Thinking Activity on Long Day's Journey into Night

This Blog-post is a response of thinking activity on Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill, given by our professor ma'am Miss Yesha Bhatt. To know more about this play, CLICK HERE to visit Yesha Bhatt's blog. 

• About the Author:

Eugene O'Neill was awarded the Pulitzer Prize three times, first for Beyond the Horizon (1920), his debut play. O'Neill introduced psychological and social realism to the American stage. As his masterpiece Long Day's Journey into Night opens in the West End, Sarah Churchwell assesses his impact on modern drama.O'Neill is the only American playwright to have won the Nobel prize for literature, and the only dramatist to have won four Pulitzer prizes. He introduced psychological and social realism to the American stage; he was among the earliest to use American vernacular, and to focus on characters marginalised by society. Before O'Neill, American theatre consisted of melodrama and farce; he was the first US playwright to take drama seriously as an aesthetic and intellectual form. He took it very seriously indeed; one cannot accuse O'Neill of frivolity. Of more than 50 finished plays, O'Neill wrote just one ostensible comedy, Ah, Wilderness! (1933), and even its plot hinges on drunkenness, prostitution, revenge and repressed desire. Of course, most of O'Neill's plays involve drunkenness, prostitution, revenge and repressed desire; Ah, Wilderness! is the only one that manages a happy ending, although A Moon for the Misbegotten (1946) does admit the possibility of forgiveness, a conclusion that for O'Neill seems downright giddy. (From Theguardian)

About the Play: 

This autobiographical play depicts one long, summer day in the life of the fictional Tyrone family, a dysfunctional household based on O’Neill’s immediate family during his early years. James Tyrone is a vain actor and penny pincher, as was O’Neill’s father James. Mary Tyrone struggles with a morphine addiction, as did his mother Ellen. The fictional son Jamie Tyrone is an alcoholic, as was O’Neill’s brother Jamie. And the Tyrones’ younger son Edmund is deathly ill with tuberculosis. (O’Neill himself suffered and recovered from a mild case of tuberculosis.)

In order to spare his family from pain, O’Neill requested that the play not be published until 25 years after he died. In 1956, three years after O’Neill’s death, his widow Carlotta allowed the play to be published since the immediate family had predeceased the playwright. (from Kennedy Center )

• Long Day’s Journey into Night - ‘old sorrow, written in tears and blood’.

Some editions of the play include a letter from O'Neill to his wife as an epigraph. It's not "officially" an epigraph, since O'Neill didn't print it as such, but he did present it to his wife as a sort of introduction to the play, and you can see why publishers think it works as an epigraph:

For Carlotta, on our 12th Wedding Anniversary. 

Dearest: I give you the original script of this play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood. A sadly inappropriate gift, it would seem, for a day celebrating happiness. But you will understand. I mean it as a tribute to your love and tenderness which gave me the faith in love that enabled me to face my dead at last and write this play – write it with deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones.

These twelve years, Beloved One, have been a Journey into Light – into love. You know my gratitude. And my love!

Gene

Tao House

July 22, 1941 (SOURCE)

The play seems completely autobiographical, his mother Mary Ellen Quinlan O'Neill, a sometime morphine addict. It's particularly poignant that O'Neill dedicated this play, with its strong themes of addiction, to his wife Carlotta. She was addicted herself to potassium bromide, a strong sedative that was available at the time. This caused unending trouble to their marriage (source). Evidently, though, it wasn't all depression and disintegration. O'Neill writes to Carlotta that their marriage has been a "Journey into Light – into love" (E.3). With the "epigraph," O'Neill lets us know that, ultimately, he wrote the play as an act of forgiveness – of the people he's loved and of himself.(Source)

• Theme of addiction - Long Day’s Journey into Night

The center theme of the play is Addiction.Whole Tyrone family was addicted. Marry addicted by Morphine and by overdosing of medicines. Jamie. Edmund and James both were addicted by Alcohol. Although, Marry's addiction was quite different from other family members.Dr. Hardy gave her medicine to kill her pain during Edmund's birth and after that, according to study by Pharmacologist, very few patients become addicted.

