The mother, Mary is the central addictive figure with in the family. The men in the family blame their alcohol problems on Mary, and Mary blames them for her relapse. As we enter the play, Mary has just returned from a sanitarium for her morphine addiction. While she was there she was clean, but returning home would be hard. Her home environment, however, is clearly established as one that is highly conclusive to relapse (160). .
From the beginning to the end, you get this feeling that everyone is walking on eggshells. The first act opens up similar to a comedy with domestic tranquillity (160). Mary and James Tyrone are laughing and conversing, as a happy could should. When the boys are there, there appears to be more tension. The tension is there because their family can not have a normal day. Their lives revolve around denial. The laughing and conversing in a reasonable manner is there as a fazade for family and individual meltdowns. Whenever Mary leaves a scene the fazade falls and the mood changes (161). .
The sons, Edmund and Jamie, as well as the father, James, are aware that Mary's problem may be back into effect. The problem is, is that no one will confront her. The men would rather avoid making Mary upset, and push the problems aside as if it was non-existent. It is easier to live in denial about their mothers problem then to face it. James, Edmund, and Jamie do not just live in denial about their mother, but also about themselves. None of them seem to think that they have a problem, when in reality they do. Each member of this family is chemically dependent, which can be interchanged with alcoholism and addiction (159). They enjoy their drink as well as the fog-like state it puts them in. Each is more then just a heavy drinker, they are well seasoned alcoholics. .
Alcoholism courses through three generations of the Tyrone family (989). They .
escape their realities by escaping to their fog like world of being high.
