Mary Tyrone is not only the central character of Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill (McBride); her individual character also reflects the main theme of the play. Viewed from a postcolonial perspective, she is an excellent example of someone who creates what Salman Rushdie calls "imaginary homelands" in order to experience a sense of belonging. During conversations, Mary frequently returns to her girlhood in the convent as well as complaining that she has not had a real home since she married James. She feels that she is homeless because she has constantly been on the road following her husband around with his acting career. Thus, Mary creates "imaginary homelands" while in a morphine-induced stupor in an attempt to find a sense of belonging. Even though she is creating a false sense of belonging out of an artificial past, she also belongs in the Tyrone family because of her role as "sacrifice" for her husband and sons. In either case, Mary reveals the main theme of Long Day's Journey into Night: belonging.

As Salman Rushdie asserts in "Imaginary Homelands," "the past is home, albeit a lost home in a lost city in the mists of lost time." (9) The subject of his postcolonial essay concerns how memories of the past are examined, particularly for members of diasporic communities. He uses the metaphor of piecing back together the shards of a broken mirror; because people desperately want to understand the past, the fragments can be reassembled but some of the pieces will inevitably be lost forever (Rushdie 11). Likewise, the memories of the past can be reconstructed but never fully nor accurately. Rushdie further asserts that home is an idea, something that only exists in the minds of people examining the past: "...we will, in short, create fictions, not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands..." (10) To explain, people try to understand the past by creating fictional ideas of home that stem from their actual non-fictional experiences. But, since memories are never completely accurate, the idea of home becomes a version of the past; in other words, "my" idea of home is based on real events and experiences but is only an imperfect picture created from the pieces of my past that I choose to use.

Although all people create their own versions of the past in an attempt to understand, members of diasporic communities particularly cling to the notion of "imaginary homelands." As defined in Beginning Postcolonialism by John McLeod, diasporic communities are "communities of people living together in one country who 'acknowledge that "the old country" — a notion often buried deep in language, religion, custom or folklore — always has some claim on their loyalty and emotions." (207) McLeod adds, "The emphasis on collectivity and community here is very important, as is the sense of living in one country but looking across time and space to another." (207) Almost all people want to belong to some sort of group such as ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, and even recreational. People in diasporas often create "imaginary homelands" in order to feel a sense of belonging in a state that is otherwise "in-between" (McLeod 208). "In-between" is a term used to describe the difference in how members of diasporic communities think about the "home and host countries" (McLeod 209). Because of a sense of "unbelonging" to neither their new place of living nor their old place of origin, people in diasporas construct their own fictional yet realistic homes to which they can then belong.

When Mary and James Tyrone first enter their living room after breakfast in Long Day's Journey into Night, they quickly begin discussing the properties that James keeps buying. Mary thinks he is foolish for making the purchases as a way to earn money but realizes she is not going to change his mind: "I know it's a waste of breath trying to convince you you're not a cunning real estate speculator." (O'Neill 15) Mary does not view property in the same way as her husband, which is exemplified when James replies to his wife, "I've no such idea. But land is land, and it's safer than the stocks and bonds of Wall Street swindlers." (O'Neill 15). James claims that he buys so much unneeded land in order to make a "quick turnover on it for a fine profit" (O'Neill 15). However, from a postcolonial perspective, his desire to buy land is not simply a desire to make money. James Tyrone is an immigrant from Ireland who moved to the United States with his parents and siblings when he was a child. As Mary reminisces to Edmund, once immigrated to the United States, James lived the stereotypical working-class life:

                   [James'] father deserted his mother and their six children a
                  year or so after they came to America. He told them he had
                  a premonition he would die soon, and he was homesick for
                  Ireland, and wanted to go back there to die. So he went and
                  he did die. He must have been a peculiar man, too. Your
                  father had to go to work in a machine shop when he was
                  only ten years old. (O'Neill 117)

Mary is also from Ireland, so when James and Mary married each other, they created their own little diasporic community. When members of diasporas create "imaginary homelands," they are searching for a place to call their own. Thus, when James buys all of the property buys, which is not making him a millionaire from a "quick turnover," he also seems to be searching for some sort of property to call his own.