Dr. Ronald Melzack mentioned in his article 'The Tragedy of Needless Pain' that,

"When patients take morphine to combat pain, it is rare to see addiction. Addiction seems to arise only in some fraction of morphine users who take the drug for its psychological effects, such as its ability to produce euphoria and relieve tension" (Melzack,27).

Patients who do develop a dependence on morphine "are usually those who already have a history of psychological disturbance or substance abuse"(Melzack,29)

If we going to talk about the historical background or events in Marry's character, that there are some backstage events are happened in her life like, her child, Eugene's death, her two day dreams become incomplete  like her wished to become a nun and her lifelong living peacefully with her husband which is not complete. So, the history of her psychological disturbance or substance abuse by her one can observed in her character. 

The death of her father, whom she adored; the death of her second child from measles; her introduction to morphine after Edmund's birth; her eldest son's alcoholism and failed career; her social isolation and lack of a proper home; and finally the prospect of Edmund's death from consumption. These are the emotional disruptions, recollections, and fears that prompt Mary to seek her hidden syringe.(Hinden,48)

Along  with Marry, her husband and her two sons were also become addicted by alcohol. So the atmosphere of addictions such taking substance of alcohol and drugs were already there.Which also observed by her. Addiction of women also we can see in Jamie's character. 

So this addiction of either a kind of intoxicated things or person also we can read in the play. However in O'Neill's life also we can see that how he struggled and observed his family members to took addictions. 

Work Cited:

Hinden, Michael. “The Pharmacology of ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night.’” The Eugene O’Neill Review, vol. 14, no. 1/2, 1990, pp. 47–51, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29784382. Accessed 13 Apr. 2022.

Melzack, Ronald. “The Tragedy of Hinden, Michael. “The Pharmacology of ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night.’” The Eugene O’Neill Review, vol. 14, no. 1/2, 1990, pp. 47–51, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29784382. Accessed 13 Apr. 2022.

Needless Pain.” Scientific American, vol. 262, no. 2, 1990, pp. 27–33, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24996676. Accessed 13 Apr. 2022.

Thinking Activity : The Waste Land

This Blog-post is a response of thinking activity on 'The Waste Land' given by our professor Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. To know more about this task, CLICK HERE

T.S.Eliot: 

Before we studied The Waste Land, we introduced about 'Impressionist Criticism'. It is an attempt to represent in words the 'Felt Qualities' of a literary work to express the response(impression).This impression is direct evoked by the work. He awarded Nobel Prize in 1948 "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry." 

.William Hazlit said that "On Genius and commonsense you decide from feeling, not from reason."

Walter Pater said that," Preface studies in the History and Renaissance."

Anatole France said that,"The adventure of a sensitive soul among Masterpieces."  

The difficulties to comprehend the poem. 

1. Esoteric nature of modern literature.

2.Use of Mythical technique. 

3. Reference to Allusion (Allusion to other literature also)

4. Different Languages 

5. Pastiche/Patchwork college of disjointed images. 

The Waste Land is a long poem divided in five parts. 

Views on Images after studied The Waste Land:

'Superman' is the philosophy developed by Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche (2006) conceives the superman as “an expression of free-spiritedness, the essence of humanity, the affirmation of one’s full potentialities, authority, power, freedom and creativity, as well as the highest principle or development of humanity”The book by him, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None,in which Zarathustra deals with the Übermensch, the death of God, the will to power, and eternal recurrence.  Übermensch is a philosophy by Nietzsche and it means "a shift from otherworldly Christian values and manifests the grounded human ideal." The death of God phrase to express his idea that the Enlightenment had eliminated the possibility of the existence of God.  The will to power describes what Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in humans Eternal return "a concept that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space" For Nietzsche it was the will to power that could defeat nihilistic states, to the extent that it leads to self-improvement and the pursuit of ambitions.While compare with Eliot's perspective is that looking back and find solution for the contemporary malaise,with the reference of Upanishad, Buddhism and Christianity.Eliot uses fragmented images or parts in the poem which describes the ultimately at the end, the solution is in myths and in Indian Philosophy. 

The another views of Eliot is about 'salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition'. Tradition is the way which people are remain their cultural activities, rituals and their good deeds and also how to do good deeds, while humans current actions are very much necessary. Freud's theory applied in humans actions. These actions are followed by humans traditions and their former members. The balance between former action and current action should be required. 

