Long Day's Journey Into Night

285 Words2 Pages
Actions Make the Difference “An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion, once stated this, meaning that realizing something is pointless unless one uses the realization to achieve or change a belief, idea, or goal. Acknowledgment and understanding mean little to nothing without taking a step and making a change. Eugene O’Neill’s play, Long Day’s Journey into Night, tells the true measures of Eugene and his dysfunctional family realize the events and/or actions of their past that cause dismal turns in the way each person lives his/her life and how the overall conclusion of it turns out. Throughout the course of a day, each of the characters discover his/her own faults that lead to the failure each member of the family now dwells in, but only one of them ultimately takes action to change even though they understand how it could potentially alter their lives dramatically. The play begins with the often drunk, money-saving husband and father of the family, Tyrone, talking with his wife and the mother of the family, Mary, who has just returned home from a rehabilitation center after receiving help to deal with her addiction to morphine that began 20 years earlier after her second son, Edmund, was born. Edmund grows up, he learns that he suffers from consumption, or tuberculosis, and begins to follow the drunken footsteps of his jealous, destructive older brother, Jamie, who sets out to bring down his brother. Each character recognizes the problem he or she has, however only one of the four takes any step towards bettering his-/her-
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