Wednesday, May 8th

Long Day’s Journey and Thirst: the final scene of LDJN; final thoughts and takeaways

Assignment for Wednesday, May 8th

Re-read the final scene of Long Day's Journey Into Night, pp. 173 - 179

Re-watch the final scene of the 1962 film, Long Day's Journey Into Night on YouTube (time stamp: 2:41:25):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yuOr6mlAIg

Reflection Prompts

1. O’Neill called the final scene of the play (starting with Mary’s entrance) “the greatest scene I have ever written.” Why do you think he said that? What’s so good about it?

2. How does Sidney Lumet's direction of the final scene of the play affect your understanding of the Tyrones' plight at the end of the play? Do you think it captures in cinematic terms Jessica Lange's description of the play's final "tableau":  "...a family trapped by one another and their shared history. Doomed to repeat their chorus of love, pity, hate, blame, guilt. Forgiving but never forgetting"?

3. In his dedication of the play, O'Neill says that he wrote it with "deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones." Do you feel equal measures of these towards all four?

4. In 1923, O'Neill said that he had an "innate feeling of exultance about tragedy" and explained his tragic vision: “What I am after is to get an audience to leave the theater with an exultant feeling from seeing somebody on the stage facing life, fighting against the eternal odds, not conquering, but perhaps inevitably being conquered. The individual is made significant just by the struggle.”  (Gelbs, Life 638)  How is this notion reflected in Long Day's Journey Into Night? In what sense, if at all, does the play evoke an "exultant feeling"?

5. Having studied Long Day's Journey Into Night more fully after reading and seeing Thirst, do you regard Thirst any differently now?

6. In the approximate words of the Artistic Director of the Huntington Theater Company,  "Why should we do O'Neill?" and more specifically, "Why should we do Long Day's Journey Into Night?" What say you?

Takeaways

What is the main takeaway from this study group for you? Please write a sentence or two and email it to me (only) by 9:00 pm on Monday, May 6th. I will post these on the course site by noon on Tuesday, May 7th, so that everyone can read all of them before we meet on Wednesday, May 8th.