Hypnopaedia

We all too often forget ourselves in the past or even in the future, neglecting to realize what we have in the present moment. LIFE IS HERE AND NOW. Don't dwell on the things you've done. Don't worry about what's to come. Take what you've got and run with it. The pictures in this piece of visual hypnopaedia capture moments in time; you might miss them if you blink. The music talks about the importance of capturing such a moment in time so that you never forget what you had. There is no better time to make things happen than NOW. Don't let life pass you by. Don't hesitate now, you might have regrets about it in the future. But don't worry about that now. Just do it. Live in the present moment. Life is here and now.

My Ford, my mind...

For me, he’s all I see.
Not even an invitation to a feely will distract me.
I do not know what it’s like to have someone real like him--
And I desperately want to know, I do.
It’s all I think about.
This is probably a good time to take some soma
And relax. A gramme is always better than a damn!
And if I’ve ever had a damn, it can’t be worse than never having him.
Now I’ll know what to do.

The soma makes me act
And I go to him
And he comes to me
And he speaks of forever!
Forever! Together!
Do such things truly occur?
Never mind; all I want is the here and now
(After all, never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today!)
And I’m here
And it’s now
And he’s here, and so now--

One hit from his hand and I’m down.

For all of his acting as though he does not want me,
All the others more than make up for it with their gazes and their dates.
But, really? It doesn’t matter nearly as much as when he looks at me.
I am just an object for pleasure in their eyes
(But he really sees ME! My Ford, what a thought)
I bounce back and forth between them.
I do enjoy this, I do!
All of them the very best of men.
It’s very respectable, having had more of them than I can count.
Yet something is always missing.
A gramme is always better than a damn,
But do I really deserve nothing better than this or that man?
I stay with one for some time and others begin to notice
And so I move on in search of the next best thing.

When I have found something real
In someone who is even more real
He runs from me.
My ways, they scare him.
But reality, I think it scares me, too. (Soma takes care of that.)
It’s not really my fault, it’s just a result of my conditioning.
I try to make myself available
In every way I know how
But I frighten him
If I don’t make it obvious that I love him,
How else can he see?

Will he take me back?
Will he, will he please?
I make a grand gesture and walk to him with open arms
And he brings me down again.

Since his promises of forever eventually fell...
maybe nothing is really forever, after all.
I mean, that’s what I always thought anyway.
Right?

-Lenina Crowne

Allusion Paragraph

In Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, the character Cass Mastern is representative of of the Greek legend Cassandra. Cassandra, who had the power to tell the future, is relative to Mastern as his journals serve as a startling message to his descendant Jack Burden. Mastern states that his single act of sin committed with Annabelle Trice upset the fabric of his entire world; because of it, his best friend died and the innocent slave, Phebe, was sold into an unknown future. Jack Burden feels that perhaps he did not finish his analysis of Mastern's journals "because he was afraid to understand for what might be understood there was a reproach to him." These journals serve as foresight to Burden's future as he witnessed the results of his actions in the deaths of Judge Irwin, Adam Stanton, and Willie Stark. Jack's relationship with Judge Irwin had once been fatherly, but changed when Jack uncovered the Judge's splotchy past under the orders of Willie Stark. Jack does not see Judge Irwin as a hero at all times, although the man had attempted to have a fatherly relationship with his biological son. The Greek character Telemachus is abandoned by his father and does not recognize him upon his reappearance; similarly, Jack is left behind by the Scholarly Attorney at a young age and later realizes that he must find the answer to the question, "Who is my father?" before he can answer it in regards to himself.

some slick stone (found poem)

the definitive stab of an icicle
dents the constituency, the very heart of its people
driven, needle-pointed, sent forth with a goal of hatred
it gestures like a delicate distraction--
flushing all again with a tint like blood

the human being is a very complicated contraption:
shining like clean bright gold,
treacherous like some slick stone
a person peeled skinless with the nerves laid bare
defines the narrow category of guilt versus innocence in this game

deep-set blue eyes, blazing like pale ice as he lies
are an untidy blue serge in the souls of the people
he pours upon them words like so much cold, cathartic rain
wiping them clean of all true conviction,
forming humanity into a great mass of uncreated clay

they stare, faces as smooth as marble--

and as emotionless as some slick stone.

