Interpretations Of The Art Of Chronotope In Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Eugene O’Neil, the most remarkable playwright of the20th century in America, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times. Moreover, he won the Nobel Prize in1936, which was unprecedented being awarded to an American dramatist.Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1941) is considered as his most autobiographical work, in which O’Neil displayed the theme of the pity, understanding and forgiveness.The study on O’Neils Long Day’s Journey Into Night from the perspective of Chronotope bears much significance. First and the foremost, it would prove to be a new perspective for analyzing the play. In addition, Chronotope could be applied to the interpretation of his other plays as well. Then, this paper attempts to interpret the relationship between dramatic space-time and other dramatic elements, such as the context, character and theme. Last but not the least, the relative perspective of space and time weave closely in interpreting the development of plots, characters and theme with a sincere quality.Chronotope is introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin, the very theory to express the inseparability of space and time, which is the fundamental approach of the whole paper.The first part is the introduction. Chapter one mainly introduces the theory of Chronotope and previous researches on the play. The second chapter focuses on the physical space-time. Meanwhile, it emphasizes the folding relationship between space-time and atmosphere, characters, and the plots as well, In turn, the third chapter attempts to deplore into the psychological space-time, which vividly reveals the characters’ mental activities. Then, the fourth one is an exploration of memory space-time, which is a refined attempt in externalizing the inner frame of mind to visualize emotional clashes. The ending part is the conclusion, in which the research presented in the thesis is summarized.Owing to his far-reaching insight of theatrical performance, O’Neil attaches great importance to dramatic space-time in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which is a clearly elaborate fabric of the sincere features of space-time in interpreting the ultimate theme of pity, understanding, and forgiveness.