Tolstoy said that happy families are all similar, and unhappy families have their own misfortunes. Under each roof there are intertwined relationships and secrets of love and hatred. The famous American playwright Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece "The Long Night" tells the story of the secret of love and hatred in the family.
Eugene O'Neill is a monument in the history of American theater. He created nearly 50 plays in his lifetime, and the most important theme is the distortion of people's personality under external pressure, and even the process of personality splitting. In 1936, O'Neill became the only playwright of the 20th century to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Completed in 1941, his autobiographical work The Long Night is considered O'Neill's most accomplished play, setting a record for 565 consecutive performances. It is worth mentioning that this great play was performed 3 years after his death, and won the author's fourth Pulitzer Prize for Drama the following year.
The Long Night is a four-act play about the Tyrone family's life from morning to midnight on a day in August 1912. The youngest son, Edmund, was diagnosed with lung disease, and his mother, Mary, had just returned from a nursing home from a drug addiction. The two people who endured the pain gradually involved the father Tyrone and the eldest son Jerry, and the atmosphere between the four family members gradually became tense, they blamed each other, complained about each other, and fell into guilt and repentance at the same time, reflecting the continuous cycle of love and hate between the family, complaining and forgiving, expressing the hopelessness of life and the hope that flickered in hopelessness.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > a true restoration of O'Neill's original family</h1>
In the late summer of 1939, O'Neill began writing the script for the autobiographical play The Long Night, and he was determined to reveal the ulterior secrets that had taken place in his home.
In the theater world, it's hard to find an author who writes his story into a script, and O'Neill was the first. As the saying goes, the ugliness of the family cannot be publicized, but O'Neill wants to record the miserly father, the drug-addicted mother, the alcoholic brother and the sick self in real life without tampering. This made him very miserable, but he was biased to do it.
What makes O'Neill so tormented? It starts with his upbringing.
O'Neill's father was an actor who once starred in Shakespeare's plays with his handsome looks. But because he had no education, he could only work as a low-paid extra. Her mother, Ella, came from a large family, and in order to pursue romantic love, she followed her husband, who was 14 years older than herself, and lived a poor life. When O'Neill was born, his mother had difficulty giving birth, and in order to save money, his father hired a quack doctor to inject his mother with morphine to relieve pain, which led to his mother's drug addiction.
O'Neill had an older brother, but the brothers were not close. The older brother is talented, but he always resents O'Neill's birth and steals the little love from his mother, so he willingly degenerates and eats, drinks, and gambles. O'Neill has been frail since childhood, and since he was a child, he has followed his father, who is an actor, touring everywhere, living in a stable place, in order to live, he also went abroad as a sailor, and as a result, he contracted tuberculosis. Because of poverty, every relationship he has not been smooth.
After becoming a family, O'Neill still did not get rid of the unfortunate fate, his eldest son is a university professor, has a good future, but because of alcoholism caused by mental disorders and committed suicide, the younger son was addicted to drugs when he was underage, and the daughter was privately engaged with the already elderly Chaplin at the age of 18, because O'Neill firmly opposed, the daughter did not hesitate to break off the father-daughter relationship with him. It can be said that from beginning to end, O'Neill's family has always been full of tragedies. They were like being tied to a directionless boat, aimlessly drifting from the long day to the long night.
In old age, O'Neill's health was extremely poor, and he had insomnia all night, and he often woke up his wife and confided that he was tormented by past memories, so he had to write this story. Of this experience, O'Neill's wife put it this way: "On June 21, 1939, it was sweltering all night and I couldn't sleep. Eugene spoke to me for hours about plans to write a play about his parents, his father and brother, and himself. "Those pasts are at work in the depths of his soul, forcing him to write, or he will never find peace." In order to write this work, he endured daily torture. When he came out of the study at night, he described himself as haggard, sometimes sobbing, his eyes red and swollen, and he seemed to be 10 years older than when he entered the study in the morning.
