28 J. M. Synge: Playboy of the Western World

Ms. Rekha Mathews

Introduction-

(Edmund) John Millington Synge (1871- 1909) is one of the founders of Ireland’s Abbey Theatre. He is one of the most famous Irish playwrights, and one of the most prominent dramatists of Ireland. He was born into a strict Irish Protestant family. He lost his father a year after his birth. A sickly and lonely child, he developed a love of nature eventually becoming a naturalist. He read Darwin and lost his faith but was haunted by guilt about it since it meant the betrayal of his mother. His love of music led him to train as a musician at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and Trinity College but soon shifted to languages and literature. While in Paris in 1896, he met W B Yeats and Yeats’s love Maud Gonne, the radical Irish nationalist, and Lady Gregory, Yeats’s patron. They joined together to form The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. This theatre had a vital role to play in the Irish Movement that eventually led to Irish Independence.

The Ideals of the Abbey theatre – Irish identity (“Irishness”) and its problems. The Abbey theatre was born out of a historic cultural and political necessity. It is to be viewed against the Irish struggle for freedom from British hegemony and colonization at all levels. In the view of its founders the Abbey was to be a space of free experimentation for Ireland’s dramatic artists.

It was an attempt to critically and aesthetically represent the Irish people and their culture upon the Irish stage, while rejecting the familiar stereotypes of the ‘stage Irishman’ which English dramatists cultivated on the British stage. It was to address the Irish people, who are weary of misrepresentation, in carrying on a work that is outside all the political questions that divide (them). According to Martin Esslin it was “the place where a nation thinks in front of itself.” Lady Gregory wanted to “to build up a Celtic and Irish school of dramatic literature” “to find in Ireland an uncorrupted and imaginative audience trained to listen by its passion for oratory, and believe that our desire to bring upon the stage the deeper thoughts and emotions of Ireland. They wanted to “show that Ireland is not the home of buffoonery and of easy sentiment, as it has been represented, but the home of an ancient idealism.”

Yeats in his essay, “Ireland and the Arts.” sought to reform Irish dramatic practices. For him the theatre was to be a place “of intellectual excitement – a place where the mind goes to be liberated” and stressed the importance of speech and lyricism in the theatre.

Synge’s plays have a unique place in the history of Irish Theatre because they generated serious debates over the identity and role of the Irish National Theatre at a time when the question of Irish culture, national identity and political independence were hot subjects. Though he was neither ethnically Irish(Gaelic ) or Catholic, his two plays In the Shadow of the Glen and Playboy of the Western World, apparently represent to modern theatergoers a picture of thoroughly Irish life and art. These plays became central to the debates over Ireland’s national theatre and its role in defining Irishness. The playwrights and artists enjoyed great freedom of expression. However the popular Irish audience was not always sympathetic towards such performances. Such contradictions and conflicts only added to the vitality of the theatre.

At the suggestion of Yeats, Synge went to the Aran Islands to learn the Gaelic language spoken by the Irish folk. On these remote islands Synge became intimate with the rural peasantry and was inspired to create his great plays. The Spartan life of the peasants on the islands surrounded by the turbulent ocean, local history and Gaelic folklore and the Aran dialectical variation of English provided him with a unique theatre language which marks him out among his contemporaries.

Synge returned to Dublin in 1902, to join the Irish National Theatre Society with Yeats and Lady Gregory. After procuring a playhouse of their own it was renamed The Abbey Theatre, where all of Synge’s plays were produced. Synge wrote only four plays (In the Shadow of the Glen (1903), Riders to the Sea (1904), The Well of the Saints (1905) and Playboy of the Western World (1907) and the unfinished Deidre of the Sorrows), and his plays were controversial at that time. But they are distinguished by their special kind of realism, local colour, profane imagery, stylisation and focus on peasant life. They appeared offensive to contemporary Irish sensibilities; but Synge’s influence on other writers such as Sean O’Casey, (the next major dramatist of the Abbey, whose plays dealt with the life of the Dublin working classes in the same way Synge had done for the rural poor) was great.

The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act comedy set against the rural west coast of Ireland. It was first performed on 26 January 1907.The story is set in Michael James Flaherty’s public house in County Mayo at the turn of the 20th century. It tells the story of Christy Mahon, a young man running away from his farm, claiming he killed his father. He takes the locals for a ride earning everyone’s admiration and the romantic attention of the bar- maid Pegeen Mike, but when his father turns up his fortunes turn and he has to leave in disgrace after another failed attempt to kill his dad.

History of the “Playboy Riots”

The “Playboy Riots” are now part of its performance history. In 1907, while it was being performed in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin riot broke out over a perceived slur on Irish women and the use of certain expressions considered indecent and offensive of public morals and religious sentiments and an insult to the Irish people. The perceived slight on the virtue of Irish womanhood was identified in the line “a drift of females standing in their shifts” (‘a shift’ being a female undergarment and a word that is common in Irish households). Apart from this, it was also accused of exploiting the entrenched stereotype of the Irish as blustering and quarrelsome drunkards, Irish peasantry as simpletons and presenting the Catholic Church (represented by the parish priest) as bigoted, tyrannical and implying that all Catholics ( like Shawn Keough and the village people), are dim-wits and weak-willed, but capable of extreme violence. Some people sincerely believed it to be a glorification of parricide.

