The setting of the story is as crucial to the overall ebb and flow of the work than any character, occurrence, or dialogue could ever be. Setting captures the reader not allowing he or she to break from the mental landscape being created deep inside their minds. Long Day’s Journey Into Night author Eugene O’Neill exemplifies the use of setting in his work as a vehicle to enhance his depiction of his characters, the plot, and the overall theme of the work. The setting in O’Neill’s work goes beyond just a place and a time and instead captivates the reader or listener in a complete soul body and mind experience that goes well beyond the realms of basic literature.
O’Neill employs many setting scenarios in order to progress his characters throughout the play. The work takes place inside of the Tyrone family’s “summer home”. The “summer home” as it is called in the work is not a large dwelling and is often snubbed by Mary for its lack of size and quality. O’Neill employs the house under different pretense than anyone else using it as a symbol of the impermanent state of the Tyrone family. As the reader finds out through the work the family only frequents their summer home for a short time each year and throughout the remainder of the year stay in shoddy hotels across America. This temporary state of being also extends somewhat to the relationship between Mary and James Tyrone which has become strained even further due to James’ refusal to buy a more permanent residence for his family and become a permanent father and husband. Other setting factors are used by the author to advance and sculpt his characters, fog is one of the great setting devices used throughout all of literature and its use in the work is an integral part of the overall book. At periodic times throughout the work a fog will roll into the scene. This haze is extremely symbolic due to the fact that at most times the Tyrone family is in a mental haze themselves. Whether it be drug or alcohol induced, the stupor that the Tyrone’s often find themselves in essentially “fogs” their ability to see one another for who they truly are. Instead, the family is forced into bickering with the only people they love because of the inordinate amounts of stress and loneliness, which only perpetuates the overall feeling that each and every member of the Tyrone family is becoming lost in their own mental fog (which has been manifested in the work as a physical obstruction).
The setting of this work not only influences the characters but the plot as well. Darkness is a reoccurring theme throughout the play and is coincidentally tied in directly with the setting in the work. Darkness begins to make its presence felt with the existence of fog but it is never truly catalyzed into a prominent setting figure until the day draws into the twilight hours. As night falls the Tyrone’s sit in almost complete darkness thanks to James’ refusal to “waste” money on electricity. The impending darkness is symbolic of how the entire family as a whole is now functioning. As the day has wore on the characters have become more and more aloof, some thanks to substances while others just from the stress of the day. While they sit in darkness some of the most profound moments in the play begin to happen. “The looming darkness acts as a decisive moment in the work as a whole and goes a long way in lamenting the overall fate of the Tyrone family…” notes John H. Raleigh in The Plays of Eugene O ‘Neill. Raleigh’s observations back a theory that O’Neill utilizes darkness to bring out the most primal emotions of his characters and to illustrate the true colors of James Tyrone who from this point in the work forward must be viewed as a contemptible and calculating man.
It is clear that the setting of the play is crucial to both the development of characters and the exposition of the plot sequence but perhaps to none is it more vital than to the thematic development of the book. Although several themes exist in the work they all share common ground in the fact that the setting extenuates them. The most apparent thematic element being tied to the setting of the work is regret. All of the main characters show regret in a varying level of degree. Mary is overtaken by regret for almost the entirety of the play forcing her weak persona to turn to the use of drugs to compensate for her longing for a better life. O’Neill manifests this abstract idea into his setting without ever calling attention to it from the reader. Darkness and fog are both setting components that help to author the overall theme of regret through the play. The examples do not stop with Mary however; almost all of the Tyrone family is stricken by addiction to substances that help to disguise their real thoughts and feelings. Darkness and fog are used to show the inability for the family to “see through” the tribulations they face and instead their choice to turn inward and forsake their fellow kin.
Despite setting often being overlooked in the grand scheme of a work it is indeed one of the most critical components of any literary piece. Whether it be understated or glaringly obvious the setting put forth by Eugene O’Neill directly influences the characters, plot, and thematic elements of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The masterful use of symbolic elements in the actual setting of the work causes them to go widely unnoticed by the untrained eye and thus, when caught add a greater dimension to the overall mystique of the piece itself. There is no question that without O’Neill’s expert use of setting components the overall meaning of the work would have been lost amongst the dialogue, instead Long Day’s Journey Into Night goes down in history as the greatest work of a legendary playwright.
Works Cited
- John Henry Raleigh. The Plays of Eugene O'Neill. Edition. 1. N.p.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965.
