An Analysis Of Eugene O’Neill’s Mask Concept In Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Eugene O’Neill, as the father of American drama, plays a significant role inleading American drama into the list of major world drama and creates a particularroad of solemn drama with the spirit of unremitting efforts. It is he who makes anunforgettable contribution to the drama with American feature. On one hand, EugeneO’Neill inherits the traditional European drama from the masters. On the other hand,he makes a constant exploration to the drama and peculiarly expresses the soul of theprotagonists with various stage methods. Because of the impact from the social andinternational circumstances at that time, Eugene O’Neill had insight into the reason ofthe catastrophe and tried to dig out as well as reflects the roots of the Americansociety at that time, because of which his drama had been referred to as the “Drama ofthe Soul”. It is just like a mirror which reflects the deformed inner world of modernpeople, thus arousing more resonance among the readers and causing the readers toreflect on themselves and making them benefit a lot from the drama. Long Day’sJourney into Night, written by Eugene O’Neill with tears and blood, reflects his bitterexperiences, which are the spirits he would like to express.Among the numerous expressing methods of drama, the mask is one of EugeneO’Neill’s favorite expression ways, by which his own distinct mask concept takes intoshape. Eugene O’Neill assumes that the drama should not only mirror the surface oflife, but also reveal the nature of life as well as the inner world of the characters,while it is the mask that plays such a role and exposes the complicated psychologicalconsciousness of the protagonists. The Long Day’s Journey into Night is based on thepersona theory of Jung, analyzing the personas worn by the four characters andstudying the symbolic meaning of masks, thus making more readers have anunderstanding of the mask concept of Eugene O’Neill and his artistic fascination.The thesis consists of an introduction, a main body and a conclusion.The first part is the introduction, which briefly introduces Eugene O’Neill’sinnovative application of masks and its particular meaning as well as its researchresults home and aboard. The second part is the main body, which is divided into three chapters.The first chapter mainly introduces the formation of Eugene O’Neill’s maskconcept. First, the thesis will introduce the background of the formation of his maskconcept: American drama crisis, Eugene O’Neill’s life experiences and Gordon Clay’sinfluence on him. The first aspect mainly introduces that the expressing methods ofreappearing the reality in traditional American realism drama limits the developmentof drama, which can not profoundly express the philosophy and the complexpsychology of the protagonists. The playwright needs to create new expressing waysto explore the mystery of the inner world of human kind. The second aspect aims tointroduce the influence international social background and the family livingconditions on his view of life and values, which promotes him to try the new art formto dig out the roots of society as well as the meaning of life. The third aspect isdesigned to introduce the influence of Gordon Clay’s idea of super puppet on hisformation of mask concept. Then, the fourth aspect will illustrate Eugene O’Neill’smask concept. The thesis will introduce O’Neill’s view of regarding the mask as akind of expression method of drama from the aspect of creation, performance and theaudience. O’Neill assumes that the mask can reflect the conflicts hidden in people’shearts with the clearest and the most economic ways.The second chapter aims to introduce the personas of the four protagonists indetail from Long Day’s Journey into Night. The persona of Mary is a perfect wife andmother, the persona of Tyrone is a penny pincher, the persona of Jamie is a cynicalpessimist, the persona of Edmund is an artist escaper. The chapter will first introducethe persona theory of Jung. The persona originally refers to what the ancient actorswear on the head to indicate their roles. Different personas are the component parts ofpersonality. Actually it refers to the mask people wear in order to hide the true self.The tragedy of the Long Day’s Journey into Night lies in that they alwayscommunicate with other masks to cover their true nature, among which the “othermasks” refer to the personas. Then the thesis will respectively introduce the personasof the protagonists and the reason of forming the personas as well as the pain anddesperation brought to themselves and their families. The third chapter mainly introduces the symbolic meaning of masks worn by thecharacters in Long Day’s Journey into Night, which will be illustrated from threeaspects: ideal and reality, material and emotion and true self and false self. The firstaspect aims to illustrate that the mask is just like a pair of chains, depressing people’snature and impeding people’s aspiration and pursuit to freedom and dreams from theperspective of introducing the life that Mary gets after giving up her own dream in heryouth isn’t the life that she expects, finally leading to her loneliness, pain anddesperation. The second aspect is designed to illustrate that Eugene O’Neill usesmasks to symbolize the pain and struggle in the conflicts between the material and theemotion from the angle of introducing Tyrone’s attachment to money makes him lackthe communication with his family, thus causing the misfortune of himself and hisfamily. The third aspect mainly illustrates that under the pressure of social life, peoplecan’t consciously recognize themselves and regard the false self as the true self livingin the masks worn by themselves from the angle of introducing that Edmund has thedisease of tuberculosis and is pessimistic about life but he never gives up seeking thetrue self.The conclusion mainly sums up the preceding part and indicates the realisticmeaning of the thesis. The paper analyzes the four characters in Long Day’s Journeyinto Night with Eugene O’Neill’s mask concept and through the introduction of thepersonas of protagonist illustrates that people’s inner worlds are deformed, whicharouses the conflicts, struggle of the inner world as well as the love and the hatredamong family members. The realistic meaning of the paper has two aspects: on onehand, O’Neill would like to tell people to weather the storm with positive attitudesunder modern social and life pressure; on the other hand, the thesis aims to let morereaders know that mask is the symbol of people’s inner reality instead of just a kind oftool and make them understand the drama with unlimited imagination with theknowledge of the mask theory.