“The only person standing in your way is you.”

Nina’s bulimia and inability to adapt to the role of Swan Queen shows her compulsive personality. It is likely that she developed these characteristics because of her overbearing mother, who maintains tight control over her. This creates an inner struggle, which the director makes apparent through the use of mirrors in Black Swan. On numerous occasions when Nina is gazing at her reflection she notices her reflection doing things outside of her control. This depicts the conflicting personalities that reside in Nina, potentially suggesting that she struggles with schizophrenia. 

Nina fights to control the alter ego that attempts to take control of her. In the scene before her performance, she attacks the mirror in her dressing room when she sees the Black Swan as her reflection. While Nina’s personality before being assigned the role of Swan Queen is obsessive, this role requires her to transform into a loose and passionate ballerina. When she looks into a mirror and sees the sexual and dangerous black swan looking back at her, she is frightened. Yet the reflection in the mirror is what she must strive to become.

When Nina shatters the mirror in her dressing room, she becomes one with her alter ego. Thus she breaks the barrier that is preventing her from truly becoming one with the Black Swan.  

The Swan

When the Russian Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (anglicised as Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky) composed Swan Lake in 1875, he envisioned the swan as womanhood in its purest form. (It its unknown what the male swans thought of this choice.) Legends of swan-maidens can be found in ancient Greek mythology (Apollo's birth), The Tales of the Thousand and One Nights, Sweet Mikhail Ivanovich the Rover, and The Legend of the Children of Lir.

If we assume the Swan Queen is modern a portrayal of womanhood in its purest form, then Nina's character reveals some of the pressures that womanhood faces. Nina is obsessed with trying to be "perfect," if such a thing even exists. She even goes as far as to steal Beth's things to try to be like Beth, whom appears to be the ideal dancer. Day after day, we see Nina practice at the studio far longer and harder than everyone else, even driving the pianist to finally quit playing the day before opening night. Nina evens turns to bulimia to maintain her already skeletal figure. (Was anyone else a little disturbed by how unhealthy she looked?)

While Nina was busy trying to perfect herself, she also had to worry about other competing dancers and saboteurs. Lily's attempts to take the role of Swan Queen from Nina appear to be the last straw, and Nina begins to hallucinate. Even after the hallucinations begin, Nina is still determined to be Swan Queen and refuses admit her problems to anyone. It is not until her company sees the blood blossoming across her stomach that anyone even suspects anything is wrong.

Nina must face the pressure from herself and those around her to be perfect, while fending off others who will do anything to take from her what she has. She also does not feel that she cannot turn to anyone else for help. It is no wonder that she, and many other women, turn to self-harm and succumb to medical issues.

The Ugly Truth

"It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it. That is the intention..."

...of Black Swan. Think of Nina, who is obsessed with perfecting the role of Swan Queen. But according to Thomas, that is her problem, and Mulvey (quoted above) would agree. Nina looks at passionate expression, which needs a certain element of unpredictability to be truly convincing, and she tries to quantify it into a series of imitable steps. But in doing so, she destroys the very vessel to create said passionate expression: bulimia emaciates her body that must be kept tiny and countless pirouettes and plies tear her toe nails and pop her ankles until she appears no more than a relic of beauty.

But what of Nina's other side, her 'black swan' that surrenders to sensuality and impulse and lacks all control? It causes equal destruction to Nina, causes her to scratch her back and drink and do drugs and at the last, impale herself with a shard of mirror. I do not believe anyone would call 'black swan' Nina "beautiful" or "pleasurable"--venereal maybe, but then again lust could be considered a corruption of the appreciation of beauty or pleasure.

Black Swan destroys the idea of beauty by exposing the dark unknown of creativity. But that's the important thing: it exposes all of the ugly goings-on masked by beauty, and thus we no longer see beauty. The ugliness was there all along though, so I don't know if it is as much destruction of beauty as introduction of veracity. Maybe everything/one/where is ugly, really, and we're all fools to think otherwise.

Mealtime at the Tyrone House

The first three acts are centered around it. Many of their conversations take place waiting for it or directly after it. Yet we never actually see them doing it, and, very in line with the structure of the play, family meals at the Tyrone house disintegrate over the course of the day, although they are served with an impressive rigidity.

In theory, these meals must be a way for Mary bring her family together, at least three times a day, but as the day goes on and less and less people actually show up for family mealtime it is clear that it is merely a facade to make it seem as if they are. Discussion before mealtimes has a rushed, expectant air, like everyone is waiting for it to be over already. Discussion after mealtimes usually revolves around what each person is going to do until the next mealtime.

