Long Day's Journey into Night is set in the living room of the Tyrones' shoreline summer home in New London, Connecticut, in August of 1912. The play begins in the morning and ends late at night on the same day.
The work is divided into four acts. It largely consists of painful disclosures and acrimonious exchanges among the four family members, as major crises mount and finally engulf the family in despair. Of central concern are Mary's relapse into morphine addiction, Jamie's continued descent into irreversible dissipation, and Edmund's grim discovery that he has tuberculosis and must enter a sanatorium.
The play, which opens just after breakfast, begins on a hopeful note, evident in the affectionate exchange between James and Mary Tyrone, but it is clear that Mary is being carefully watched by.....
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