Long Day's Journey into Night

The number of pages was overwhelming to look at but I thought the story was an easy read. It was a very interesting story overall because there was a lot of turmoil and drama with Mary who is addicted to Morphine was sent to a sanatorium for treatment. This ultimately doesn’t help her though to the disappointment to her family. Then Edmund has tuberculosis, so this family has gone through a lot in a short amount of time.

The main theme throughout the story was this family not being able to let go of the past or to accept their problems and to confront them. Mary addiction is mainly because of Jamie's stinginess and his unwillingness to pay for proper care. Most of these arguments continue throughout the play. This story is about the Throne family slowly deteriorating over the years. There is also a theme of alcoholism that is displayed, and after I did some research on the background of O’Neil I found out that the character Edmund was suppose to be him. His mother was a morphine addict like Mary as well. O’Neil even had an older brother that died in infancy and so did Edmund. There are many parallels between this story and O’Neil’s life.

Tyrone: Yes, this time you can see how strong and sure of herself she is. She’s a different woman entirely than other times. She has control of her nerves or she had until Edmund got sick. Now you can feel her growing tense and frightened underneath. I wish to God we could keep the truth from her, but we can’t if he has to be sent to a sanatorium. What makes it worse is her father died of consumption. I thought this summed up the whole story, by how Mary still had her morphine problem and there was undoubtedly an alcohol problem circling the family. This shows how lies were told in order to make things not seem as bad as they were but in the end it became a never ending cycle.

If We Must Die

In “If We Must Die,” the narrator describes himself and the rest of his military crew as hogs. I couldn’t pick out a direct distinction of which branch of military they were. “Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot” This ultimately represents feeling hunted like animals and trapped with no escape.” There hasn’t been an attack yet but they sit waiting and continue to be preyed on like hogs.

You can gather the assumption that this is taking place in a war because of the tone of the poem with this undying commitment. “If we must die, O let us nobly die, so that our precious blood may not be shed.” Basically this states that if they were to die at least they would die heroes. “In Vain; then even the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honor us though dead!” Even though the men are terribly threatened by the attackers they won’t back down and in the end they will have to commend them on such bravery and persistence.

“Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, and for their thousand blows deal one dealthblow!” Here you can really feel the encouragement that even though they are greatly outnumbered and have been hit far more they will come after the enemy with one blow and take them down. Throughout the poem there is just a lot spirit and courage with an undying sense of commitment for whatever it is they are fighting for. It’s almost like taking that last bit of energy that you have left and giving it all you’ve got. The narrator states that all that is left in front of him is either death or triumph. He has accepted this and insists on pushing forward, but this time they are men fighting back and are not the hogs that they were in the beginning scared of what might happen next. Even thought they will surely die, they won’t die without a fight.

The Lynching

With a title like “The Lynching” you wouldn’t presume it would be a joyous poem and when you continue to read it most definitely is not. This poem includes the cultural differences and commonalities with the impact of an historical event in which is greatly schocking. The opening line of “His spirit in smoke ascended to the high heave,” states that as he was being burned his spirit left his body during the cruel act of punishment.

For the time period lynching was very common place.  You can see that it isn’t out of the ordinary from this quote: “ The women thronged to look, but never a one showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue.” Women just stood there in the mob of people and didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for the man hanging from the tree.  It continues: “ And the little lads, lynchers that were to be, danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.” This quote depicts someone be hung and it hardly even phases the children because they see this probably every day of their lives. They too would grow up to become lynchers.

I’ve seen pictures of the lynchings in my history class and couldn’t believe that there was literally no expression on the viewers faces almost as if they are going to watch a show and nothing was wrong. We hear stories about what it was like to live in those days but have it put in front of you really takes you back in time to a place of inhumanity.