Write an essay (minimum of three pages - space and a half, Times font, size 14) on any of the following themes from Long Day’s Journey Into Night. If you feel another theme is appropriate, that is fine. Please run it by me first, though.
Your essay will be graded primarily on the depth of thought demonstrated and on your ability to communicate with me how this play made you think, or how it might even possibly alter your view of life.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of essay themes:
- Escape (discuss the escapes of the four main characters and your own, if you wish)
Cruelty within a family (you might look at all the cruel statements made and then the mostly futile attempts at retraction)
Dysfunctional family
Sibling rivalry
Alcoholism and its deleterious effects
Drug addiction and the harm it causes the indivual and the family
Being a cheap skate
Love/hate relationships
Living in the past
The kind of person who would choose acting as a career
The Oedipal Complex
Guilt and shame
Blaming others for one's own problems
Scapegoating
Guilt and/or death wish
Co-dependence
"In vino veritas" - do you agree or disagree?
The use of time in the play
The use of symbols (fog, night, wedding dress, light bulbs, creaking floor, foghorn)
Research paper (on malaria, TB, Edwin Booth, Eugene O'Neill, James O’Neill, etc.)
If you wish to visit Tao House, let me know, and I will give you an extra two weeks to write your essay, but you must also include a description of your visit and how it affected you. Similarly, if you chose to read another O'Neill play (e.g. "A Moon for the Misbegotten," "The Iceman Cometh," "The Hairy Ape," "Emperor Jones," "Strange Interlude," "Mourning Becomes Electra," "Ah! Wilderness," etc.), I will give you an extra two weeks. You must then conference with me about that play and write an essay on it. We will discuss the theme you should write about.
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