It is often said that mother knows best, and depending on who the mother is, this may or may not be true. However, in the case of Jamie Tyrone, his mother certainly has a good idea of ​​his situation and shows it through the strikingly accurate portrait she paints of him: "...he is always making fun of someone on the other, always looking for the worst weakness. in everyone. But I suppose life has made him that way, and there’s nothing he can do about it” (O’Neill 63). As A Long Day's Journey Into Night progresses, Jamie's mother shows a clear understanding of her and her husband's failures as parents, as well as the subsequent failures of Jamie's youth that resulted from them. These scars still wound him deeply, but at the same time have given him a strong view of the present, preparing him for the unique role in the lives of the Tyrones that only he is fit to play. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Very early in the play, it is clear to the reader that Jamie's childhood was neither stable nor happy. Much of this comes from his miserly father, who, despite being an extremely wealthy actor, has an idea of ​​money, or rather avarice, ingrained in him that is not unlike that of his poor Irish ancestors. He never had the desire, or even saw the need to provide his family with a home they could truly call their own (except for a cheap summer house), often dragging them from a dirty, second-rate hotel to a dirty, second-rate hotel. the next one during his tours. In many ways, this left the family feeling cut off from the rest of the world as they were unable to receive companionship. Such isolation made Mr. Tyrone the only strong male role model in Jamie's life, thus passing on his father's alcoholism to him. As Mary says, “You raised him to be an alcoholic.” Since he opened his eyes, he has seen you drinking” (113). Yet unlike his father, who never missed a show, Jamie couldn't handle his drinking just fine. His weak ambition, a vestige of his scattered and lonely childhood years, has received another blow from the bottle, causing him to lose even the small grain of seriousness that was previously present in his life. Ultimately, he dropped out of school and let his acting talent go to waste, relying on his father to win him roles so he could support his addiction as well as his taste for loose women (as no one suitable would not have it). In short, his life as it is perhaps summed up by Edmond's recitations of Baudelaire's "Epilogue", particularly the last line: I love you, infamous city! The harlots and the hunted have their own pleasures to give, the common herd can never understand. (136) Paradoxically, while the need to escape his bitter reality has become part of the list of reasons why Jamie continues to drink, he has a better handle on his situation than any of the other three members of the group. family. The heavy falls he has suffered and life-changing mistakes have caused him to remain grounded and prone to cynicism, often leaving him the first to point out the harsh truths that the rest of the Tyrones prefer to ignore. In a way, he is a personification of the foghorn located near the family's seaside summer home. Just as the foghorn deters ships from natural fog, it drives his parents and brother away from the blissful fog of their own ignorance. He is the first to point out Mary's return to her dependence on morphine, the first to state the obvious about Edmund's health (that he had contracted tuberculosis) and the.