The function of drugs in Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" and Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire"

Table of Contents

Table of  Contents  2

1.  Introduction  3

2.  The Importance of Drugs for the Individual Family Members in O Neill s Long Day s  

  Journey into Night  4

2.1  Tyrone  4

2.2  Jamie  5

2.3  Edmund  6

2.4  Mary  7

2.5  Cathleen  8

3.  The Function of Alcohol for the Two Main Protagonists in Williams A Streetcar  

  Named Desire  9

3.1  Stanley Kowalski  9

3.2  Blanche DuBois  10

4.  Comparison of the Function of Drugs in both Plays: Similarities and Differences  11

5.  Conclusion  12

6.  Bibliography  13

1. Introduction

The two plays Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams can be seen as two of the most successful and respected plays of American Modernism.

Besides other similarities, both plays deal, more or less obviously with the consumption of alcohol and - in case of Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night - drugs.

This paper’s matter is to find out what function drinking or the consumption of other drugs have for the characters of the two plays. This question could also be interesting looking at the authors: O’Neill’s play has very many parallels to his own life and also Williams admitted that he is to be found in the character of Blanche DuBois to a certain extend.

To find psychological backgrounds I used the book Familienproblem Alkohol by Sylvia Berke, which gave me a lot of information about functions that drugs can have for an addict and about how the familiar sphere of the addict can cope with the problem.

I also used Steven F. Bloom’s article “Empty Bottles, Empty Dreams: O’Neill’s Use of Drinking and Alcoholism in Long Day’s Journey Into Night” which brought a lot of thesis into my paper and Robert Brustein’s article “The Journey into the Past“. I was not able to find literature specialized on drinking in A Streetcar Named Desire, so I had to find thesis in other papers on the play. For this purpose I used Elia Kazan’s “Notebook for A Streetcar Named Desire“.

I will analyze all characters of O’Neill’s play, but will limit myself to the characters of Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois of Williams’ play.

For every character, I will try to give a general survey of his or her drinking habits and afterwards I attempted to analyze what function alcohol or drugs have for him or her. In the comparison I want to give an overview of similarities and differences according to the function of drugs in the two plays and for the characters.

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2. The Importance of Drugs for the Individual Family Members in O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night The abuse of drugs and alcohol in Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographically detached drama Long Day’s Journey into Night has different functions for every individual family member.

Though all the family tries to deny that there is a problem with drugs or alcohol, in the later scenes of the play it becomes very obvious that almost every member of the Tyrone family has a serious problem with addictive substances. That this denial is going on for a long time in the family is very evident when one looks at the patterns of communication which seem to be always the same: ”I could see that line coming! God, how many thousand times -! (He stops, bored with their quarrel, and shrugs his shoulders.)” 1 . It is also only possible for the men of the Tyrone family to have a real conversation where they don’t have to accuse one another the whole time but are free to speak even if this means to blame themselves. 2

2.1 Tyrone

James Tyrone used to be a very famous actor who was often touring through the country. Out of Mary’s memories one learns that Tyrone always used to drink: “Always a bottle on the bureau in the cheap hotel rooms!” (LDJ, 122). It is evident that with Tyrone, drinking had at the time of his young actor life, when he was just married to Mary, a social function. He used to go out with his “barroom friends” (LDJ, 124) as Mary calls them and to return to drunk to find his way to the “ugly hotel rooms” (LDJ, 125) by himself.

Now, in his older days, Tyrone usually has a drink before lunch as an appetizer: “It’s before a meal and I’ve always found that good whiskey, taken in moderation as an appetizer, is the best of tonics.” (LDJ, 72). But he also uses to drink when he “hobnob[s] with men at the Club or in a barroom” (LDJ, 51). At the end of the play, Tyrone is drunk (“He is drunk and shows it by the owlish, deliberate manner in which he peers at each card to make certain of its identity” LDJ, 137) and from Mary’s remark it becomes obvious that this is probably quite likely to happen oft: “I know what to expect. You will be drunk tonight. Well it won’t be the first time, will it - or the thousandth?” (LDJ, 76).

¹ Eugene O‘Neill, Long Day‘s Journey into Night, p.37. Quotes from this book will from now on be referred to as LDJ,

² Steven F. Bloom, Empty Bottles, Empty Dreams: O‘Neill‘s Use of Drinking and Alcoholism in Long Day‘s Journey Into Night

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