Eugene O’Neill‘s, Long Day’s Journey into Night, is essentially just one big open ending in itself. Unlike most plays, there is not just an open ending at the end of each scene, but at the end of nearly every page. So many questions are posed in this play that are never answered, whether they be projected through a character’s speech or just implied. The largest part of the open ending is at the actual end of the play. Mary is giving her speech about how religion affected her life, and that something had changed in her. Her last lines are:
…I went to the shrine and prayed to the Blessed Virgin and found peace again because I knew she heard my prayer and would always love me and see no harm ever came to me so long as I never lost my faith in her. That was in the winter of senior year. Then in the spring, something happened to me Yes, I remember. I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a time.
Mary’s very last sentence is the biggest part of the open ending one can see in this play. She fell in love with James and was happy for a time. That opens the door to numerous questions. What happened to make her happy feelings change? When did this time of happiness end? Did James cause her break away from happiness, or was it her, or even one of her children? Did this change have anything to do with the premature death of her second son, and her later resentment for her eldest? Numerous questions pop up as to why she became unhappy. If one looks back in the play, Mary inconspicuously hints at why she has lost her happiness, but never reveals the exact reason.
Edmund’s state of health is also a potential reason for why Mary’s happiness disappears. Mary finds out about Edmund’s health issues when he is a young lad, and always makes sure he is taken care of. It is plausible that Edmund’s illness sparked her depression. When he is older, Edmund hears from Doctor Hardy, to whom Mary loathes, that he may have to go to a sanatorium. This makes Mary go ballistic:
Edmund: Listen, Mama. I’m going to tell you whether you want to hear or not. I’ve got to go to a sanatorium.
Mary: Go away? No! I won’t have it! How dare Doctor Hardy advise such a thing without consulting me! How dare your father allow him! What right has he? You are my baby! Let him attend to Jamie!
Mary does not want to endure that Edmund may actually have to leave her. The idea of Edmund leaving her has been bottled up inside her for many years; she tucks it away in the back of her mind because she does not want it to become a reality. The reader questions whether this is the answer to why she is not happy. Mary is certainly hinting at it that this is the reason, but the reader can never be sure. The reader also wonders about other parts to the open ending that occur at this time. Does Edmund end up going to the sanatorium? If so, does Mary become even more unstable in Edmund’s absence? Every corner of this play leads to a different open ending!
Earlier, Mary reveals her disdain with the fact that she lost all of her friends because of James. Mary, in a rant with her husband, states, “and then, right after we married, there was the scandal of that woman who had been your mistress, suing you. From then on, all my old friends either pitied me or cut me dead.” One would think that James is the reason for her unhappiness, that because of him, all her friends left her. Although she reveals this upsetting matter due to James, she does not let on that it affected her much. The reader is receiving mixed signals, did this occurrence affect her happiness or did it not? Mary gets the reader to thinking it is the reason, but then changes her tone to as if she had never mentioned the situation. On the next page, she shifts to her debaccle over Edmund:
I was so healthy before Edmund was born. You remember, James. There wasn’t a nerve in my body. Even traveliing with you season after season, with week after week of one-night stands, in trains without Pullmans, in dirty rooms of filthy hotels, eating bad food, bearing children in hotel rooms, I still kept healthy. But bearing Edmund was the last straw. I was so sick afterwards, and that ignorant quack of a cheap hotel doctor-All he knew was I was in pain. It was easy for him to stop the pain.
Mary hints at Edmund being the source of her problems once again. But, why did she grow ill after bearing Edmund? And, was Edmund such a burden on her that she just lost it? Even though Mary draws attention to other moments that could have eliminated her happiness, she always ends up going back to the subject of Edmund. The reader thinks that Edmund really is the source of her problems, but Mary never truly clarifies this for the readers.
Mary’s incessant whining about Edmund gets one to believe he is what drained Mary of her happiness, but the reader never finds out. That is why the whole play is an open ending. Mary drops hints everywhere as to why she is the way sh is, but never makes it known if any are the actual cause or causes. For all the reader knows, Mary might not have even mentioned what truly ignited her depression. Mary could have been leading the reader on to potential reason’s for why she was not happy, which makes the open ending even broader. Did Mary even mention the actual cause of her unhappiness? The reader can take this play through so many different possibilities, it is absolutely insane!
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