Symbolism in Long Dayıs Journey into Night
Symbolism is used throughout OıNeillıs Long Dayıs Journey into Night, a portrayal of the authorıs life. The three prominent symbols, the fog, the foghorn, and Maryıs glasses,
represent the charactersı isolation from reality. The symbols in ³Long Dayıs Journey into Night² are used to substitute illusion for reality. Although Mary is the character
directly associated with living in illusion, all characters in the play try to hide from
the truth in their own ways. At the beginning of the second act, O'Neill notes a change in
setting which has taken place since the play opened. No sunlight comes into the room now and there is a faint haziness in the air. This haziness or fog obscures oneıs perception of the world, and it parallels the attempts of each member of the family to obscure or hide
reality. Tyrone, for example, drinks whiskey to escape his sonıs criticism of how cheap he
is. The reference to fog always has a double meaning in this play, referring both to the
atmosphere and to the family. Much of the activity carried on by the Tyrone family is
under-handed and sneaky, they are always attempting to put something over on somebody and
obscure the truth. This brings us to the second symbol, the foghorn. Mary says she loves
the fog because "it hides you from the world and the world from you," but she hates the
foghorns because they warn you and call you back². This escape is similiar to the morphine
she takes, and the foghorns are the familyıs warnings against her addictions. When they
discuss the mother, Edmund resents Jamie's hinting that she might have gone back to her old
habit; and Jamie is angry with Edmund for not staying with her all morning. Although they
both think that she has started using dope again, they don't want to have to admit it.
Because the men in the family all try so hard to deny the truth and to blame each other or
the mother for her affliction, it appears that they all feel some guilt and some
responsibility for what has happened to her , and to themselves. Even when confronted with
the truth (that the mother is using drugs), they all still try to act as if everything were
all right, to deny the reality and live in illusion. Maryıs glasses symbolize her inability
to see things clearly. She frequently misplaces them, and really doesnıt want to find them
because that would force her to face reality, which she desperately tries to hide from.
Hearing the mother moving around upstairs, Tyrone tells Edmund he shouldn't pay too much
attention to her tales of the past. The father says, "Remember she's not responsible," and
Edmund replies that it was the father's stinginess that's responsible. When Tyrone tells
Edmund to take the mother's comments about the past with a grain of salt, we see an example
of how two people can look at the same thing but "see" the thing very differently. The
mother considered her former home "wonderful," her father "noble," her convent days the
"happiest," her piano playing "outstanding," her desire to be a nun "sincere." But the
father says that she was mistaken, that she didn't see things as they really were. O'Neill
probably felt that these memories were the illusion the mother needed to make reality
tolerable; as she remarked earlier, her medicine kills the pain so she can go back to the
past when she was really happy. These symbols in this play were very effective; providing
the hazy atmosphere and confusion, or the obscured reality. They were integral parts of
the play, because they were the root of the familyıs conflict and confusion. O'Neill
rarely misses an opportunity to show in the conversation and action of the Tyrone family
the conflict which each feels internally regarding
the others. It appears that none of them can do or say anything without hurting the
others; usually on purpose.
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