Now for attendance. Breakfast: All four members of the family are present. Lunch: All four members of the family are present, but Mary is on morphine and lunch is stalled considerably because Tyrone is outside talking to the neighbors. Dinner: Just Tyrone and Edmund. Jamie hasn't come home yet, and Mary says she's not hungry (ie. goes upstairs for more morphine). Even the maid is drunk.

It can be concluded that the mealtimes constitute the framework for the structure of not only the play, but every day of the summer for this family. As depressing as the play ended, what makes it even more tragic is the fact that they are all going to wake up the next morning for breakfast, and do the exact same thing all over again. I take back the word disintegrate to describe the meals because it implies that there is some kind of progression; while the nature of the meals vary from one to the next that progression gets blended together and repeated, much in line with the other themes of the play.

Jamie's Self Image

In Act Four, we get an interesting impression of Jamie's inconsistent view of himself. In his telling the story of his evening, Jamie paints himself as someone who helps other people more than he does himself but simultaneously as someone who knows he hurts others

Jamie's self-image as a self-sacrificing helper is implied when he describes his evening in the brothel and how he chose to visit an unpopular prostitute who wouldn't have had customers without him.

However, when Jamie confesses that he's purposefully tried to make Edmund fail, he demonstrates a fatalistic view of his faults. Although he can admit that he resents and wants to hurt his brother, he doesn't try to change. Like Pop-Eye, "I yam what I yam. "This is still better than the rest of the family, who seem blind or in denial of their faults. Mary never speaks of her addiction. Tyrone doesn't admit that he's stingy for most of the play.

Substance

Reading Long Day's Journey Into Night reminds me of a song by the (now broken-up) band Girls called "Substance." Much like the content of the play, the song's lyrics probe at the concept of escape from reality and pain through substance. Yes, there are plenty of other songs that describe substance abuse (e.g. "Heroine" by The Velvet Underground, anything by The Beatles, and many more), but this one describes the melancholic feel of the play perfectly.

Here are some of its lyrics (although thoroughly depressing, the song as a whole is a worthwhile listen):

"It doesn't have to be this way,
I know something
to take the corners off
and help you rock and roll
right down the road.

And if you want to shape your brain,
I know a substance,
that gets rid of everything
and helps you rock and roll
out of control.

Who wants something real,
when we could have nothing?
Why not just give up,
who wants to try?
Let go of the wheel
turn your ass over
come on take it
it's a simple ride.

I take the key in my hand and it opens up the day
I take the key in my hand and it takes the pain away.

But if I had love I'd throw it all away."

As a bit of background, the song is from an EP called "Broken Dreams Club," and the lead singer, Christopher Owens, spent his childhood without a father and raised in a cult with his mother who was driven to prostitution. He experienced addiction problems of his own, and these lyrics, I feel, resonate critically with some of the emotions that the characters (Mary, in particular) are feeling.

Mary's addiction can be summarized pretty well with these lyrics. On the most superficial level, she uses morphine as an easy way out of the "real" problems she's facing (Who wants something real / when we could have nothing?). On a more subtle level, she also thinks that the drug empowers her by alleviating her pain, whereas in reality she is surrendering her power to the drug, helping her "rock and roll out of control"--but not in a fun way.

The last part of the song is what gets me the most. The female chorus which croons "I take the key in my hand and it opens up the day / I take the key in my hand and it takes the pain away" three times builds up a steady, predictable, and comfortable rhythm. Then, the song ends with a twist that almost sounds like an afterthought, "But if I had love I'd throw it all away." 

I'll leave you to think about it.

Card Games

I found the use of playing cards in Act Four very telling. Succeeding at a game of cards generally involves two components—the luck of the draw and the skills of the player of the game. This dichotomy seems to be something that can be applied to the Tyrone family, as we, or even the family members themselves, wonder if their difficult lot in life is simply destiny being fulfilled, or if their past choices, often dwelled upon by the characters, have made all the difference.

In other words, where does the fault lie? Is hardship really avoidable? This sort of a question comes about as Tyrone and Edmund talk. Edmund ruminates on life’s craziness, and in Tyrone’s response, it is clear that he believes that it is a matter of choice, as he quotes, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.”

This question of choice relates to other themes in the play, such as addiction. Can Mary be held accountable for succumbing, once again, to her addiction? Is it a matter of willpower—a choice she is making? Or is it a destiny she became locked into long ago?

At the beginning of Act Four, James (Tyrone) is pictured shuffling and reshuffling cards. To me, this is a sort of attempt by him to ask for a different lot in life—to see if he can get a better hand, because the one he has been dealt is devastating.

--Francesca