Benjamin Hergenroeder

Redford, Grant H. “Dramatic Art vs. Autobiography: A Look at Long Day's Journey into
Night.” College English, vol. 25, no. 7, 1964

He had to write it be- cause it was a thing that haunted him and he had to forgive
whatever caused this in them [his mother, father, brother] and in himself." After he had
completed it, she writes, "he felt freer. It was his way of making peace with his family, and
himself. (Redford 528)

But O’Neill’s artistic use of Tyrone’s confession of how love and money has
destroyed him is best understood when it is seen in conjunction with another of O’Neill’s
themes: salvation through understanding and forgiveness, a theme of such importance to
him that he wrote it into the play’s dedication, as already noted. (Redford 530)