’Neill was not so famous in writing poems, but he portrayed himself as the character that loves to write poems and memorizes some poems. It is one way of Eugene O’Neill to appreciate himself for his ability in writing poems.

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)

James, Jamie and Edmund know that every time Mary goes to the spare-room is the time for her to take the ‘medicine’ which is morphine. They have to spy her to make sure that she won’t be overdose. Although Mary realizes that everybody is often spying on her, she still use the morphine in the spare room.

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)

Cathleen: it mattered to me, then! I’m not used to being treated like a thief. He gave me a long look and says insultingly, “where did you get hold of this?” and I say “It’s none of your business, but if you must know, it’s for the lady I work for, Mrs. Tyrone, who’s sitting out in the automobile”. That shut him up quick. He gave a look out at you and said, “oh” and went to get the medicine. (Act III, p. 776 line 22-28)

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)

Mary: ...they were a musician’s hands. I used to love piano. I worked so hard at my music in the Convent – if you can call it work when you do something you love. Mother Elizabeth and my

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.

Jamie the elder is thirty-three. He has his father’s broad-shoulder...He also lacks his father vitality... he has fine brown eyes, their color midway between his father’s lighter and his mother darker ones...(prolog Act I, p.722)

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 influence of his cynical brother, Jamie, he spent weekends in the barrooms and hotels in New York. Incurably romantic, O’Neill was convinced from the first that the prostitutes and other characters he encountered with his brother all had hearts of gold-an impression that was often to be incorporated in his writing (1972:349). From that statement, it is known that O’Neill’s experience with prostitute influenced his writing. The scene of one of his play, Anna Christie, was in the prostitution. This play then won Pulitzer Prize in 1922.

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).

From the same experiences in both main characters in the play and the family members of O’Neill that have been analyzed, it can be seen why this play said to be Eugene O’Neill’s autobiography. Eugene O’Neill revealed his family background and some of his experiences in this play. All the analysis above are the explanation from the first chapter which stated that this thesis is as a study of Eugene O’Neil’s autobiography trough his play Long Day’s Journey into Night.

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)

The opening scene starts on a deceptive of a domestic happiness. James Tyrone affectionately teases his wife, Mary about her putting on weight. From the dining room the voices of their two sons Jamie and Edmund can be heard in laughter. But soon the image of domestic contentment has been all evaporated. In this place there is a quarrel and recrimination, wounding and suffering, accusation and confession. The use of living room as the setting by Eugene O’Neill shows how the family only meet and talk to each other in that place. O’Neill many times described in his play that the Tyrone’s house is a rented summer house which they will soon leave. They are a trapped family who does not belong in any house and never has a home. Tyrone is a famous actor that captivates his female’s admirers and it is contrasted with the poverty of an exploited child immigrant that desperately ever tried to support his fatherless family.

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.

Edmund asks Tyrone why he did not get her in rehab as soon as she got hooked. Tyrone retorts that he's spent thousands and thousands of dollars on quack cures, but they have not worked. Edmund concludes by saying he hates his father. Then Tyrone said that Mary accompanied him because she loved him and wanted to be with him. She could have talked to others in the acting company. Tyrone paid for a nurse so that she could travel with their children. Edmund calls this Tyrone's one great generosity, which Tyrone undertook only because he was jealous of all the time Mary spent with their kids. In fact, Edmund speculates, if Mary had taken care of the kids herself, giving her something substantial to do with her time, she might not have gotten hooked on heavy opiates. Tyrone roars that it would have been better if Edmund had never been born. But he feels immediately ashamed of himself. Edmund miserably admits that he knows that's how Mary feels, but Tyrone insists that it is not true. Edmund apologizes for the whole by saying ‘hate your guts’ comment. Soon enough, because this family just can't help itself, another fight breaks out. Edmund accuses Tyrone of sending him to the cheapest sanatorium in town.

