55 pages • 1 hour read

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1956

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Act I

Act II, Scene 1

Act II, Scene 2

Act III

Act IV

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Fog

The fog in Long Day’s Journey into Night symbolizes the mix of inebriation and denial that the characters experience as they try to avoid the problems they face as individuals and as a family. Both Mary and Edmund explain the value of the fog, using the obscuring nature of fog as a representation of peace they seek in inebriation. When Edmund returns home at night, he tells Tyrone that he loved being in the fog, noting, “Halfway down the path you can’t see this house. You’d never know it was here” (123), revealing how the fog obscures the home from view, uncovering the symbolic meaning of denial in Edmund’s behavior. While he is out in the fog, not only can he not see the house where his troubles are centered, but he can pretend that those troubles do not exist. In the fog, he pretends he is “in another world where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself” (123), which is also the reason he, Jamie, and Tyrone drink so much alcohol. Like the fog, alcohol obscures their ability to reason with and confront the problems in their lives, allowing them to live in a fantasy where there are no pressing or longstanding issues of resentment and pain.

For Mary, the fog functions in the same way, noting that fog “hides you from the world and the world from you” (90), and, focusing on the self, saying, “No one can find or touch you any more” (90). While Edmund wants to escape in the fog for a while, Mary wants to live in the fog, where she will not have to face the judgment and criticism of her family, and she can pretend that she is still a young woman intent on becoming a nun. She achieves this fantasy through morphine, which functions in the same way as the fog to render Mary immune to the world around her. Crucially, the physical fog in the play recedes in the morning, then returns at night, following the pattern of the family’s inebriation. They wake up still in the fog of the previous night, focusing on the foghorn and trying to avoid their issues. Then, the fog is gone while the men go into town and focus on errands, and Mary ends up at home thinking about taking more morphine. By night, the fog is back in full force, and all four members of the family are inebriated.

Mary’s Fingers

When Mary was younger, she hoped to become a nun and a pianist, but now that she is older, she has developed rheumatism in her fingers that prevents her from playing the piano. Her fingers are the reason for her morphine addiction, both literally and figuratively. Her joint pain literally gives way to the medicine, but her fingers also figuratively encapsulated her hopes and dreams as a girl; now that they are unusable, she has no hope and retreats into the dreams allowed by morphine. Her fingers are a symbol of all that Mary has lost over the 36 years of marriage, most importantly, her ability to play the piano. It is implied that Mary would not be as lonely and dependent on inebriation if she were able to perform other tasks and take part in other activities, and it is entirely possible that she would find an outlet in music if her fingers were not knotted by rheumatism.

When Mary reenters the scene in Act IV, she plays a waltz, “done with a forgetful, stiff-fingered groping” (163), which merges the issues of morphine use, making her “forgetful,” and her rheumatism, making her “stiff-fingered.” Her inability to play the piano ruins her fantasy that she is still a young woman just out of high school, and the disruption leads her to explore her lost faith in the Blessed Virgin, as well as her lost time. While the morphine can mentally allow Mary to live in the past, her fingers are a reminder that she is in the present, along with the years of resentment and pain that she cannot confront. Her fingers, then, serve as a literal impediment to playing the piano, but they also represent the loss of Mary’s faith and potential that she can never reclaim.

Jamie Shrugging

Throughout the play, though most prominently in the first two Acts, Jamie shrugs his shoulders whenever the issues of the family develop in conversation. The shrug functions as a motif of hopelessness, which serves to characterize Jamie’s desire to mend his family’s problems and to highlight the deflection of the characters away from these problems. Early on, Jamie shrugs when his parents criticize him, as well as whenever Mary’s addiction might be discussed openly. As the play progresses, Jamie continues to shrug whenever Tyrone’s frugality becomes an issue, or when Jamie’s relationship with Edmund is questioned. The meaning of the shrug can be summed up in Jamie’s comment to Tyrone in Act I: “Oh, all right. I’m a fool to argue. You can’t change the leopard’s spots” (21). In shrugging, Jamie is trying to accept his own lack of efficacy, or ability to make meaningful change and progress, within his family. By taking a defeatist stance of being a “fool” for even trying to influence his family, Jamie is protecting himself from the disappointment of failure.

Critically, the idea of being unable to “change the leopard’s spots” is both a reference to Tyrone’s frugality and the state of the whole family. In Act IV, Jamie complains to Edmund that the hospital Edmund will go to is likely “another cheap dump” (151), but Edmund has already discussed this issue with Tyrone directly. When Edmund stops Jamie from continuing his complaints about Tyrone, Jamie shrugs again and tells Edmund, “It’s your funeral—I mean, I hope it won’t be” (151). The addition of Jamie’s hope that Edmund will not die due to Tyrone’s frugality marks a slight but significant shift in the dynamic of Jamie’s cynicism. Though he is still predominantly a cynic, marked by the “funeral,” he adds in a bit of hope that things might work out for the better. While the shrug is a reminder of Jamie’s lack of faith in himself and his family, it is also a performance of his desire to see meaningful change in the family that he simply does not think can affect himself.