However, James never actually indicates that he is looking for anything other than land to make himself some money. It is Mary who first brings up the idea of home. She is the individual character who outwardly displays the main theme of searching for belonging. While eating lunch, James leaves the room to answer the telephone. She then comments to Edmund that "[James] could afford to keep on buying property but never to give [her] a home" (O'Neill 73). Mary is rather bitter about not having a place to call home after she married James:

                  It was never a home. You've always preferred the Club or a
                  barroom. And for me it's always been as lonely as a dirty
                  room in a one-night stand hotel. In a real home one is never
                  lonely. You forget I know from experience what a home is
                  like. I gave up one to marry you — my father's home.
                   (O'Neill 72)

She left her homeland, which was with her father at his house, and ended up moving around a lot and living in places she could never consider home as she followed her husband on his acting tours. Mary can be considered a migrant because she is no longer in what she considers her home.

Conversely, Mary and James are a part of the upper-middle class. James is an actor who makes obviously makes a fair amount of money because he is able to build his family a summer home as well as travel the rest of the year with his acting group. The family is even able to afford a maid, a cook, and a driver. Diasporic communities are typically thought of as lower or working class immigrants, not Irish families with Irish maids (McBride). The film version of Long Day's Journey into Night as directed by William Woodman, on the other hand, changes the race of the Tyrone family. They become an upper-middle class black family with a very Southern black maid (Woodman). Black families in America are more frequently thought of as forming diasporas than upper class white families. Nonetheless, the Tyrone family is still wealthy enough to afford a summer home complete with maid. But, money does not equal a sense of home, as Mary tells Edmund while Jamie and James are outside trimming the hedges:

                  I've never felt [this place] was my home. It was wrong from
                  the start. Everything was done in the cheapest way. Your
                  father would never spend the money to make it right. It's
                  just as well we haven't any friends here. I'd be ashamed to
                  have them step in the door. (O'Neill 44)

Ironically, Salman Rushdie, the author who wrote the essay about "imaginary homelands," also does not fit the stereotypical idea of an immigrant without a home. He spent the first half of his childhood in Bombay until he moved to England where he attended prestigious British primary schools and then the University of Cambridge. However, immigrants do not necessarily feel a sense of belonging just because they are wealthy when they move to a new country. Even rich people can feel as if they do not belong, which is the case of Mary Tyrone. She feels like she has never had a real home since she married James and moved away from her father, which is why, while in a morphine-induced stupor, Mary begins recalling memories of her past.

When her husband and sons are in town, Mary offers Cathleen, the Irish maid, some whiskey in an attempt to spend time with someone like a friend. Cathleen tells Mary about the incident at the drug store: "[The man in the drugstore] gave me a long look and says insultingly, "Where did you get hold of this? and I says, "It's none of your damned business, but if you must know, it's for the lady I work for, Mrs Tyrone, who's sitting in the automobile." (O'Neill 103) Mary then covers up her morphine-addiction by telling Cathleen that she takes the medicine for the rheumatism in her hands. Mary also quickly returns to her girlhood in the convent as well as complaining that she has not had a real home since she married James:

                  I haven't touched a piano in so many years. I couldn't play
                  with such crippled fingers, even if I wanted to. For a time
                  after my marriage I tried to keep up my music. But it was
                  hopeless. One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains,
                  leaving children, never having a home —" (O'Neill 104)

Although she can never actually return to the convent or her youthful piano playing days, Mary again brings up her feelings of not having a home to which she belongs. She also often drops into memories from her past during other conversations. However, since memories of the past are constantly changing in the mind, she has created a kind of "imaginary homeland" to which she can also never belong.

