Covert Appropriations of Shakespeare: Three Case Studies

Papers on Language and Literature, Winter 2007 by Hirsh, James

O'Neill's complex attitude toward his mother is suggested by the two superimposed Shakespearean appropriations that contributed to this episode in his portrayal of his mother in Long Day's Journey. He loved and pitied his mother but apparently held her partly responsible for her inability to overcome her addiction and for the pain her condition caused her family.15 The two appropriations do not form a simple dichotomy, innocence versus guilt. O'Neill had the insight to realize that Shakespeare's portrait of Lady Macbeth is significantly complicated by the sleepwalking scene. Early in the play she is a coldblooded criminal, but in her last appearance she is shown as suffering intensely and as vulnerable. Even though the episode explicitly reminds playgoers of her guilt, her suffering should arouse some pity. She is both guilty and pitiable. By explicitly comparing Mary to the vulnerable, pitiable, and almost completely innocent Ophelia and covertly appropriating features of an episode depicting a character who is guilty but vulnerable and pitiable, O'Neill came to terms with his complex attitude toward his mother.

O'Neill knew, however, that an overt comparison between Lady Macbeth and a character based on his mother would be considered flagrantly disrespectful and unfilial, and he may even have regarded it in this way himself. When Jamie compares his mother to Ophelia, Edmund "slaps Jamie across the mouth with the back of his hand," and Tyrone says, "Good boy, Edmund. The dirty blackguard! His own mother!" (170). If a comparison of Mary to the innocent and pathetic Ophelia could arouse outrage, how much more outrageous would be an association of O'Neill's mother with Lady Macbeth. It is thus understandable that O'Neill would try to distract attention from this appropriation by including an explicit comparison to a different Shakespearean character. According to Normand Berlin, "when O'Neill read aloud the manuscript of Long Day's Journey to Katina Paxinou, the great Greek actress, when she visited his home, he made a mistake and read The Mad Scene: Enter Lady Macbeth' instead of 'Enter Ophelia' ("O'Neill's Shakespeare" 8). If O'Neill was reading the play, the substitution of "Lady Macbeth" for "Ophelia" is less likely a Freudian slip than a sly revelation to one theatrical colleague in private that Lady Macbeth was a more important model for Mary in the scene than Ophelia. Anxiety produced by the appropriation of Lady Macbeth in the construction of a portrait of his mother, an appropriation that, if noticed by others, might be construed as an insult and betrayal, would have compounded the anxiety of influence that O'Neill may have felt about appropriating material from the most admired dramatist of all time.16

Even though Long Day's Journey was the subject of intense critical scrutiny from the moment of its appearance, the first published reference to this appropriation (Berlin, "O'Neill's Shakespeare" 8) did not occur until 1989. Berlin devoted only a paragraph to the appropriation, mentioned only a few of the connections explained above, and did not consider the profound implications of the fact that O'Neill based a portrait of his own mother on Lady Macbeth. Berlin treated the appropriation simply as a straightforward imitation.17