Long Days Journey into Night

Hiding from your problems only makes them worse. Each of the family members have ways of hiding and coping with the family’s and their own problems. Mary copes with her addiction to morphine by talking about times of the past when she was more happy, before she had Edmund and got addicted to the drug. Also, she hides from her problem but just taking more so she doesn’t have to live in reality. In Act 4, Mary says to Edmund “I must go upstairs I haven’t taken enough. I hope sometime without meaning it, I will take an overdose. I never could do it deliberatelyвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (pg. 123). This line shows that she is sick of living, and has given up. Tyrone copes with Mary’s addiction to morphine with alcohol, as soon as Mary gets more and more into her drug haze he immediately starts drinking, drink after drink so he doesn’t have to watch Mary in her drugged state sober. In Act 4 Tyrone says “Oh, we’re fools to pay any attention. it’s the damned poison. But I’ve never known her to drown herself in it as deep as this. Pass me that bottle, Jamie. And stop reciting that damned morbid poetry. I won’t have it in my house!” (pg 178). Jamie as well hides from the family’s problems by drinking. He comes home from the bars really drunk, then continues to drink, as well as goes home with whores. In Act 4, Jamie says to Edmund after coming home from the bar “Can’t, that’s trouble. Had enough to sink a ship, but can’t sink. Well, here’s hoping.” (pg 159). When Edmund finds out he is ill with consumption, and has to go through seeing his mom back in her morphine addiction, he as well starts drinking to hide from all the problems, just like his brother and father. In the story, the fog symbolizes Mary’s drug problem and it gets thicker and thicker as she gets more into her haze. Also, the fog represents them hiding from their problems when really they should be steering clear from them.