In Eugene O’neils Long Days Journey into Night, a dramatic work of fiction that truly is a day in the early life of O’neil, is quite possibly the greatest literary piece of modernism in existance. As a truth about O’neil’s life it demonstrates how his life was disparing mess devoid of communication and nothing but rifts between his family. These seem common to many families, and while many may not be able to say “that’s my life”, they can very well see some facet of there own life reflected in his work. As previously stated O’neils masterpiece contains a solid basis of what we call today modernist perspective, specifically that very same self-imposed isolation. As the drama unfolds the isolation and the hate builds up as the characters become more and more drunken and high, to the point when the entire family seems to break down in the end, only to fall into there isolation and denial, and prepare to face it all over again the next day.

In the first act the family is very well tied together everything seems to be great, Emily has grown past here morphine addiction, and the family is still blissfully ignorant to the fact that edmund’s slight cold could quite possibly be consumption. The family is well tied together, hiding any problems, and only Jamie, the elder brother, has any suspicion of the dark truths that the family hides. This recognition that not all is well in the family proves to be a burden to Jamie as he finds the deciet unbearable and tells his opinion openly to his family and is criticized of imagining things, when reality he is merely criticized for bursting there delusional bubbles. The self- Imposed isolation is most conclusively shown in the first Act with the near constant bickering between James Tyrone Senior and Jamie, both won remaining guarded and apologizing when they dont really mean it remaining contained in there own little prisons.

The Next two acts further demonstrate this isolation through the increase in jaded bickering, eventually culminating with all there fears justified as the truth Jamie shouted so long about in the first act came true. In the beginning of the Fourth act jamie is completely absent having left to get completely hammered. his isolation, unlike his families does not make itself out through guarded llies to the others, but through actual isolation away from the family with a prostitute who was so obese she had no customers. Meanwhile the rest of the family isolate themselves through alcoholism and diluted fantasy of the past. Mary takes heavy dosages of Morphine ot escape from her present world with the husband she “loved” to return to a time when she played the piano and dreamed of being a nun. Her escape to the past is her own isolation, and Edmund and james each hide themselves at the bottom of a bottle.

As the play draws to a close none of the deciet, save for the morphine addiction, and Tuberculosis, is revealed and beaten, and like a normal american family they hide there troubles forever worrying too much about being politically correct and not enough about retaining the truth. In the end the only thing that came out of this whole day was: Edmund has TB, and is drunk out of his mind, James is drunk out of his mind, and vows not to be such a cheap bastard, Emily is as high as a kite, and Jamie is as drunken as the rest, having returned from the prostitute, and warns Edmund not to act like him. A typical american family bound forever in a cycle of Isolation that would eventually destroy them one-by-one.