Long Day's Journey Into Night Theme Card

QUOTES:
-“It’s the foghorn I hate. It won’t let you alone. It keeps reminding you, and warning you, and calling you back.” -Mary Tyrone, pg. 101
-“No, I know you can’t help thinking it’s a home.” -Mary Tyrone in reference to James and the Tao House, pg. 77
-“Oh, we all realize why you like him [Dr. Hardy], James! Because he’s cheap!” -Mary Tyrone, pg. 76
-”A stinking old miser. Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe I can’t help being, although all my life since I had anything I’ve thrown money over the bar to buy drinks for everyone in the house, or loaned money to sponges I knew would never pay it back--.” -James Tyrone, pg. 149
-”It would be like a curse she can’t escape if worry over Edmund--It was in her long sickness after bringing him into the world that she first--.” -James Tyrone, pg. 39
VEHICLES:
-paradox between James and Jamie in their father-son relationship, similarities
-symbolism of Tao House: representative of James’s cheapness, the tentativeness of the Tyrones’ home situation
-setting: is at root of many of Mary’s problems, family’s dysfunctions (temporary housing, darkness)
-allusion: Tyrone’s constant allusions to Shakespeare in relation to his sons shows that he thinks of them as failures and that he wishes they’d turned out differently; he thinks they are wasting their lives and becoming nothing.
CONFLICTS:
-James and Jamie constantly butt head because they are too much alike; James sees the negative aspects of his character in his son, and Jamie sees very little to live up to in his father.
-Mary is resentful towards James because falling in love with him is what kept her from achieving her dream of being either a nun or a concert pianist.
-Edmund is bitter towards James because his frugality made his mother sick and threatens to kill him if James won’t pay to send him to a good sanitorium.
SUBJECTS:
-vacillation
-blame
-regret
THEMES:
-The dysfunctions of a family as a result of inter-relational conflicts harms the members of that family and leads them down a path of uncertainty, regret, and blame.
-People who are unable to move out of the past due to regret will experience feelings of hopelessness and failure that will keep them from succeeding in life.
PLOT LINE SUMMARY:
The Tyrone family experiences much turmoil when its matriarch, Mary, becomes ill again; she is a morphine addict and has relapsed. A cycle of blame results: the family blames James, the patriarch, and his penny-pinching ways for sending Mary to a cheap sanitorium when her illness first surfaced after the birth of Edmund; the family members subconsciously blame Edmund for causing Mary’s illness, but refrain from truly allowing themselves to believe that because it is unfair; Jamie and Edmund blame their father for not setting a good example for them; and Mary blames James for keeping her from realizing her true potential in life.
TITLE SIGNIFICANCE:
The title embodies the fact that the entire story takes place over one day; the Tyrones’ hope fades into blackness as quickly as the day fades into night.
MAJOR CHARACTERS:
-James Tyrone
-Mary Tyrone
-Jamie Tyrone
-Edmund Tyrone

Long Day's Journey into Night: Setting & Paradox

In O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, setting plays an integral role in the dynamics of the Tyrone family. James Tyrone is always too cheap to purchase a home for his family, so they travel from cheap hotel to cheap hotel, spending the summers in the Tao House. This constant sense of upheaval and temporary stays leaves Mary Tyrone feeling as if she never has a home. It creates yet another point of contention between her and James; his frugality has not only affected his family health-wise, but mentally as well. The darkness of the Tao House due to James’s constant extinguishing of the lights to save money is representative of the feelings of each member of the Tyrone family. They are depressed, trapped in a never-ending cycle of disappointment, and do not see any light at the end of the tunnel to provide them with hope. James has always been miserly, even when it comes to the health and well-being of his wife and children, and he always will be. Mary sees herself as a failure and feels that her time to change has passed her by. Jamie and Edmund do not have any example from their father to live up to and feel like failures even as young men. In these ways, the tentativeness and darkness of the Tyrone family’s housing situation are the root causes of much of their discontentment in life.

O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night contains a strong paradox between James Tyrone and his elder son, Jamie. As James’s son, and especially as his first son and namesake, Jamie feels the need to live up to his father and even exceed his success, yet he has very little to aspire to. James’s various failures and shortcomings give Jamie very little hope for his own future since he is so much like his father; it is this very similarity that causes so much disagreement and turmoil between the two. James sees his son following the same path as he did, and does not wish to see this replication of himself as it brings him shame and regret. These feelings of failure and hopelessness lead both men to see in the other what they do not want to be; even as that is their reality, they are not able to face it.