O'Neill tries to reflect on his family relationships by portraying the characters in the script. He portrayed four main characters in The Long Night: James Tyrone, his wife Mary, the eldest son Jamie and the youngest son Edmund. Four people entangled, accusing and complaining to each other, and then deeply repenting, they are always shrouded in despair and self-blame and hatred, the so-called "family" is not a haven at all, but a bottomless abyss, everyone feels that they have been wronged, but they understand that they owe something to this family. They hurt each other with the most mean words and then regret it. Whenever a problem occurs, they scramble to shift the blame to someone else. They talk to each other but never listen, so they always break up. It is these unresolved love-hate feelings that have led to the family's tragic fate.
On September 20, 1940, the script was completed. O'Neill was not relieved, but more hesitant than before. Hesitantly, he decided to give the manuscript to Langdon Books for sealing, repeatedly telling him that he would not publish it until the 25th anniversary of his death.
Thirteen years later, O'Neill died. After another 3 years, O'Neill's wife decided to publish the script. In recognition of Sweden for awarding Neil the Nobel Prize in Literature, she gave the premiere to the Royal Swedish Theatre in Stockholm, where the King and Queen of Sweden watched the premiere. As he himself said, it was a work of blood and tears. The four-hour-long stage play shook all the audiences, and one critic even said: "The Long Night" is the most influential realist play of the century, and its power comes from the tear-jerking reality.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > home is the source of all troubles</h1>
On the surface, the Tyrone family is very decent: middle class, rich and idle, husband and wife, excellent son. In fact, hidden under the false surface of this family is a difficult survival dilemma.
The 65-year-old Tyrone is a popular actor who invested in a play a few years ago, for which he performed all over the country, and the whole family followed him everywhere. He was more skilled in buying and selling land and made some money, but his wife Mary did not think that their lives were rich, but on the contrary, she felt that her husband was a miser, preferring to invest money in the land rather than buy a fixed house for his family. The idea of her friends living in a decent house made Mary grumble, and she couldn't help but complain to her sons at the thought of her friends living in decent houses: "Everything is so simple and shabby, your father never wants to spend money to tidy up this place." ”
With no fixed shelter, Mary had to leave her second child in the care of her mother, but she died of measles. Mary was devastated and blamed all this on her husband's dereliction of duty. "Life makes me realize that if I want my children to have a career, I have to let them be born in a decent home; a woman who wants to be a good mother must also have a decent home." 」 In Mary's view, Tyrone did not give them a decent home, which is the root of all tragedies, and if they had a stable residence, then all problems would be solved.
Aside from the problem of the house, what makes Mary even more resentful is Tyrone's miserliness in his treatment of his family. Mary had difficulty giving birth to her youngest son, Edmund, which led to the illness. In order to save money, Tiron found a quack doctor to inject Mary with morphine, which caused her to become addicted. With his wife's lesson, Tyrone did not learn his lesson, and because of the same way to deal with the tuberculosis of his younger son Edmund. After confirming Edmund's condition, Tyrone decided to send him to a state second-rate nursing home, much to Edmund's infuriation, and a violent quarrel between father and son caused.
Edmund was not in good health, coughed frequently, and had a poor appetite, which made Mary very worried. There was a time when Mary managed to quit her addiction, but it didn't last long, and when she learned that Edmund had a lung disease and needed to be hospitalized, she began to use drugs to escape reality. It is precisely because of Mary's excessive attention to the younger son that the eldest son Jamie feels that he is neglected, so he began to brush up on the sense of existence with alcoholism, and even induced his brother to borrow wine to pour sorrow. At first, the school expressed regret that such a child with good character and excellent character began to drink heavily, and even wrote letters to his parents to express his apologies, but later saw that he was idle and did not know how to make progress, and gradually gave up on him.
At this time, Jamie was 33 years old, but he never had the idea of starting a family, and he ate, drank and played all day without making progress, which made Tyrone extremely disappointed. Annoyed with Jamie and unable to watch him wander the streets, he assigns Jamie a position in the theater without his son's understanding and thanks. In fact, Jamie is sensitive at heart, his cynicism is actually escaping reality, and whenever his father praises him, he always shifts the subject and takes care of him. His mother also always spoke harshly to him, which caused him deep harm. Edmund, on the other hand, is a being who wanders outside the family, suffering from his mother's addiction, hating his father's miserliness, and sneering at his brother's depravity, so every time he appears, he causes a quarrel.
