In O’Neill’s play, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, there was no one particular character that caused more dysfunction in the family than another. They all contributed to the dysfunction in their own way. However, the character that seemed to stand out to me was Mary Tyrone. Mary’s addiction to morphine plays a large role in what causes the men in her family to drink so much. There are certainly other factors, but having a wife and mother with a drug addiction certainly makes the alcohol seem more like an escape from her. She is a source of dysfunction in the family because she lies to them about her drug abuse and refuses to see the truth of a situation.
Mary is also a source of dysfunction because she lives in her own fantasy world. She blames the other characters for not living up to her expectations. She believes that Jamie is a failure of a son who does not work and spends all of his money on alcohol and loose women. She warns Edmund that following his brother will ruin his life as well. However, she expects more from Edmund. She sees that he has more potential and puts all of her hopes on him succeeding. This, along with the fact that he is a replacement baby for his brother that she did not want, puts a serious strain on their relationship. Finally, Mary blames nearly all of the bad things in her life on Tyrone. She is constantly saying that it would have been better if they had never married and she had become a nun or piano player instead. She also blames him for her addiction to morphine because he was too cheap to get a good doctor. Finally, she says that it is Tyrone’s fault that they never had a “real” home like she dreamed of. All of these things that she puts on her husband and sons cause tension between the characters and dysfunction in the family.
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