Throughout the play, Jamie influenced Edmund’s life by shaping his attitudes toward sex, alcohol, and literature. Jamie alludes to Edmund as his “Frankenstein”. Jamie also played a part in the death of Eugene, Mary’s second child. He gives him the measles while she traveled with her husband, James Tyrone. This situation reflects a real-life occurrence in Eugene O’Neill’s life when his mother Ella traveled with her husband, and left Jamie and Eugene. This all reflects a jealousy Jamie experienced with his younger sibling. “Beware of that brother of yours, or he’ll poison life for you with his damned sneering serpent’s tongue.”(O’Neill 111) Jamie inundates his brother Edmund with his vices. Although Edmund did make faulty decisions, he did have a plan for the future, unlike Jamie. O’Neill, like Edmund, had a vision and knew his sea voyages would help him escape Jamie’s “poison”. After returning from the sanatorium, Edmund cut himself off from Jamie which is what Jamie himself had advised. By severing the bond between them and pretending that Jamie was dead, Edmund could save himself (Hinden). This estrangement the author had with his brother put Edmund on the right path.
Eugene O’Neill uses Edmund was a surrogate in the play to help communicate the compassion he felt for both his brothers. “Wanted you to fail. Always jealous of you. Mama’s baby, Papa’s pet.” Jamie’s jealousy and revenge brought guilt upon Eugene. This may have been a reason why the writer took Edmund’s name; he felt bad and wanted to express a wish in which he should never have been born. Another reason may have been to acknowledge his debt to Jamie and repay his brother for giving him ample warning to escape his clutched (Hinden). “Think of me as dead—tell people, ‘I had a brother, but he’s dead.’” Jamie’s symbolic death was something Eugene felt guilty for and struggled accepting. And yet, another reason may well have been Eugene’s way of recognizing he played a part, like Jamie to Edmund, in his brother’s death. All of these reflect different feelings O’Neill felt about himself and about his brothers.
O’Neill’s writing conveys, although sometimes an unpleasant plot for readers, his life and his obstacles through his brother’s vicious ways and the replacement of his name with that of his late brother, Edmund. The struggles Mary Tyrone faced were similar to the ones Ella O’Neill had to embrace and accept. All their decisions, those of the Tyrone siblings, wife, and father were ones that came attached to consequences. Be it the death of Eugene, the symbolic death of Jamie, or the family itself, the results were ones that O’Neill experienced in his time period of the 1900s. His use of autobiographical elements gives readers a look into family life during this time. Due to the literal and symbolic deaths, the Tyrones and O’Neills were stuck in the past and unable to live in the present. Thus, these negative attitudes poisoned the play as well as the playwright’s life.
Bibliography
Hinden, Michael. “O’Neill and Jamie: a survivor’s tale.” Comparative Drama 35.3 (Fall 2001):
435(11). Academic OneFile. Gale. Lee County Library System. 21 Sept. 2008
<http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start,do?prodId=IPS>.
O'Neill, Eugene. Long Day's Journey Into Night. 2nd. USA: Yale University Press, 2002.
