Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, Writing this blog as part of thinking activity given by Yesha Madam. Long Day’s Journey into Night, drama in four acts by Eugene O'neill, written 1939–41 and produced and published in 1956. The play, which is considered an American masterpiece, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1957.
O’Neill’s autobiographical play is a shattering depiction of a day in the dreary. life of a couple and their two sons. James Tyrone, a semiretired actor, is vain, self-obsessed, and miserly; his wife, Mary, feels worthless and retreats into a morphine-induced haze. Jamie, their older son, is a bitter alcoholic. James refuses to acknowledge the illness of his consumptive younger son, Edmund. As Mary sinks into hallucination and madness, father and sons confront each other in searing scenes that reveal their hidden motives and interdependence.
Now, We will have look on the character of Mary Tyrone. As we know that she was drug addicted lady and we will discuss that here by the side of psychology.
Maia Szalavitz’s Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction explained that for addicted people, their emotional stress drove them beyond the point of controlling their compulsions. As the Washington Post puts it, the brains of people who are driven to addictive behavior are unable to resist the temptation to indulge in that behavior – not because they are corrupt and weak but because their psyche is in a constant state of pressure and tension.
Whenever we see the reference like these we can stand with it by the observation of our surrounded people who are addicts kind of. We strongly believe that they are unable to resist their temptations and because of the addiction they feel kind of pressure or one may say that because of pressure they are become addicts.
A psychologist who wrote a book entitled Addiction is a Choice, “people have more control over their behavior than they think.” On the other hand, “many scientists say addicts have literally lost control,” and that the loss of control is a characteristic of the addiction disease. A doctor said that addicts “actually lose their free will” because of what the drugs do to them.
Here we can see the two different ideas are presented that one is saying that addiction is a choice and another is saying that addicts have lost control so in this case we can observe that it is totally unacceptable in the society's parameters as addict or it is wrong deed of one's so if it is a choice then why people choose to be addict! and generally today's youth is might the victim of this process of choice of addiction.Then there must be something as psychological reasons or the blindness towards affections through actions.
According to TIME magazine, “the vast majority of people with addiction have suffered significant previous trauma.” Many of those people are women, who tend to be the most frequently victimized in households where domestic violence is prevalent. The Journal of Psychiatric Research writes that women have a “heightened fear response,” so they are twice as likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder in the aftermath of a traumatic event than men. In addition to substance abuse, girls who suffer or witness domestic violence tend to act out in other risky and uncontrollable ways, such as being sexually promoted or engaging in self-harm, like cutting the skin; it is not meant as a suicidal action, but the intense pain provides a distraction from the emotional stress of domestic abuse.
By this above paragraph we can have click our character of Mary Tyrone, When it talks about previous trauma and also that women are the most victims in this perticular disease. Also one can get the idea perhaps that, addicts choose to become addicts because they might longing for distraction from the emotional stress.
When we talking about the addiction psychology we shoul be clear with the " What is the Emotional Stress?"
The emotional stress falls under the category of trauma, which the American Psychological Association says is an emotional response that takes place when a person is deeply afraid for their life or wellbeing.
Mary Tyrone is somewhere craving for the own house that we can see in the play when she is talking about the house. she is living in the cottage in the play which is situated near bt seaside. So,the emotional stress come to exist into many ways but here it goes in this way.
What is the chamical process in the brain of addict?
Dopamine is secreted by the brain during healthy activities, but drugs like cocaine or heroin will force the brain to release massive amounts of dopamine, and then prevent the brain from reabsorbing the dopamine, making the pleasurable experience last unnaturally longer. In many cases of chronic or serious substance abuse, this actually changes the brain’s chemistry to the point where normal activities don’t produce the same amounts of dopamine that they used to. In the context of associative learning, the brain has been reprogrammed to associate the blast of euphoria from drugs or compulsive behavior with only feelings of pleasure, reward, and the anticipation of more pleasure and reward. Healthy activities don’t register on the radar anymore, so they are discarded and eventually forgotten.
In the Mary's character we feel that the blast euphoria and also somewhere she seems numb even. Her dialogues are showing these flows of it. Continuing process of taking drugs, Might she feels dilightful while taking it and this remains in the entire play.
By this video we can get the idea about how addict people wanting the escapism and craving for "not to be oueselves for few time". because of discomfort with ownself, desire for escape from own mind.
Here, We are going to see that how Mary get addicted to morphine. Mary has been addicted to morphine sinse the difficult birth of her youngest son Edmund.The doctor who treated her simply gave her painkillers, which led to a long time morphine addiction that continues to plague her.
Another thing is here to look at is, Her one dialogue where she is telling to her sons, " Not that i want anything to do with them. I've always hated this town and everyone in it. You konw that. I never wanted to live here in the first place, but your father liked it and insisted on building this house, and I've had to come here every summer."
"Because he’s always sneering at someone else, always looking for the worst weakness in everyone.
Then with a strange, abrupt change to a detached, impersonal tone.
But I suppose life has made him like that, and he can’t help it. None of us can help the things life has done to us. They’re done before you realize it, and once they’re done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever." - Mary Tyrone
This dialogue is showing the pessimistic tone of Mary towards life.
So, In a nut shell, we can say that addiction is something can be happen by choice or by disease to the people. Here we have seen that how Mary is suffering from this kind of addiction.
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