The rioters were led by the Irish nationalists like the Sinn Féin leader Arthur Griffith. He described the play as “a vile and inhuman story told in the foulest language we have ever listened to from a public platform” .The performance was interrupted throughout. The riots later spread all over the town and the police had to intervene to control the situation. However, prominent Irish intellectuals led by W B Yeats as well as the Press condemned these riots and the protests died out; the play gained popularity. Considering the volatile political conditions of Ireland at the time these reactions are understandable though the perception of insult and immorality were unreasonable. Ireland at that time was fighting for national identity and freedom after centuries of prejudice through stereotyping, exploitation, and poverty.

In 1911 similar reactions occurred in the U S A also including even a court case in New York. Today the riots are seen as more politically motivated than moral. The Anglo-Irish Nationalists saw the play as a revival of Gaelic culture and realistic representation of native Irish culture as a threat to their pet ideology and dominance. Playboy was translated and adapted into film opera and television later on.

Critics have observed that it was Synge’s attempt to get close to the Irish reality that provoked resentment. The popular audience must have expected him to idealize the Irish peasant. But his attempt was to bring a slice of Irishness in its bare but lyrical truth before his audience and thereby establish a true identity for the Irish people with all its strengths and weakness its beauty and ugliness on the world stage. One critic noted that in both The Shadow of the Glen and The Playboy of the Western World, Synge’s “sense of a precious Irishness under threat and in urgent need of preservation is clear”

If he provoked the audience politically and emotionally it was the result of Synge’s ability to implicate the audience in the events unfolding on stage. On the one hand he is critical of the “encroaching modernity” of Ireland , and on the other he provokes the “bourgeois audience out of their complicity in this process.”

Setting: The Action of the play takes place near a village, on a wild coast of Mayo, covers barely two days, starting with one autumn evening and ending the next.

Characters

1. Christopher (Christy) Mahon-: An ordinary and undistinguished youth who claims to have murdered his father. He is a good raconteur who impresses people initially with the story of how he killed his father, turning him into a hero to his listeners. This buoys his self-esteem. Finally when the truth comes out, he is a changed and better man.
2. Old Mahon-: Christy’s father, a tyrannical village squatter with a thick skull that helps him survive his son’s attempt to kill him. Initially he has only contempt for Christy but in the end grows to respect the boy when he shows his mettle, ironically in his daring attack on him.
3. Michael James Flaherty-: Father of Margaret (Pegeen) a pub owner. He likes attending wakes (night-long vigils over the dead before funerals), where liquor and socialising attracts him more than the solemnities.
4. Philly Cullen, Jimmy Farrell-: Local peasants and friends of Michael Flaherty who attend the wake with him.
5. Margaret Flaherty-: (Pegeen Mike), Michael’s daughter and the bar-maid. Pretty, quick- witted, she takes a fancy to Christy Mahon. She is a bit of a tragic figure at the end of the play, when Christy leaves her. She despises her fiancé Shawn.
6. Shawn Keogh-: Pegeen’s second cousin and fiancé, dull, spineless young farmer who has Michael Flaherty’s approval to marry, but is finally rejected by Pegeen.
7. Widow Quin-: a crafty, opportunistic thirty year old widow, rumoured to be her husband’s murderer. She attempts to seduce Christy unsuccessfully.
8. Sara Tansey, Susan Brady, Honor Blake, and Nelly-: village girls who fall for Christy after hearing of his murderous exploits.
9. Father Reilly: – The local Roman Catholic curate who does not appear in the play, but is frequently referred to by Shawn Keough. Because of Shawn’s consanguinity with Pegeen, he needs the priest’s approval to marry her. Shawn’s perpetual worry is about how his conduct will be viewed by the legalistic Father Reilly.
10. Kate Cassidy-: A recently deceased local whose wake Flaherty and his friends attend.
11. A Bellman, local Peasants and Farmers -They are part of the crowd with non-speaking parts.

Plot Overview: The scene of action is the remote Irish West Coast, in County Mayo. One evening of autumn a young man named Christy Mahon stumbles into Flaherty’s tavern. He claims that he has run away from home after having killed his father driving a loy (a flat spade) into his head. Christy assumes a heroic aura among the locals. Christy’s bravado and his storytelling skills make him the local hero; especially among the women of all ages. Young Pegeen, Flaherty’s daughter and barmaid falls head over heels in love with Christy giving up on Shawn, her betrothed. At Shawn’s behest the Widow Quin even tries unsuccessfully to seduce Christy. Christy wins a donkey race using the slowest beast and increases his reputation in the village.

