Long Day's Journey Into Night

As the family returns, Mary nervously adjusts her dress while the three men avoid her. Mary rambles about Bridget, the cook, and she says this is not a home. The acting season begins again in the fall, meaning that she and Tyrone will be moving into hotels while he works as an actor. Tyrone claims that this used to be a home before Mary’s illness, but she feigns ignorance. Doctor Hardy calls to make an appointment for Edmund at four o’clock that day. Mary says doctors cannot be trusted, noting that Tyrone is unwilling to pay for a quality doctor and revealing how she was harmed by Dr. Hardy. The men try to calm her, and she leaves to fix her hair. Tyrone tries to stop Mary from leaving, but she merely offers for him to join her.

Jamie declares “another shot in the arm” (67), implying that Mary left to inject herself with morphine, a painkiller, but Edmund and Tyrone tell Jamie not to talk about it. Jamie thinks that Mary is addicted to morphine and cannot recover. Edmund disagrees but does not offer a solution, and Jamie indicates Edmund’s nihilism, mentioning that Edmund has a pet named Nietzsche, a famous German philosopher often associated with nihilism, a philosophical