Questions
1. What is the role of the past in the current problems of the Tyrone family? What impact do traumas have on this family? How does facing the past help some of the family get beyond their past experience?
2. The O’Neill play centers on a series of dramas within the Tyrone family. This is a family where people blame each other; yet clearly care for each other. What is the role of love, if any, within this family? How does the love within this family show itself? Given how awful they can be to each other, does this drama teach us anything about the underside of human entanglements? Is jealousy, blaming each other, being interdependent and deeply caring common in contemporary family life? Are negative and positive emotions intrinsic to living with relatives at close quarters? How so? What, if anything, does this play do to help us understand the emotional ties of family life?