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Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
Long Day's Journey into Night is set, in its entirety, on a sunny day in August 1912, in a house on a harbor in New London, Connecticut, on the coast of the Long Island Sound. The house is exactly modeled off of Monte Cristo Cottage, the summer home of James O'Neill, Eugene O'Neill's actor father. The house still stands at 325 Pequot Street in New London; the furniture remains in place as O'Neill describes in the play.
The play's situation as a whole is largely autobiographical from O'Neill's life. In 1912, O'Neill was 24, approximately the same age as Edmund (who represents the playwright in the play). In its setting in history, the play is set just before the First World War, as the United States was growing more divided over its role in global peacekeeping. Yet this notably fraught and complex historical moment is nearly absent in the play. The Tyrone family are so insular, hardly leaving the house, that these global problems hardly affect them. Indeed, it is one of the most powerful features of the play that it seemingly could be set at any time (outside the fact that Jamie's tuberculosis diagnosis would not be fatal in the United States in later decades, thanks to advances in medication that became common after World War II). The play is a real story from a very specific time, but the tale of a family strained by its own problems is applicable to any decade or century.
The play is also, of course, set in the United States; but basically all the characters are Irish. O'Neill's stage notes identify each member of the Tyrone family by their Irish traits in their face and character. Cathleen is a caricature of Irish peasant women, and even McGuire, who never appears onstage and is only identified by his name, is given perhaps the most stereotypically Irish surname possible. All of the characters, then, are immediately shown to be out of place. James O'Neill was an Irish immigrant, and the O'Neill family, like the Tyrones, were always somewhat out of place in wealthy seaside Connecticut.
O'Neill is very detailed about the particularities of the theatrical set. The version of the Monte Cristo Cottage where the actors play has multiple parlors, well-stocked libraries, significant grounds, and elegant furniture. O'Neill specifically lays out which books are in the library, showing the family's (and especially James's) readerly nature. The house also shows the family's wealth and, moreover, James's desire to appear wealthy. The fancy home also elevates the tragedy of the play. The set helps emphasize that the Tyrones' tragedy is a fall from grace: their wealth and prestige, still apparent in the house, crumbles away thanks to the family's ills.