It can be seen that despite the success of his career, Tyrone's life is not comfortable, the seeming separation between family members makes him more stressed, and his hysterical wife makes him miserable during the onset of drug addiction, so he pays more attention to substances and goes out to drink all day. He ignored his wife's suffering and was helpless against his son's depravity. Arguably, Tyrone and Mary were neither happy nor successful parents. They all love their son, but because the expression is not correct, each expression will end in a quarrel.
In "The Long Night", every family member is struggling in the dilemma of survival, they are all losers in the arena of life, in the face of sharp contradictions, they invariably choose an attitude of avoidance, they do not have hope for themselves, and they no longer pursue life. This is the author O'Neill's examination and reflection on the family. He wrote deep thoughts about life into his works, although they could not solve any problems, but those past glories, and sincere love for their loved ones, are their hopeless hopes in life.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > melancholy imagery shrouded in the work</h1>
There are three elements that run through the whole process of "The Long Night", namely fog, fog flute and wine. These three elements symbolize something different from each other.
The thick fog symbolizes a hopeless future and the barrier between people. In the work, the thick fog always hangs over the Tyrone family, laying a dark and nihilistic tone for the whole work. When Mary was poisoned again, Tyrone said disheartenedly, "Yes, I said it too early, I'm afraid we'll have to run into fog." Edmund said, "I like to be in the fog, and my whole life is covered up, as if I were a ghost in the fog." "Under the cover of the fog, all the pain in the world seems dull, the long night is long, the future is uncertain, and only the fog can make this family breathe a little in the heavy life.
The four members of the Tyrone family are duplicitous, have a deep love for their family in their hearts, and are eager to get their attention, but they always expose scars to each other and use their thorns to defend others; they are in the fog, more like bystanders outside of life.
The fog flute is also an element that runs through the work. Whenever Mary was immersed in the fog and fell into fantasy to escape reality, the fog flute would sound at the right time, so Mary said, "I hate the fog flute, it makes you unsure." It always reminds you, warns you, and calls you back to the real world. "The fog flute is low and gentle, like the death knell of fate, alerting Mary, so that she can face life squarely, do not fall into the memories of the past and the escape from the present, spur Mary back to reality, so as to achieve self-redemption in the struggle."
Everyone in the Tyrone family has hobbies. Mary was obsessed with morphine, and Tyrone and his two sons were obsessed with wine. They couldn't stand Mary's drug use, but they themselves indulged in hard liquor. Tyrone was fed up with not having money, so he preferred to spend all his money on investment and spend a penny more on his sick family. To himself, he is even more stingy, more than ten years as a day without changing clothes, he thinks that he is not wrong to do so, and he has never thought of changing, in the face of the incomprehension of his wife and children, he can only rely on alcohol, trying to find spiritual sustenance in the tavern.
The two sons also have their own troubles, and they pour out their sorrows with wine without exception, so that when they meet together, they are always drunk, and alcohol controls their will, making them do not give in to each other, tit-for-tat, and make everything worse.
These three intentions embody O'Neill's reflections on love and affection. O'Neill's love life is very bumpy, he sympathizes with his mother, this poor woman who was originally smooth sailing but was displaced for half a life because she loved the wrong person affected O'Neill's concept of love, making him always have a skeptical attitude towards love. He was married three times, but always resisted love, and finally died in the hotel. He spent his whole life looking for a sense of a steady "home", but it did not materialize until the end.
In "The Long Night", family affection is also a luxury, whether it is the affection between parents and sons, or the brotherhood between Jerry and Edmund, it is a complex emotion of love and killing. They both love their loved ones deeply, and at the same time torture each other with harsh words, hurt and then fall into deep self-blame.
The reason why there is such an emotional embodiment is because it is this kind of family affection that O'Neill felt in the environment in which he grew up. O'Neill longs for the intimate care of his parents, and also hopes to be understood and loved by his brothers, but this kind of affection, which seems normal to ordinary people, is something that the O'Neill family cannot afford. Therefore, he set up thick fog, fog flutes and spirits in his works, trying to explain the unfortunate encounters in his life for objective reasons, which can also be regarded as O'Neill's redemption of himself.
In any case, "The Long Night" is great, and the separation and love between the family it writes about is still thought-provoking today, decades later.