long days journey into night essays

long day's journey into night essays >LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT For many generations now, dysfunction, for whatever reason, has been a more common dynamic in the relations of the modern family. Many writers have captured this dynamic in their work for a plethora of reasons. Some may do it simply to get the reader to identify, while others may do it to give us a bit of insight into the dysfunctional life, regardless of weather we can relate or not. This was the case in Eugene ONeills classic play, Long Days Journey Into Night. In his work, he tries to show the reader that dysfunctional dynamics are not resulted from one, maladjusted member of the family, but rather the result of the defects and shortcomings of many if not all members of the family, each adding something to the cycle of defectiveness. He uses the nuclear familiar characters, Tyrone, Mary, and Jamie to illustrate this. One example would be the father of the household, James Tyrone. Tyrone has influence over the entire household. His first mistake is the way in which he always tries to protect or to boost the self-esteem of his wife, Mary, so as to avoid upsetting her. This does not help Mary in the long run. Another of Tyrones faults is the way that he always suspects, doubts, or disapproves of his son Jamie. Given, Jamie is a bum with no ambition, but Tyrone fails to see that constant criticism and debasing of Jamie only hurts the situation. One of these incidents can be found in act one, scene one: Tyrone and Mary are eating, and the boys are in the other room talking. They hear the boys laugh, and Tyrone heads straight for Jamie. Mary- Well, no matter what the joke is about, its a relief to hear Edmund laugh. Hes been so down in the mouth lately. Tyrone- Some joke of Jamies, Ill wager. Hes forever making sneering fun of somebody, that one. Rather that motivating or giving i...