Man’s Struggles of Fate by the Curse of Birth in Eugene ONeills A Lon

Mans Struggles of Fate by the Curse of Birth in Eugene ONeills A Long Days Journey into Night Eugene ONeills A Long Days Journey into Night deals with tragedy and its attendant focus on character rather than plot. Another emphasis on the play is on the away that ceases to haunt his characters. ONeills characters of A Long Days Journey into Night effort with the historical. These characters all see to agree with Mary Tyrone who claims that a person cant help being what the past made him (Baym 1313). The fact that a character can struggle with his or her past suggests that the past is something open to question, changeable, and perhaps even unknowable. Patricia Schroeder says The past as it invades the grant or as individual characters interpret it had little bullion on the formally realistic stage (Schroeder 30). ONeills characters of A Long Days Journey into Night reveal the ongoing past gradually and continuously throughout the play. As one reads the play, he or sh e can see ONeill deal with his own past through these characters. For Eugene ONeill, there is only one real subject for drama The subject here is the same ancient one that always and always will be the one subject for drama, and that is mans struggle with his own fate. The struggle used to be with the gods, but it is now with himself, his own past. Implicit in this controversy are a number of ONeills fundamental principles in this play and his own life. ONeill embeds principles of Greek tragedy within a naturalistic play and so fully realizes his lifelong goal of dramatizing man and this struggle with himself, his own past (Schroeder 30). In this play it is, indeed, the struggle to understand the formative past that s... ...less present of the Tyrones. ONeill not only challenged the distinction between the past and present, he also broke down the barrier between stage and watcher that had been erected along with the proscenium arch. The mans struggle with self, fate and the past is a common theme among many modernist writers. Through ONeills experimentation of eliciting an emotional response through his realistic settings and characters, we learn more about the common man. We all struggle with our pasts and our place in this world. At least through works like A Long Days Journey into Night we know that we are not alone in having a dysfunctional family with problems and conflicts. We all have problems, struggles and fears. These elements are just a part of life. Life is taking our past and learning from it so that we can live our present and prepare for a future.