Edmund knows that Tyrone asked Hardy to recommend a place for him, but once Hardy made his recommendation, Tyrone began nattering on about falling into the poor house. Edmund insists that he's tried to make allowances for his father's cheapness, because he knows his father's childhood story, and he's spent some time broke and alone, learning the value of a dollar. Edmund does not even care so much that Tyrone is treating him badly; it is that he's made it obvious to the whole town that he's a giant tightwad, even about the treatment of his consumptive son. Edmund won't go to a state sanatorium just to save Tyrone a few

dollars. Edmund is screaming until a fit of coughing stops him. Tyrone begins feeling more guilt than anger. Tyrone admits that he's been a bit miserly. He is always lived in fear of losing all his money, that’s why he has bought so much land – no one can take that away from him, even if the banks fail.

Tyrone goes back to his childhood story: when he was ten, his two older brothers had already left the house, leaving him the man of the house. He recalls one Christmas when they actually had enough food to feed all the children. He describes his mother as a fine, brave, sweet woman, who worried that she would have to die in the poorhouse. In those days, Tyrone learned to be a miser, and it is a hard lesson to unlearn. Still, Tyrone tells Edmund to choose any sanatorium he would like – within reason. This makes Edmund smile, encouraging his father to go on. There is another place that would still be cheap but better quality, offers Tyrone. Edmund smiles again and agrees that it sounds like a bargain.

That Father and son return to playing cards when they hear a sound upstairs again. Edmund takes another drink, and starts waxing philosophical. Edmund muses on a contradiction: he and Tyrone try to forget Mary while straining to hear her every noise. Emerging from his depressing, poetic style, Edmund decides to tell Tyrone some of his own fond memories. Edmund tells of an experience in Buenos Aires, aboard a sailing ship. Edmund lies on the bow, water foaming under him, the ship white in the moonlight. He becomes so overwhelmed by the aesthetic experience that he loses his teather to life and feels set free. He becomes part of the sea, part of the ship, part of the sky. He exists outside both time and the mortal life of a man. Edmund recounts another, similarly

transcendent experience in the crow's nest at dawn, watching the sun creep up over the sea. In a moment of ‘ecstatic freedom’, he felt a fulfillment beyond men's normal desires. Edmund concludes by saying that he wishes he were an animal, since he never feels at home, does not want and isn't wanted, does not belong, and is a little in love with death. Tyrone finds some good poetry in what Edmund has to say. Edmund refuses the compliment, regretting wistfully that he can only stammer what others express so beautifully. But, as Edmund puts it, stammering is the way fog people speak.

Suddenly, they hear someone stumble and fall outside. Edmund grins because that means Jamie is home. Tyrone does not want to deal with Jamie, so he goes out onto the porch. Jamie comes in extremely drunk and slurring his words. He starts yelling, and Edmund tells him to be quiet. Jamie complains about how dark it is and he sees the bottle of whiskey on the table and takes another drink, knowing that this should make him pass out. Edmund asks for the bottle too, and Jamie won't give it to him. As soon as Edmund asks again, Edmund folds like a cheap suit, saying Go ahead and kill yourself. Jamie starts bashing Tyrone, saying Tyrone will probably send Edmund booze just to kill him off quicker so he won't have to keep paying for that sanatorium.

Edmund defends his father, but Jamie says he cannot be fooled, and keeps on calling Tyrone a miser. Edmund asks Jamie what he did in town. Jamie says he picked a prostitute named Fat Violet, which gives Edmund a chuckle, but Jamie says it is not joke, her appearance is affecting her livelihood. Tyrone, suddenly feeling bad about himself, so when the proprietor of the brothel tells him she will

have to fire Fat Violet because no one wants her, Jamie jumps at the chance to do a good deed. He hires Violet just for a heart-to heart about the sadness of life. Edmund guesses that Jamie recited poetry and he is right. Jamie falls silent but suddenly looks up, quotes a Kipling poem and asks in a sneering tone where the hophead is. Edmund is shocked and looks sick at Jamie's frank hatred. Suddenly Edmund jumps out of his chair and punches him in the face. For a moment, Jamie prepares to retaliate but then the fight goes out of him, and Jamie agrees that his comment was out of line. Edmund apologizes for hitting him, but Jamie repeats that it is right that he did. It is just that Jamie really believed her this time. He admits that he had begun to hope that, if Mary could beat morphine he could beat his demons too and Jamie starts to cry.

