A Daughter in Long Day’s Journey into Night

After reading Long Days Journey into Night, by Eugene O’Neil I feel a great sense of sorrow for the family. In one day with the family you are taken through their past, present, and their future. The tragedy in this family might seem small in some aspects because in our society today families could potentially have many more problems, but at the time of this story a family going through such issues was unheard of.

I think that if the family were under different circumstances such as if there was a daughter present their entire lives would have been different. Each family member would have different feelings toward one another than they did. Everyone would all be affected not only as a family member but an individual. I’m not sure where a daughter would have to fall in order of age with the children, but I think that no matter where it was, the outcome of this family would be drastically different.

Consider Mary, if she had a daughter before Jamie many things could possibly be different. For example Mary would be kept more busy with her daughter, teaching her right from wrong, how to cook, and to be a sophisticated young woman. Whereas with Jaime being the eldest; James took on more of the responsibility with teaching him how to be a man, how to work hard, and earn money. This left Mary in some ways “out of the loop” because she was busy being the woman of the household. If Mary had a daughter as a second child after Jamie, I think that she might not have ever gotten into her drug addiction, because now she is able to do the entire mother daughter bonding that she lacked when she had Edmund, who in Mary’s eyes gave her grey hair. I think that it would give Mary more excitement for life because now she has someone to guide in how to be a woman and keep her more active. If Mary had a third child and it so happened to be a girl, I think that it would snap her out of her worries for Edmund and it would give her more energy. Now she would also have another female to help with what she had to do in her daily life. Either way it happened, having a daughter changes everything and in this case I think Mary’s life would have had a better outcome.

In James’ situation I don’t think that the order of children would have made much of a difference for him, but I think a daughter being present would have. With James I feel that a daughter would have caused him to slow down in life. He would not be so focused on work, money, and teaching his sons’ how to be men and to make something of themselves. But instead he would spend more time with the family. He also might not drink as much because he would be more preoccupied with his bigger family that there would be no downtime to sulk in his sorrows.

For Jamie it seems in some ways if he were to have an older sister, he would be nicer to Edmund when he was growing up, they might even have a better bond, because now his older sister might pick on him, and put him in his place. So when Edmund were to come along he might feel a closer bond with him opposed to trying to ruin his brother’s life. Along with his mother and father with having a sister there might be less room for Jamie to mess up his grades in school and there would be someone else to nag at him for drinking. If Jamie were to have a sister born at any time after