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American Dream

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Literature in the United States

Miller, Arthur

Nobel Prizes

Theater in the United States

Williams, Tennessee

The 1950s in America

Long Day’s Journey into Night

by Roger J. Stilling

Identification Play about members of a theatrical family confronting their lives as they realize that the youngest son has contracted tuberculosis and the mother is sliding back into drug addiction

Date First produced in the United States in 1956

Author Eugene O’Neill

An autobiographical examination of Eugene O’Neill’s troubled family life, Long Day’s Journey into Night tackled issues of alienation, isolation, and the inability to communicate—themes that resonated with 1950’s audiences striving for the American Dream and struggling with the uncertainties of the Cold War era.

Long Day’s Journey into Night takes place in 1912 in the Connecticut summer house of the tumultuous Tyrone family. During one day and night, the members of this intense and conflicted family reminisce, fight, drink, apologize, joke, and slowly and painfully face the deepest truths about their hopes, dreams, failures, and fears. The artistry and emotional impact of the play and its timeless exploration of family relationships and individual aspirations made it a classic American drama.

Impact

The play, considered by many critics to be one of the greatest American dramas of the twentieth century, was withheld at its author’s request from publication or production until after his death. The 1956 production posthumously placed Eugene O’Neill back in the first rank of American dramatists. It also won for O’Neill his fourth (and posthumous) Pulitzer Prize and made O’Neill a theatrical contemporary to the new generation of serious dramatists, such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and William Inge. Sidney Lumet’s 1962 film version with Katharine Hepburn brought the play to an audience of millions.

Further Reading

1 

Bogard, Travis. Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. The standard one-volume study of O’Neill’s full career, it has a strong biographical orientation and is excellent at placing the plays in their intellectual contexts.

2 

Manheim, Michael. “The Stature of Long Day’s Journey into Night.” In The Cambridge Companion to Eugene O’Neill, edited by Michael Manheim. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A detailed yet accessible reading of the play, full of sharp insights about both form and content.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Stilling, Roger J. "Long Day’s Journey Into Night." The 1950s in America, edited by John C. Super, Salem Press, 2005. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1950_454.
APA 7th
Stilling, R. J. (2005). Long Day’s Journey into Night. In J. C. Super (Ed.), The 1950s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Stilling, Roger J. "Long Day’s Journey Into Night." Edited by John C. Super. The 1950s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2005. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.