Mary creates her final "imaginary homeland" at the end of both the play and movie while in the deepest recesses of her drug-induced stupor:

                  After I left [Holy Mother], I felt all mixed up, so I went to
                  the shrine and prayed to the Blessed Virgin and found
                  peace again because I knew she heard my prayer and would
                  always love me and see no harm ever came to me so long
                  as I never lost my faith in her. That was in the winter of
                  senior year. Then in the spring something happened to me.
                  Yes, I remember. I fell in love with James Tyrone and was
                  so happy for a time. (O'Neill 176; Woodman)

She is no longer living in the present but rather trying to grasp onto the past, which seems like a better time in her life to her compared to her current state. However, her past is not completely fabulous. The stage directions written by O'Neill indicate that "she stares before her in a sad dream." (176) Her memories are not completely pleasant, but she nevertheless returns to past. Mary is still creating a fictional idea of home from her actual past experiences (Rushdie 10). She takes the pieces of her past — convent, faith, father, home, James — and creates an "imaginary homeland" where she was "so happy for a time." Once she hits rock bottom of her morphine use, Mary creates and slips into her not entirely accurate memories of home because she feels that she no longer has a home to which she can belong.

In her creating an "imaginary homeland," Mary is the central character of Long Day's Journey into Night because of the role she plays for her husband and sons (McBride). The Tyrone men need Mary to be the crazy dope fiend who slips into the past while on drug binges because of what Kenneth Burke calls the "Sacrificial Principle:"

                  Here are the steps
                  In the Iron Law of History
                  That welds order and sacrifice:
                  Order leads to Guilt
                   (for who can keep commandments!)
                  Guilt needs Redemption
                   (for who would not be cleansed!)
                  Redemption needs Redeemer
                   (which is to say, a Victim!)
                  Order
                  Through Guilt
                  To Victimage
                  (Hence: Cult of the Kill)....(4)

As obvious alcoholics, James and Jamie should not look down upon Mary for her unintentional morphine addiction (McBride). James and Jamie are consciously breaking the "order" created by society that frowns upon excessive alcohol consumption (Burke 4). Mary, on the other hand, became a morphine addict accidentally when a substandard doctor shot her full of drugs after the birth of Edmund, her youngest son: "I was so sick afterwards, and that ignorant quack of a cheap hotel doctor — All he knew was I was in pain. It was easy for him to stop the pain." (O'Neill 87) Unlike her husband and son, Mary was not responsible for the beginning of her drug problem. According to the Sacrificial Principle, "order leads to guilt" (Burke 4). Since the two oldest Tyrone men are breaking the rule against alcoholism, they need some sort of "sacrificial animal" to cleanse themselves of their guilt (McBride). Mary is an easy sacrifice because she is super-conscious of herself being watched by her husband and sons as well as of her appearance (McBride). She is also an easy sacrifice because of her drug problem. Even though the rest of her family have their own individual problems such as alcoholism and tuberculosis, Mary is used as a redeemer for their issues and sins (Burke 4). Mary not only finds belonging by creating her own "imaginary homelands" while in her drug-induced stupor, but she also belongs as part of the dysfunctional Tyrone family because of her role as "sacrifice" for her husband and sons.

At various moments throughout Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill, Mary Tyrone talks about home and how she feels that she has not had a real home since she married James and moved away from her father. As asserted by Salman Rushdie in his postcolonial essay, "Imaginary Homelands," and John McLeod in Beginning Postcolonialism, Mary returns to her past in an attempt to create an idea of home to which she can belong. Mary is also given a role of belonging by playing the sacrificial character for the rest of her dysfunctional family. Either way, Mary Tyrone is searching for some sort of home throughout the play, which reflects the grand theme of belonging.

Burke, Kenneth. Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1961.

Long Day's Journey into Night. Dir. William Woodman. Perf. Ruby Dee, Earle Hyman. A&E Network, 1989.

McBride, Dr William. Class lecture. Drama. Illinois State University. 11 Apr. 2006.

—. Class lecture. Drama. Illinois State University. 4 May. 2006.

McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2000.

O'Neill, Eugene. Long Day's Journey into Night. Yale University Press: New Haven, 1955.

Rushdie, Salman. "Imaginary Homelands." Imaginary Homelands. Penguin Books: New York, 1992. 9-21.