O'Neill, Eugene: 1888-1953

Long Day's Journey Into Night, 1956 - Thematic Parallels: Family

Family is the group of people who nurture, support, and care for each other, whether by blood, law, or heart.
O'Neill, Eugene: Long Day's Journey Into Night, 1956
The play’s topic revolves around family dysfunction, addiction, illness, and the destructive nature of secrets and regrets.
The following books are thematically simliar. They lend themselves well to being read in groups, compared with one another, or used to teach a similar topic over an extended period with a class:
- Dunne, Catherine: The Things We Know Now, 2013, ~340pp
  This is a novel involving family crises and personal struggles.
  - Both works are intimate, character-driven examinations of human flaws, family conflict, and the lingering weight of past choices, making them resonate with audiences despite being separated by decades.
- Lahiri, Jhumpa: The Namesake, 2003, ~290pp
  This is a novel focusing on family, identity, and legacy.
  - Both novels highlight how family bonds can be simultaneously nurturing and suffocating, showing the strain of love, obligation, and expectation. They both works share a profound exploration of family, identity, the weight of the past, emotional realism, and alienation.
- Paton, Alan: Cry, the Beloved Country, 1948, ~250pp
  This novel touches on societal and familial relationships.
  - Both novels explore how personal identity is shaped by social pressures, family dynamics, and internalized expectations. Characters grapple with understanding themselves amid external influences. They emphasize how trauma, whether direct or inherited through family, shapes the characters’ actions, perceptions, and futures.
- Williams, Tennessee: The Glass Menagerie, 1945, ~130pp
  This is a play about family emotional complexity.
  - Both novels are meditations on human vulnerability framed through familial and societal lenses. They highlight generational tensions as a source of personal and familial suffering.
List of general discussion questions on Family (pdf)
List of essay prompts on Family (pdf)