Significance of the Title

The significance of a title is not always easy to discover and the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually. In A Long Days Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill, the significance of the title is developed through the title's importance to each of O'Neill's characters. Tyrone, Mary, Jaime, and Edmund carry different meanings of the title. The words long and night play a major role in the importance of the title to each character. Both words can have multiple meanings. In addition to the long horrible journey each character suffers until day's end, each character also longs and desires to have their addictions fulfilled. The word night not only descries the character journey from dusk until dawn, but night also denotes the reality of the past and the present for each character. To Tyrone, the title represents his journey from a young Irish boy living in perpetual poverty to a rich, cheap, worn-out actor living a life of routine and monotony. The title represents Tyrone's longing to return to the days when he still had talent as an actor and the only way Tyrone can return to the past is by succumbing to his alcohol addiction. For Mary, the title stands for her longing to return to the time when she had choices in front of her and aspired to be things such as a nun or concert pianist. However, like her husband, Mary can only return to this time by giving in to her addiction to morphine. Mary must experience the reality that she cannot constantly live in the past and that her son, Edmund, is not three years old anymore and has consumption. The title also had a different meaning for Jamie. James longs to be an only child again and to be the writer that he had aspired to be. The night reveals that Jamie, like his father and brother, is an alcoholic. Jamie's addiction to alcohol prevents him from achieving his original goals in life. Lastly, the title also has a different meaning to Edmund. The title represents Edmund's longing to become something better than his family. Night for Edmund would be not only death from consumption, but also the fact that he may waste his life, just like his family. The significance of the title A Long Days Journey into Knight is developed gradually through each of the characters in the play. The significance of the title to Tyrone represents both what he longs for and the night reality that night brings. Tyrone's journey from Ireland to America and his overcoming of poverty and eventually become a successful actor are described by the title of the play. Tyrone became a well-known actor but valued money more than anything else in his life did because of his great fear of living in poverty once again. However, although Tyrone was once of the greatest actors in America, he gave all of this up when he bought the rights to the play The Count of Monte Cristo; the one role that Tyrone would play for the rest of his life. "That God-damned play I bought for a song and made such a great success in- a great money success- it ruined me with its promise of an easy fortune. I didn't want to do anything else, and by the time I woke up to the fact I'd become a slave to the damned thing and did try other plays, it was too late." (149) Tyrone chose money over doing something he loved because of his great fear of living in poverty again. Tyrone longs to return to when he was still a fine actor and could play any role he wanted to. Tyrone remembers the time when he had the greatest potential of any actor, "In 1874 when Edwin Booth came to the theater in Chicago, where I was leading man, I played Cassius to his Brutus one night, Brutus to his Cassius the next, Othello to his Iago, and so on. The night I played Othello, he said to our manager, ‘That young man is playing Othello better than I ever did!'" (150) Tyrone's journey into night represents the reality that "night" brings to him. Tyrone always feared poverty and as a result, gave away his acting ability and passion. "What the ell was it I wanted to buy, I wonder, that was worth…" (150). Tyrone realizes that nothing was worth losing his passion and dream. The reality of the night is that Tyrone cannot even remember what he wanted to buy with the money he would earn as the Count of Monte Cristo. Night also represents the dark side of Tyrone, his addiction to alcohol. The only way in which Tyrone can return to the moment when he was happy and had such promise is an actor is by drinking alcohol. The title A Long Days Journey into Night, for Tyrone, represents his longing to become a great actor but the reality of the situation, brought by night, is that Tyrone is an alcoholic who ruined his career for the dollar. O'Neill, by representing his father in this fashion, is attempting to show his reader that one must not dwell upon one's regrets in life; one must live with what one has and live in the present with passion. The significance of the title is also developed through the character of Mary. To Mary, A Long Days Journey into Night represents her longing to be back in the past, a time when she was happy and still had other opportunities in her life. Night to Mary represents the time when marry fully becomes part of the past due to her morphine addiction. Mary longs to return to her youth when she had a real home. She longs to return to the convent, where she was a great pianist and still had her faith. "I used to love the piano. I worked so hard at my music in the Convent…My father paid for special lessons. He would have sent me to Europe to stuffy 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." (104) Mary wants to return to her life before she decided to marry Tyrone. At this point in her life, Mary still had choices and having opportunities and a real home is what made her happy. Mary's journey through her addiction was caused by the death of her son, Eugene. After Eugene passed away, Mary needed to have another child to replace Eugene; however, the birth of her second son, Edmund, was extremely painful and required morphine to ease the pain. "I was so healthy before Edmund was born. You remember James. There wasn't a nerve in my body…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 the pain." (87) As night approaches, reality begins to set in. Mary escapes life and returns to the past through her addiction to morphine. For Mary, A Long Days Journey into Night represents Mary becoming completely removed from reality and becoming totally immersed in the past due to her addiction. Little by little, as Mary injects more and more morphine into her blood stream, she slips more and more out of reality. By night, Mary is no longer in reality, but living as a part of the past. When Edmund tries to stop his mother from going on talking crazy, Mary replies, "No! You must not try to touch me. You must not try to hold me. It isn't right, when I am