The Story of the Patriarchal Family

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how, in Eugene O'Neill's" Long Day's Journey into Night" and Harold Pinter's "The Homecoming", we are presented with a mix of characters typical of family life and, although written in distinctly different styles - one with long monologues and overtures of poetry, the other with short, harsh, and bitter language - they both tell the same story. It is a story of the patriarchal family of the twentieth century in search of what Max in "The Homecoming" calls its "backbone". The paper further discusses that this story talks about the integral part of "the unit", whose presence brings peace and harmony; the mother without whom the patriarchal framework crumbles and the remaining family members, all male, are left floundering with no option but to try to regain what is lost.The paper says that in these two plays it is the search for the mother, or the replacement mother, that is the central issue, thereby illustrating the heavy dependence families have on the mother figure. According to the paper it is precisely this absence of the mother which shapes these two plays.

From the Paper:

"Woman tends to be envisioned in male psychology as being comprised of "three faces- she is mother, whore, or virgin- and often a combination of all three" (Qualls-Corbett 92). The perfect example of this paradox lies in the traditional Christian belief that, in accordance with the mystery of the Trinity, the Virgin Mary is considered not only to be the mother of Christ, but to be his lover and daughter as well. Similarly the mother of a family, in particular of the two families of the plays to be discussed, is not only expected to play the role of the mother, but is in one way or another expected to fulfill the threefold role of the mother, virgin, and whore. As a mother the woman is the nurturing force behind the family, the pacifying influence, the provider of moral and religious education."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Hall, Anne C. "A Kind of Alaska": Women in the plays of O'Neill, Pinter, and Shepard. Carbondale : Southern Illinois UP, 1993.
• O'Neill, Eugene. Long Day's Journey into Night. New Haven : Yale UP, 2002.
• Pinter, Harold. The Homecoming. New York : Grove Press, 1966.
• Qualls-Corbett, Nancy. The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1988.
• Thaden, Barbara. Maternal Voice in Victorian Fiction. New York : Garland Pub., 1997.

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