Long Days Journey Into Night: Mary Tyrone's Personal Journey

The dependence of men upon Mary in Eugene O'Neil's Long Day's Journey into Night is shown in the very first scene and throughout the play. Therefore, Mary becomes the central character around whom the males in this play revolve. She emerges in the few moments of normalcy as the source of life for them, the quiet hub around which they move, happy in her presence. But the house and the people residing inside are only …

…to fix her hair. In other words, she couldn't see what she was. Her wedding dress was a symbol of something that was never a substantial reality. But Mary recoiled when she came in contact with objectivity. She clouded everything around her and secluded herself in her own dream of pain. Mary was "so happy for a time" (176), but her quest was for a hope lost, a goalless search for salvation never to be attained.