Long Day's Journey Into Night Mini Research Paper

Authors often choose to focus their works on events that have occurred in their own lives in order to record their experiences. They can make sense of them by writing them out, and portray the events in the context of a character’s life. Authors who choose to do this have usually lived through situations which are difficult or remarkable in some way, and that are easily related to by readers who may find themselves in the same place. Eugene O’Neill lived a life of instability and difficulties which doubtlessly led him to his life as writer and, therefore, to the autobiographical writing in his play Long Day’s Journey Into Night, in which O’Neill portrays a day in the life of the Tyrone family. The Tyrones are modeled after O’Neill’s family, with James and Mary Tyrone representing his parents and their children representing himself in various ways.
O’Neill’s presence in his work is not outright, but easily implied through the experiences of his characters. He is seen as portraying himself in two different ways throughout the play: as his older self, viewing from afar, and his younger self, symbolized by Edmund Tyrone (Mann). The purpose of this dual existence is to unite and reconcile the older O’Neill with his younger self. Edmund Tyrone’s very existence and role in his family is representative of those of O’Neill; he is responsible for his mother’s relapse into illness and drug use, and as the author, too had a drug-addicted mother, readers may infer that he carries some guilt for her problems. Just as Mary’s issues influenced Edmund, so too did those of O’Neill’s mother influence her son; his very view of life and the human condition were shaped by her suffering, which in turn influenced his writing.
In the play, O’Neill is an “unseen narrator” (Mann) who, as an adult, shifts his view of his family. While growing up under their influence, he saw himself as their victim; as a more mature, experienced adult, O’Neill sees that they, in fact, were victims of fate itself and that his early life led to his later career (Mann). James O’Neill, father of the author, is a miserly actor whose actions and principles convinced his son to subscribe to and maintain his own parameters in relation to his writing; he is represented in the play by James Tyrone. O’Neill had an older brother who was self-destructive and introduced his younger brother to the influential writings of controversial figures at the time, much like Jamie Tyrone. The suffering of O’Neill’s drug-addicted mother shaped his opinions on human life as a somewhat negative experience; the shortcomings of Mary Tyrone has a similar effect on her children (Mann).
The actions and behaviors of each of the Tyrones has an effect on every other member of the family. Edmund’s birth led to Mary’s sickness, James’s miserly ways led to her morphine addiction, James’s bad example led to his son Jamie’s discontentment with his life and the fact that he has nothing to live up to; all of these feelings coalesce to create a dysfunctional, discontented family unit made up of people who blame each other for their problems. Edmund blames his father’s cheapness for Mary’s addiction by accusing him: “It never should have gotten a hold on her! I know damned well she's not to blame! And I know who is! You are! Your damned stinginess! If you'd spent money for a decent doctor when she was so sick after I was born, she'd never have known morphine existed!” (O’Neill 140). The fact that O’Neill’s parents fit the same descriptions as James and Mary Tyrone leads readers to conclude that O’Neill himself places the same blame on his own father for his mother’s addiction. It is through the author’s blatant representation of his own family members by the Tyrones that readers are able to infer the more private issues of the family through those that of the Tyrones. Mary’s addiction to drugs led Edmund to his feelings of loneliness and his desire of solitude, as expressed through his being “dissolved in the sea” (O’Neill 156) much as O’Neill’s mother’s addiction led him to those same conclusions about abandonment and loneliness, a representation of the human condition and recognition of human limitations and shortcomings (Mann).
O’Neill’s usage of his play as a portrayal of his own life is effective as it centers on a theme of human suffering. This theme is universal to all people and easy for leaders to relate to; it is easy for readers to sympathize with the characters and, therefore, the author himself. As O’Neill’s presence in the work is implied as being that of a narrator or observer, readers understand that he has come to peace with the events of his life. He is able to separate himself from them enough to objectify them as the happenings of another family, though they are directly based on those of his own. O’Neill’s comprehension of the events that led his parents to their situations in life and the way he allowed them to shape his own life gives people hope for letting negative experiences lead to positive outcomes.












Works Cited

Mann, Bruce J. "O'Neill's 'Presence' in Long Day's Journey into Night." Theatre Annual. 43.(1988) 15-30. Rpt. in Drama Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 15-30. Literature Resource Center. Gale. LEE COUNTY LIBRARY SYSTEM. 21 Sept. 2008
.

O'Neill, Eugene, and Harold Bloom. Long Day's Journey into Night. New York: Yale UP, 2002.