Long Day's Journey Into Night Drugs and Alcohol Quotes Page 3

Sure, the whole experience of sitting on a sailboat is beautiful, and we're all in favor of the environment, but let's be honest about what's going on here: Edmund's saying that the best high he ever got was from nature. His out-of-body experiences in nature have done all that the Tyrones want their drugs to do and so much more. Instead of just forgetting the present reality, this high demolishes the entire idea of reality, and takes you one step further outside the box of your life. Now that's some potent stuff.

In this tragic moment, right before he breaks down in tears, Jamie admits he has an addiction for the first time in this play. Not only does he admit it, but he also says that he was hoping to quit drinking and womanizing, but now he's without hope. This gives us a sympathetic new angle on Jamie, because he hadn't seemed the type to acknowledge his own problems – especially after the "Fat Violet" episode.

Cool literary reference here, as Jamie brings up a great poem, Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Gaol." In this poem, Wilde writes about a man threatened to death for killing his wife. He writes: "The man had killed the thing he loved / And so he had to die." Here, Jamie inverts the causality. Instead, once you die on the inside, as Jamie has, you lose control of yourself, and are forced to kill the thing you love (i.e., in Jamie's case, Edmund). In spite of all of his tears, Jamie is still hesitant to attribute total blame to himself in trying to hurt Edmund. Instead, it is a part of him he can't control that contemplates doing evil to his brother.