Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Death of a Salesman

            As I began to read O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, I was reminded of another play: Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The two plays are strikingly similar in that they both chronicle the lives of dysfunctional families—the Tyrones and the Lomans, respectively. At their core, the two families respons in the same way to strife: they deceive themselves and each other as a way to avoid facing their issues head on.

           The two plays both feature a fragile spouse. In Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Mary is an unstable morphine addict and James takes great pains to protect her, even reprimanding Jamie for hinting at things that may upset her. He says, “the one thing to avoid is saying anything that would get her more upset… “ (29). In Death of a Salesman, Willy is a delusional salesman on a quest for an American Dream he can't seem to grab hold of, and Willy’s wife, Linda, often asks their sons to be sensitive towards Willy and his issues.

            Further parallels can be drawn between the two sets of sons in the two plays. Edmund and Jamie parallel the two brothers in Death of a Salesman: Biff and Happy. Jamie and Biff, both the eldest of two sons, are about thirty-four years old and both gain the disdain of their fathers for failing to make something of themselves. They are also both engaged in a struggle between seeking and craving independence and being unable to achieve it, as they are both still dependent on their parents.

            The two plays were written around the same time. Long Day’s Journey Into Night was written in 1940 but was not published until 1956, after O’Neill’s death. Death of a Salesman was published in 1949. Thus, there is no evidence to show that one book influenced the other. 

--Francesca Conterno