Long Day's Journey Into Night

Act II, Scene 2 explains Mary’s addiction to morphine, and it closes with Mary in the same situation that led to and exacerbated her morphine dependence as part of Inebriation as a Form of Escape and Denial. Mary was prescribed painkillers following Edmund’s birth, and it is likely that Mary had postpartum depression, potentially even psychosis, leading to the prescription of painkillers as a kind of tranquilizer. Mary only partially blames her doctor, noting, “All he knew was I was in pain. It was easy for him to stop the pain” (79). This pain could have been emotional pain, as Mary laments having a third child after her second child, Eugene, passed away from a measles infection, which may have contributed to postpartum symptoms of depression and anxiety. Limited medical knowledge, as well as a general lack of understanding of women’s medicine in the early 20th century, was known to lead to women being prescribed tranquilizers and bed rest, which often made their symptoms worse over time by isolating them more, as it seems to have done with Mary. Like bed rest, Mary is prescribed “will power” to overcome addiction, as the doctor “holds your hand,” “humiliates you,” and “treats you like a criminal” (66). Mary feels watched and blamed for her illness rather than supported to overcome it. Crucially, Mary speaks in the second person here, as she is addressing Edmund, deflecting her admission, but she is revealing her own experience with doctors as she fights her addiction.

The contributing factors of Mary’s depression and addiction are also shown in the scene, as Mary laments how she has nowhere to go in the car, reiterating her prior complaint about not having any friends to visit. This pattern ties into The Importance of Love and Support. Mary’s loneliness only feeds her depression, which in turn exacerbates her dependence on morphine. As the scene closes, Mary is again alone in the house, despite pleading with her sons and husband to stay with her. This is a sharp reversal from Tyrone’s previous desire to follow Mary upstairs to make sure she does not take another dose of morphine; his watchfulness in the house is shaming and unhelpful, and his retreat out of the house after not being able to control his wife’s behavior exhibits the opposite of the loving support necessary to quell the causes of Mary’s mental and physical maladies. In this way, Tyrone is complicit in Mary’s addiction.

When Mary tells Tyrone that he can come upstairs with her, he responds, “You’d only postpone it. And I’m not your jailor. This isn’t a prison” (67). The fact that Tyrone perceives intervening in Mary’s addiction to be an oppressive act results from the position of responsibility that he sees himself taking as a “jailor,” even though he does not want that position. He is the head of the household, so he knows that he needs to do something to help Mary, but he cannot risk being at fault if she fails to recover. Tyrone prefers to take steps that keep Mary in the position of responsibility, such as buying her a car, which even Mary acknowledges “was a hard thing for you to do, and it proved how much you loved me, in your way” (77). Mary knows that it was hard for Tyrone to spend money on her, as he has established his frugality, but, most importantly, Mary notes that it showed Tyrone’s love “in his way,” implying that Mary does not see the car as an act of love or support. She is correct, as Tyrone only uses the car to further blame Mary for not curing herself. From Tyrone’s perspective, the car was a form of treatment, and Mary’s refusal to use the car is her rejecting an opportunity to recover.

A dichotomy between Catholicism and nihilism appears in this scene as well, with Tyrone insisting on his own faith in the Catholic church, while Edmund is revealed as a nihilist, with Jamie noting his pet named Nietzsche and his quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a work by Nietzsche. Though the quote, “God is dead” (70), is slightly misattributed in the scene, it shows that Edmund does not believe in the God that Tyrone puts his faith in. Tyrone uses faith in God as an excuse to avoid direct action with Mary, claiming that he prays “every night and morning” (69), and blaming Mary’s addiction on her lack of faith. However, Edmund, affirming nihilism as a lack of meaning, not a reason for inaction, decides to “hope,” asserting that “[i]t can’t have got a hold on her yet” (70) to open the door to a discussion with his mother about her mental health and substance addiction. This reflects Deflection and the Challenge of Confronting Problems, as even the hopeful Edmund does not take any actions to help Mary and leaves her alone at the end of the scene, just as the rest of the family does.