Edmund fighting back tears himself, says he knows just how Jamie feels. Jamie recounts when he first saw Mary with a needle; he never imagined that women who were not prostitutes might take dope. And now that Edmund's got consumption, he is all broken up again – Edmund's the only pal Jamie's ever had and he loves him so much. His mood turns on a dime, and Jamie wonders whether Edmund thinks he is waiting for Edmund and Tyrone to die so that Jamie can get all the money. Edmund tells Jamie that he is being an idiot, that he is never thought that for one second. Jamie's not satisfied just because Edmund's their parent’s pet, well educated, and the author of a few published poems, that does not mean Edmund's amounting to anything. Jamie pauses and retracts these words; he wants Edmund to succeed.

In fact, Jamie points out that Jamie should be proud, since he brought up Edmund, Edmund's success would reflect well on Jamie's skills as a brother. After all, it was Jamie who wised Edmund up about women so he would never be a fall guy, steered him toward poetry, and told him that he should write one day. Jokingly Jamie takes his cynicism to the limit, saying that at the final judgment salvation will come to those who slip a few coins to the Judge. Here's where Jamie seems to start doing some truth telling, he tells Edmund that, not only has he been a bad influence on Edmund, but he has done it on purpose. A big part of him wants to ruin Edmund so that he will look good next to him. Jamie has tried to make getting drunken look romantic and prostitutes seem fascinating. He is always been jealous, and he resents that Edmund's birth started Mary on morphine. Jamie says he cannot help hating his little brother. Jamie insists that he loves Edmund more than he hates him. He really does want to see Edmund succeed, but Edmund must be on guard, because Jamie will stab him in the back. Jamie falls asleep as he told Edmund not to die

Suddenly, the lights of the front parlor's chandelier blaze to life and Mary starts playing the piano awkwardly and with stiff fingers. Tyrone and Jamie snap awake and listen. She is about as aware of the men in the room as she is of the furniture. Jamie astonished, calls this a ‘mad scene’, and labels his mother Ophelia (Hamlet's love interest). Edmund slaps Jamie, and Tyrone approves. Tyrone threatens to kick Jamie out of the house, but the crying softens him, and he pleads with Jamie to stop his weeping. Mary begins to speak, she repents that she has become so bad at playing piano. Sister Theresa will surely be mad at her, telling her it isn't right, what with all the money her father spends on lessons.

Mary notes the generosity of her father, and promises to practice more, even though, for some reason, her hands hurt and have grown ugly. Mary wanders into the room and wonders aloud what she came there to find. She's become absent-minded, always dreaming and forgetting. Mary keeps looking for whatever she has lost. Edmund seizes Mary's arm like a hurt little boy, crying out that he has consumption. The moment passes, and she falls back into detachment, telling Edmund that he must not touch her because she is hoping to become a nun. Tyrone concludes that they should not pay any attention, even though he's never seen her this bad, he asks for the bottle from Jamie. The three men pour themselves drinks in a circle. Tyrone lifts his glass and his sons follow suit, but before they can drink, Mary speaks. Mary looks extremely youthful and innocent, with an eager and trusting smile. She explains that she had a talk with Mother Elizabeth, whom she loves dearly, even more than her own mother. Mother Elizabeth always understands her and she cannot keep any secrets from her. But still, Mother Elizabeth is not as understanding when Mary tells her she wants to be a nun. Mother Elizabeth counsels that Mary should be even surer she should try to live like a normal girl, going to parties. If, after another year, Mary still feels the same way, she can come back and they will talk it over. Mary is a bit upset, but will do anything Mother Elizabeth suggests. She feels confused, and seeks sanctuary at the shrine to find peace again; Mary is certain the Blessed Virgin hears her, and will always love her, as long as she does not lose faith. But then, a few months pass, and something happens, Mary falls in love with Tyrone and so happy for a time. The three men remain motionless, and the play end.