Controllable Fate: A Refutation of Mary’s attitude in Long Day’s Journey into Night Anonymous College

During the long day that occurs throughout Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill, the members of the Tyrone family struggle with happenings of the present because of their incapableness to move forward from occurrences of the past. For example, Mary Tyrone, the wife of James Tyrone, struggles to live in tranquility during the present due to her morphine addiction that began in the past. As early as the first act of O’Neill’s play, Tyrone introduces audiences to Mary’s struggle in the present by declaring her “bit of high-strung” (O’Neill 5) behavior that is influenced by her drug use, which was initiated from a previous medically administered morphine dosage during her child labor. Mary faces an ongoing struggle to accept both her past and present, and says, “None of us can help the things life has done to us. They’re done before you realize it, and once they’re done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever” (O’Neill). Mary’s biggest challenge, dealing with her morphine addiction, is something that has indeed changed her true self from what she would like to be, however her statement does not fully apply to her or her...