The Indian thoughts in 'The Waste Land':

Eliot used  various images and philosophies in the poem, such as river gaga's image, Buddhism and he also took some concepts in Upanishads also.  These are the lines,

  

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves

Waited for rain, while the black clouds

Gathered far distant, over Himavant.

The jungle crouched, humped in silence.

Then spoke the thunder

DA

Datta: what have we given?

My friend, blood shaking my heart

The awful daring of a moment’s surrender

Which an age of prudence can never retract

By this, and this only, we have existed

Which is not to be found in our obituaries

Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider

Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor

In our empty rooms

DA

Dayadhvam: I have heard the key

Turn in the door once and turn once only

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours

Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus

DA

Damyata: The boat responded

Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar

The sea was calm, your heart would have responded

Gaily, when invited, beating obedient

To controlling hands.

 

 

 

 

Thinking Activity on An Artist of the Floating World

This Blog-post is a response of thinking activity on An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. To know more about this task, CLICK HERE.

Brief note about the Author

Kazuo Ishiguro is British Novelist, born in Japan and has British nationality while he was five years old, his parents moved to Britain. He is novelist, screenwriter, musician, and short-story writer. 

Brief note the Novel: 

This novel including in Ishiguro's first two novels. The novel is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono who is an ageing painter. Novel narrated by first person narrator Ono himself.

Significance of  Lanterns:

In the cover page of the book we can see is Lanterns. It significant as transience of beauty. Which is explore the Idea such as short-time living.According to Japanese tradition, there is a connection between human bodies and water, it is believed that the lanterns embody the lives of those who have passed, and returning them to water, allows for the bodies to return to their natural state.The same thing is here is about the artist. Art is never dying for artist,that we can see in in Mori-San's character. 

A Brief review of the film based on the novel:

The film is quite faithful to the narrative technique. The way  narrator re-called his past then sudden he presents in current situation is what exact in the novel. Camera angles are quite appreciable, during "The Bridge of Hesitation." Lanterns, children's faces, paintings were also well captured in the film.

The Uses of Art / Artist (Five perspectives: 1. Art for the sake of art - aesthetic delight, 2. Art for Earning Money / Business purpose, 3. Art for Nationalism / Imperialism - Art for the propaganda of Government Power, 4. Art for the Poor / Marxism, and 5. No need of art and artist (Masujo's father's approach):

There are Five perspectives to looking the Art. All Ancients people believe that work of Art is for Aesthetic delight. While for poor people, it is the source of earning the money. But it is problematic while this necessity convert in to Business purpose. The limitation of using Art in the life is also very necessary to keep with us. There is also possibility that artist keep the Art for politics and for Government. The should keep away or bring themselves away from Capitalism or Nationalism. And some people like Masujo's father's belief that no need of Art in life. But without any Art, life become like desert and there is no any such a aesthetics in life. Somewhere, this all perspectives are connected with each other. 

The relevance of this novel is our times:

Artist are popular among the people and mostly they known as good personality among the people. While they work for politics and Governments, people easy rely them without any questioning. This we can see in today's time also.

Recently, the voices against Vivek Agnihotri who directed, The Kashmir Files. After examine several evidence, journalist and oppositions of Right wingers strongly says that the reality of BJP is not presented in the film. Artist should have the strength to keep the reality with their work. They are only the people who present reality as it is.As Masuji Ono did, he first do painting for Art for Art Sack, then he worked for under Takeda Firm was Capitalism. Likewise, Vivek Agnihotri also made films as Art for Art Sack, but after Governing BJP he become the Artist for them as Nationalism. Thus, it become quite relevant for today's time.

   

Thinking Activity on Nineteen Eighteen Four

This Blog-post is a response of thinking activity on Nineteen Eighteen Four(1984) by George Orwell. To know more about this task, CLICK HERE

Eric Arthur Blair, famous in literature as his pen name, George Orwell.(1903-1950)was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. He famous works shows politics in particular era. His fluent or blunt speaking of telling truth is quite appreciated in literature. 