hoping to be a nun." (174) At this point in the night, Mary actually believes that she is seventeen again. A Long Days Journey into Night represents both Mary's longing to return to the past and the reality of her addiction to morphine. O'Neill, by representing his mother in this fashion, is attempting to show his reader that one must not dwell upon one's regrets in life; one must live with what one has and live in the present with passion. The title of the play also becomes significant through the character of Jamie. Jamie, like Tyrone and Mary, longs to return to the past. Jamie wishes to return to the time when he was an only child and his life was perfect. As a young boy, Jamie constantly moved from place to place and spent twenty-four hours a day with his mother. However, once Edmund was born, Jamie suddenly had to begin to share his mother. Jamie felt jealousy and envy for the rest of his life and now, at the age of thirty-four, Jamie still longs to return to the time when he was an only child. Jamie also wishes he had made different decisions in life and had continued his dream to become a writer. "I used to write better stuff for the Lit magazine in college…I once wanted to write, I planted it in your mind that someday you'd write!" (164) Jamie is seeing his dream to become a writer being carried out by his brother, Edmund. Once again, Jamie feels jealousy and longs to return to the time when he was an aspiring writer. Like Tyrone and Mary, as night progresses, reality reveals itself in Jamie. Jamie's alcoholism stands in his way of carrying out his dreams in life. "After all the money I'd waste on your education, and all you did was get fired in disgrace from every college you went to!" (32) Jamie was not able to continue his studies because of his alcoholism. As a result of this alcoholism, Jamie cannot succeed in life due in part to both his alcoholism and his wish to leave reality and return to the past. A Long Days Journey into Night represents Jamie's longing to return to the past where he was an only child and the reality of how his alcoholism ruined his life. O'Neill, by representing his brother in this fashion, is attempting to show his reader that one must not dwell upon one's regrets in life; one must live with what one has and live in the present with passion. Lastly, A Long Days Journey into Night is developed through the character Edmund. The meaning of the title is completely different for Edmund than any of the other characters. Edmund, only twenty-four, still has many opportunities in his life. Edmund has no longings of his past. To Edmund, the title represents what he can do to prevent himself from ending up like the rest of his family, unhappy and regretful. Edmund has been unable to make choices in his life because of the fear of becoming like a member of his family. Edmund's long journey is that of creating his own life where he is able to become something better than his family. From Mary, Edmund learns the harm that drug addiction has on an individual. From Tyrone, he learns to follow his heart and not to base his entire life on money. From Jamie, Edmund learns the affect on alcoholism. Edmund, although an alcoholic himself, only drinks when he is around his family, and hopefully, knowing that he will soon be going to a sanatorium, will be able to stop drinking. "I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight…I become drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself- actually lost my life. I was set free!" (153) Edmund does not have direction in life; he has always felt uncomfortable under his own skin. Edmund believes he should have been born something other than human, "It was a mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, and who can never belong." (154) Edmund knows he is not what his parents wanted. Edmund realizes that the only reason for him being born was to replace Eugene, and Edmund is not the Eugene that they wanted him to be. A Long Days Journey into Night for Edmund represents his constant struggle to find something he truly wants in life without becoming like members of his family. O'Neill, using Edmund to represent himself, is trying to show the struggle that he himself went through. O'Neill wants to show his reader that in order to become something greater, in Edmund's case his family, one must not dwell on the past, one must find something that one truly desires and work harder than one can imagine to obtain that desire. For O'Neill, the desire was found in writing, and in his writing, he portrays forgiveness. The significance of a title is not always easy to discover and the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually. In A Long Days Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill, the significance of the title is developed through the title's importance to each of O'Neill's characters. Tyrone, Mary, Jaime, and Edmund carry different meanings of the title. The words long and night play a major role in the importance of the title to each character. Both words can have multiple meanings. In addition to the long horrible journey each character suffers until day's end, each character also longs and desires to have their addictions fulfilled. The word night not only descries the character journey from dusk until dawn, but night also denotes the reality of the past and the present for each character. To Tyrone, the title represents his journey from a young Irish boy living in perpetual poverty to a rich, cheap, worn-out actor living a life of routine and monotony. The title represents Tyrone's longing to return to the days when he still had talent as an actor and the only way Tyrone can return to the past is by succumbing to his alcohol addiction. For Mary, the title stands for her longing to return to the time when she had choices in front of her and aspired to be things such as a nun or concert pianist. However, like her husband, Mary can only return to this time by giving in to her addiction to morphine. Mary must experience the reality that she cannot constantly live in the past and that her son, Edmund, is not three years old anymore and has consumption. The title also had a different meaning for Jamie. James longs to be an only child again and also to be the writer that he had aspired to be. The night reveals that Jamie, like his father and brother, is an alcoholic. Jamie's addiction to alcohol prevents him from achieving his original goals in life. Lastly, the title also has a different meaning to Edmund. The title represents Edmund's longing to become something better than his family. Night for Edmund would be not only death from consumption, but also the fact that he may become like the other members of his family, addicts and nothings. The significance of the title A Long Days Journey into Knight is developed gradually through each of the characters in the play.