The Great American Family at its worst. James Tyrone is an aging actor and skinflint whose miserliness has been the ruin of his family. His wife, Mary, has been a morphine addict since the birth of their youngest son, Edmund. Their eldest son, Jamie is an alcoholic, unable an unwilling to find work on his own, he has been 'forced' to take up his father's profession. Edmund, who has been away as a sailor has returned home sick and awaits the doctor's diagnosis of consumption. Each of them is so self-centered, and self-pitying, that they cannot help one-another. None of them even know what they want and they can't bear it.