Comparing Long Day's Journey Into Night And August: Osage County '

In Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill and August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, both mother figures and main characters in the play, Mary and Violet, are similar in terms of mother and child relationships, but different on their thoughts and uses of their pasts. These plays emphasize a parent’s relationship to their child. Mary and Violet treat, Jamie, Mary’s elder son, and Ivy, Violet’s nearest daughter, with disrespect unlike their other children whom are treated with more care and love. The past plays a prevalent role on Mary’s nostalgia to happiness before her life with Tyrone. Conversely, Violet uses her past as a remembrance of sadness to remind her children that their problems are not nearly as bad as hers and Beverly's.
Her past is filled with happiness while her present consists of worry and addiction. As Mary continues to be reminded of her morphine as well as Edmund’s sickness, she results back to her memories with her father before she met Tyrone. She reminisced, “He spoiled me… He would have sent me to Europe to study after I graduated from the Covent. I might have gone- if I hadn’t fallen in love with Mr. Tyrone” (106). Before she had met Tyrone, her husband and patriarch of the play, her life was filled with excitement and a dream to become either a nun or a pianist. However, after she had met Tyrone, her life changed to become full of “One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains, leaving children, never having a home-” (106). The past is something that is unchangeable but one can not help to remember. It is almost as if Mary wishes she could change her destiny to pursue her passion in which she would not have to deal with the present she is currently in. Mary uses her past as an escape or remembrance of what her life could have been without the problems she is currently facing. She brings it up in conversations when she is reminded of her misery. By the end of the play, Mary fully gives her consciousness to her past memories, which causes her to be fully unaware of her surrounding. Now that her morphine addiction got out of hand and the severity of Edmund's illness was revealed, she decided to submit herself to
Violet and Matties Fae were abused as children as shown through Mattie Fae’s efforts to save Violet from an attack from her “... dear mother’s many gentlemen friends [who] who was attacking [her] with a claw hammer!” (94). On the other hand, Beverley lived in a Pontiac Sedan for six years and still managed to graduate high school while becoming an award winning poet. Violets uses this to contrast their lives with her children’s who have been given a college education and still have done nothing. She exclaims, “Jesus, you worked as hard as us, you’d all be president. You never had real problems so you go to make all your problems yourself” (95). With her children complaining about their minor problems regarding Violet’s criticism, Violet uses her past to teach them that life does not have to be as hard as they make it. They have been given opportunities, such as college, to succeed and make themselves a prosperous living. They should use their opportunities to prevent a remake of Violet or Bev’s past for their children as well as themselves. On the contrary, Mary brings up her past to her family when she is feeling miserable about the present. Violet, on the other hand, mentions this at dinner when she sees that her children are being ungrateful for the lives she and Bev have provided them. Mattie Fae,