It is often said that the 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 clear understanding of his situation, and shows this through the surprisingly accurate portrait she paints of him: "...always making fun of someone else, 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 evident understanding regarding her and her husband's failures as parents, as well as the subsequent failures of Jamie's youth that followed. These scars still pain him deeply, but at the same time they have given him a grounded view of the present, preparing him for the unique role in all of the Tyrones' lives that only he is suited to play. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Very early in the game, it is quite 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 enormously wealthy actor, has an idea of ​​money, or rather greed, ingrained in him not unlike that of his poor Irish ancestors. He never had the desire, or, for that matter, saw the need to provide his family with a home they could truly call their own (other than a cheaply built summer house), often dragging them from a dirty second-rate hotel to next on his tours. This, in many ways, left the family feeling cut off from the rest of the world as they were unable to entertain company. Such isolation left Mr. Tyrone the only strong male role model in Jamie's life, thus passing his father's alcoholism on to Jamie. As Mary says, "You raised him to be a drinker. From the time he first opened his eyes, he saw you drinking" (113). Yet unlike his father, who famously never missed a show, Jamie couldn't handle his alcohol well enough. His weak ambition, a residue of his lonely and scattered childhood, suffered a further blow of the bottle, making him lose even that small grain of seriousness that had previously been present in his life. Eventually, he flunked out of school and let his talent for acting go to waste, counting on his father to get him parts so he could support his addiction and taste for loose women (because no one suitable would want him ). In short, his life as it is can be summed up by Edmund's recitations of Baudelaire's "Epilogue", especially the last line: I love you, infamous city! Prostitutes and prey have their pleasures to offer, the vulgar herd will never understand. (136) Paradoxically, while the need to escape his bitter reality is now among Jamie's reasons for continuing to drink, he is able to control his situation better than any other member of the family. The harsh falls he has suffered and the life-altering mistakes he has made keep him grounded and prone to cynicism, often leaving him the first to point out hard truths that the rest of the Tyrones would rather ignore. In a sense, she is the personification of the foghorn located near the family summer house by the sea. Just as the foghorn drives ships away from natural fog, she drives both her parents and her brother away from the blissful fog of their own ignorance. He is the first to point out Mary's return to morphine addiction, the first to state the obvious about Edmund's health.