Equally important to O’Neill’s use of symbolism is his portrayal of the idea of the family in the play. As previously mentioned, Long Day’s Journey into Night is a semi-autobiography, and therefore from the tragic events of the play, readers are to a great extent introduced to gain knowledge and insight about O’Neill’s own family and how the playwright had to suffer from a totally dysfunctional family that has in one way or another inflicted upon him mental, physical and psychological injures. In this regard, there is no doubt that the family plays a principal role in the overall health of an individual. According to Veronica Jacobsen, Lindy Fursman, John Bryant, Megan Claridge and Benedikte Jensen:
Many forms of family structure exist in modern Western societies today: the traditional two-parent heterosexual family, sole parent, step- and blended, foster and gay families. However, family functioning appears to be far more important than family structure to the well-being of family members and to children’s development. A universal issue in all families is the presence or absence of secure attachments within the family. (36)
Since family functioning remains to be far more crucial than its structure for the family security, it becomes clear now why the Tyrone family ends up being completely shattered and disunified.
To further underline the notion of family, Lois Tyson in his Critical Theory Today, advocates that “family is important to psychoanalytic theory, because we