These things are always floating in some unknown space. There, the past is closer to the future than the present, and there, nothing can be determined once and for all.
- "Derrida"
In Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey into Night, we enter such an "unknown space," and in this place where "nothing can be done once and for all," we see the blood and tears of the Tyrone family.
The whole play interprets the daily life of an Irish immigrant family from morning to night, the author shows the tangled spiritual world of the people in the play through simple and clear traditional dialogue, they are sensitive, anxious, hidden, they love and hate, blame each other and regret each other, snuggle and suspect each other, they try to forget the past but deny reality, they escape everything but are deeply trapped in it, bound by memory and more powerless.
However, the curtain has fallen, the bitter life of the Tyrone family is still continuing, the long day ushers in the long night, and the long night will surely usher in the long day again, until it continues endlessly... Time is like the shackles of darkness, no matter whether the day and night are so long and do not know the end, they are in a kind of "white night" time node, neither to meet the day, nor to enter the night.
As Murray said in the play: "What life has put on our heads, no one can escape, and can only resign themselves to fate." However, these things often come suddenly without you knowing it, but once it happens, you can only go on like this, make mistakes again and again, and finally mistake for life. ”
I've read the book Long Day's Journey into Night many times, and even read various other translations of it. Every reading experience is different, and every different reading experience can't stop my deep love for it. People are inseparable from each other, human weaknesses and moral judgments, emotional enthusiasm and alienation, the misfortune of life and the salvation of love...
When I was young, I empathized more with the translator Xu Yu, I saw the bondage of love and the confusion of life, regarded emotions as a trapped net, and hoped that as Edmund expected in the play, "always become an outsider, never find a belonging, always miss death." "Just want to escape.
Today, however, I see more different perspectives.
Love, whether love or affection, has always been a theme that has flourished in all kinds of literary works. The reason is simple, because it is so beautiful when it is beautiful, and everyone can't help but love it, protect it, sing it and praise it.
However, the world is not always so perfect, and so are people, and so is love.
Therefore, when this ultimate beauty has a crack, it will be unconsciously magnified by the human heart, and even feel that it is extremely ugly, and completely forget its beauty. And the initiator of all this may be because all you have been paying attention to is the flaw.
This is the tragedy of the Tiron family, because of the mutually maintaining love, they know each other, and because of the various misfortunes in life, they are jealous of each other and hate each other. Life always has all kinds of regrets, these regrets are like a thorn in the body, hidden in the heart, they will always live in the shadow of the past, can not go back to the present, let alone go to the future.
This reminds me of a very popular topic lately, about the family of origin.
A psychologist said: "The influence of the original family is cured throughout their lives." ”
O'Neill spent his life in the company of tragedy, trapped by an "incredible force behind life that drives everything", but he was paranoid and called himself an "optimistic pessimist", a lifelong struggle with his past self, a life of healing the self who was hurt in his original family.
Fortunately, he finally chose to face his past, which made him love and hate the "original family", and wrote this autobiographical masterpiece based on it. He dedicated the play as a gift for his 12th wedding anniversary to his wife, Carlotta: "It was your love and tenderness that gave me the conviction of love that enabled me to finally face my dead family. ”
Man, always have to look ahead. If you have been immersed in the shadows of the past, you will never be able to get out of the mud.
I thought that maybe the world is like a huge emerald, it is crystal clear and full of light, but it also has unexpected cotton, dirt and cracks.
After all, no piece of natural jadeite can be flawless, it needs to be finely polished in countless processes, and it needs to be carefully crafted by skilled craftsmen.
Otherwise, how is it different from fragile and fragile glass?
So, face the huge and elusive emerald of life! If you can't avoid those cotton and cracks, you may wish to use it well, sculpt it cleverly, and maybe it can become the most eye-catching stroke in life.
Resources:
1. Eugene O'Neill's Requiem for a Long Day. Oriental Publishing House. Translated by Xu Yu
2. Eugene O'Neill, "The Long Night is Long and Long", Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, translated by George Gao