584
PART I
SAN
REV lEW
level of the whiskey in the bottle he has grudgingly set forth. By the
same token, the measure of the sons' rebellion is how much liquor
they can "sneak." It is doubtful if the phrase and the action of "sneak–
ing a drink" have in any other cultural group the immense signifi–
cance that they have with the Irish. Allied to this peculiarly Irish
custom are the concomitant phrase and action: "watering the whis–
key," that is, filling the bottle with water to the level where it was
before you "sneaked your drink." (The pathology of this custom is
very curious, for obviously you fool nobody since the next person
who uses the bottle instantly knows it has been "watered." And it
doesn't take much imagination-since you know the habits of your
family-to guess who has been doing the "watering." Thus James
Tyrone knows that Jamie "waters" his whiskey, and Jamie knows
that his father knows. Yet he will continue to do so: a rite that
signifies a fictitious secrecy.) In some Irish households whole quarts
of whiskey, indeed whole cases of whiskey, would slowly evolve into a
watery, brown liquid, without the bottles having ever been set forth
socially, so to speak. This act-the lonely, surreptitious, rapid gulp
of whisky-is the national rite, and probably deserves a sculptural
embodiment, like Rodin's "The Thinker."
The "turbulence" of the Tyrone family hardly needs to be re–
marked upon. The play is, in part, psychologically speaking, a "free–
for-all," with everybody's hand against everybody else. Yet it is not
this simple, for their love for one another is equally overpowering. No
relationship has any stability and, sometimes, second by second,
it
alternates between love and hate. Here, for example, is an inter–
change between James Tyrone and Edmund (they are both drunk,
of course); the father speaks first:
You'll obey me and put out that light or, big as you are, I'll give you
a thrashing that'll teach you- !
Suddenly he remembers Edmund's illness and instantly becomes
guilty and shamefa ced.
Forgive me, lad. I for2"ot- You shouldn't goad me into losing my
temper.
EDMUND
Ashamed himself now.
Forget it, Papa. I apologize, too. I had no right being nasty about