Dystopian Fiction: 

According to Merriam Webster dictionary, Dystopia is,"an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives" This genre, the story is about imaginary future, particular fictional place or state in which the condition of human life is extreme bad from terror or political authority and such a power who controls the simply living lives. According to M. H. Abrams,"The term dystopia (“bad place”) has come to be applied to works of fiction, including science fiction, that represent a very unpleasant imaginary world in which ominous tendencies of our present social, political, and technological order are projected into a disastrous future culmination."

Nineteen Eighteen Four as a dystopian literature:

As John Tammy said that,"In the dystopia described by George Orwell, government was watching us with an eye on limiting our freedom" We can see that in this novel characters are living in fear. Through the character Big Brother, we can see the lust of power which terribly described through citizens. The way while authorities continues announced that 'Big Brother is watching you' it seems like people lives in the country in which the power is spread unpleasant imaginary. 

Center theme of the novel:

According to me, the center theme of the novel is 'The Dangers Of Totalitarianism'. The people are with power. Dictators or authorities in novel, like Big Brother they controlled people through the language and political strategies. The power of language is also included. For this Fascist Government, the nation is first. They announced that they do whatever thing is for nation, they used to speak 'Nation' rather than 'Public'. They not used the word 'Public'. So the language played main role to lead totalitarianism theory in politics.  

The Term 'Orwellian' :

According to Merriam Webster dictionary,Orwellian is the term which "of, relating to, or suggestive of George Orwell or his writings especially : relating to or suggestive of the dystopian reality depicted in the novel 1984." George Orwell established the term named 'Orwellian' in his dystopian fictions. Along with this novel he used this term in 'Animal Farm' also which I studied in my graduation. In this term, micro-level language plays in shaping our thoughts. The language here Orwell used which pointing the political power and the way they misuses their position through the power.  

Doublespeak	deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words.
The Ministry of Truth (Newspeak: Minitrue)	"truth" is understood to mean statements like 2 + 2 = 5 when the situation warrants. In keeping with the concept of doublethink, the ministry is thus aptly named in that it creates/manufactures "truth" in the Newspeak sense of the word.
The Ministry of Peace (Newspeak: Minipax)	The meaning of peace has been equated with the meaning of war in the slogan of the party, "War is Peace". It also has a literal application: Perpetual war is what keeps the "peace" (the status quo) in Oceania and the balance of power in the world, and since the other major powers also use warfare as a means of maintaining the status quo, the two concepts are functionally identical.
The Ministry of Love (Newspeak: Miniluv)	It enforces loyalty to Big Brother through fear, buttressed through a massive apparatus of security and repression, as well as systematic brainwashing. It is misnamed, since it is responsible for the practice and infliction of misery, fear, suffering and torture. In a sense, however, the name is apt, since its ultimate purpose is to instill love of Big Brother—the only form of love permitted in Oceania.
The Ministry of Plenty (Newspeak: Miniplenty)	It is in control of Oceania's command economy. It oversees rationing of food, supplies, and goods. As told in Goldstein's book, the economy of Oceania is very important, and it is necessary to have the public continually create useless and synthetic supplies or weapons for use in the war, while they have no access to the means of production.
Room 101	It is the basement torture chamber in the Ministry of Love, in which the Party attempts to subject a prisoner to their own worst nightmare, fear or phobia, with the objective of breaking down their resistance.
Big Brother	Additional speculation from Douglas Kellner of the University of California, Los Angeles argued that Big Brother represents Joseph Stalin, representing Communism, including Stalinism, and Adolf Hitler, representing Nazism.
Thoughtcrime	the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of the Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania. In contemporary English usage, the word thoughtcrime describes beliefs that are contrary to accepted norms of society, and is used to describe theological concepts, such as disbelief and idolatry and the rejection of an ideology.

(From Wikipedia)

About 'Newspeak': 

Orwell writes in his essay,'Politics and the English Language.' that"If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,"  In 1984 novel, Orwell created the language to warn the readers from government and their politics.He explained that how syntactical arrangement in words which creates somewhere a kind of sympathy in peoples mind. Like, for something they use word 'good' but if the thing is going in wrong way or like it is in worst thing happened then, we normally in life we used to say that this thing is going in bad was, but they add syntax and create word like,'Ungood' which means particular thing is will re-create by the authority.Likewise in word 'Plusegood' it seems they increasing and their role is in top level which they do.