Mary's extreme nervousness and pale face belie the healthy figure. And when James tells her she's "a fine armful now," because of the twenty pounds she's gained, we realize she must have been ill. O'Neill calls attention to her hands and notes that "one avoids looking at them, the more so because one is conscious she is sensitive about their appearance and humiliated by her inability to control their nervousness which draws attention to them." Again and again throughout the play attention is called to the hands since Mary's inability to "control" their shaking is not only a symbolic but also a physical manifestation of her inability to control what she does and why she does it.

Throughout the play attention is also called to the "convent-girl" quality of the mother. This quality of "unworldly innocence" is perhaps attractive, but rather out-of-place; endearing, and at the same time ironic; appealing, but nonetheless unrealistic for a wife and mother. As the play develops we begin to realize that Mary's concern with the "might-have-been" seems to be in many ways both directly and indirectly responsible for the present plight of the whole family.

Because Long Day's Journey is autobiographical we had best comment briefly about the physical description of Mary which O'Neill here gives us. According to biographers who interviewed those who knew the O'Neill family at this time, the description of Mary Tyrone closely duplicates their recollections of Mary Ellen Quinlan O'Neill, Eugene O'Neill's mother. The adjectives used to describe her are perhaps most significant since they reveal the "idealized" way in which the author "saw" his mother: graceful figure, aonce pretty face, sensitive lips, pure white hair, once beautiful hands, soft and attractive voice, simple, unaffected charm.

James Tyrone is sixty-five but looks ten years younger; he is remarkably good looking with the "air" of an actor about him. His clothes are shabby and threadbare-he is dressed for gardening and doesn't care how he looks. He radiates health and self-assurance. A little later we learn he is at times inclined toward a sentimental melancholy and rare flashes of intuitive sensibility.
The fact that James is sixty-five but looks ten years younger would indicate that the years had been good to him and his way of life had agreed with him. As a popular actor, "a matinee idol," he evidently enjoyed life on and off the stage. Because he has been successful, his pride in himself and what he has done is evident in his speech and bearing. But O'Neill notes that he is by nature and preference a simple, unpretentious man. The description of James Tyrone's clothes prepare us somewhat for a point the author is going to comment on throughout the play - the father's inclination towards stinginess.