The tide turns when Christy’s father Mahon (he was only wounded) turns up at Flaherty’s tavern looking for his boy. Christy is in trouble, because the villagers including Pegeen decide that he is a coward and liar. In a vain attempt to regain his playboy status Christy attacks his father a second time. This time Old Mahon appears to be dead, but the townspeople regard this as a terrible crime and led by Pegeen, they bind and prepare to hang him in their attempt to avoid being implicated as accomplices in patricide. But at the last minute Christy’s father saves his son when he, crawls back onto the scene bloody and suffering, having improbably survived. Christy leaves with his father to wander the world. But Shawn is disappointed when he offers to marry Pegeen and is spurned by the girl who laments having betrayed and “lost the only playboy of the western world.”

Critical Summary

Act I–

The play opens in Michael Flaherty’s shabby roadside pub (Shebeen). Flaherty’s twenty year old daughter Pegeen, the village belle is tending the bar in the absence of her father who is gone with his cronies Philly Cullen and Jimmy Farrell to attend the wake of Kate Cassidy. Pegeen is upset about having to tend the pub alone. After all, who knows what evildoer might steal in from the shadows to set upon her? She complains, “It’s a queer father’d be leaving me lonesome these twelve hours of dark, and I piling the turf [peat] with the dogs barking, and the calves mooing, and my own teeth rattling with the fear.” Pegeen is writing a letter to a merchant ordering things needed for her forthcoming marriage to Shawn Keogh, who soon arrives. Pegeen is unhappy at being alone in the pub through the night, since her father will be gone.

When Flaherty suggests that Keough keep her company, Shawn begs off because of his religious scruples. He feels improper to keep Pegeen company since they are yet unmarried and would incur the wrath of Father Reilly the village priest for staying alone with her the whole night. Since they are related, their wedding is delayed as the couple are forced to await dispensation from the bishops to get married. When Shawn suggests calling Widow Quin to keep Pigeon Company, she mocks the idea.

He also tells her of his hearing the groans of a man lying in a ditch nearby but not going to investigate because he is afraid. Michael and friends arrive and engage in idle banter and tease Shawn. He soon leaves, leaving his coat behind, only to run back in terror announcing that the man in the ditch is following him. A battered, frightened and exhausted Christy Mahon enters. The men at the pub are kind to him. A long and amusing interrogation begins with Michael suggesting that Christy is running away from the police for crime. Christy admits it. When Pegeen tries to defend the stranger against the suspicious old men, saying that he is so gentle that he would not even cut the throat of a pig, Christy’s male vanity is pricked. He confesses to the old men that he has killed his father, hitting him with a loy. He explains : “I just riz [raised] the loy and let fall the edge of it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all.”

Impressed by the newcomer’s courage, Flaherty offers him the job of the pot boy in the pub. The jealous Shawn objects to this. Pegeen snubs him, for she has developed a crush for fugitive with his amazing ‘heroic’ story. When the old men leave, Pegeen sends the hesitant Shawn off and bolts the door.

Christy now begins to flirt with his female host. Pegeen teases him of being a flirt with other girls but he claims innocence. He is boastful about his family while telling the tales of his good for nothing rogue of a father. He falls for Pegeen’s flattery but she cuts him off promptly when he attempts to get too close to her. She prepares a bed and food for the guest, when Widow Quin knocks at the door. Christy hides fearing it is the police, but Pegeen offers to protect him. Quin is in her thirties with a rumoured reputation of having killed her husband. She claims that she has come there at the behest of the local curate Father Reilly to take the stranger to her home for the night. Pegeen scoffs at the idea. This leads to a bitter quarrel between the women. Christy settles the matter when he prefers to stay at the pub. Forced to leave in defeat, Quin issues a warning to Christy that in a short while he will be ditched by Pegeen who is about to marry Shawn. But Pegeen assures Christy that she would not marry Shawn even if a Bishop came to wed them. While he settles down to sleep, Christy delights at the thought: “…it’s great luck and company I’ve won me in the end of time — two fine women fighting for the likes of me– till I’m thinking this night wasn’t I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by.”

Commentary- Note that the exact geographical setting of the action is not mentioned in the stage direction. However, the language and the references made to social customs and religious practices help identify it as the County mayo region. Pegeen’s letter, and the introduction of Shawn Keogh tells us of the local marriage customs and also prepare us for the later developments in Pegeen’s love. Hers is an arranged marriage by her father; she does not really love her fiancé. The reference to Bailiffs and agents remind us of the harsh conditions under which the Irish Catholic peasants struggled under the Anglo-Saxon (British) hegemony. It kept them in poverty and hatred of the land owners. Christy is suspected as a demobilized soldier from the Boer War, a war in which Many Irish youth were drafted into the British army and returned. Christy arrives there as a frightened and lonely youngster seeking shelter and food and in fear of being caught for parricide, but he transforms himself into a sort of hero for the nonce. The men at the bar show a detached interest in him only. But his adolescent vanity is pricked by Pegeen when she says that he has done nothing, which prompts him to confess his crime. Ironically this puts him in a romantic light before the village people. The stage is now set for more dramatic action.

Act II

The next morning Christy is at the Shebeen bar room counting the glasses and other things, admiring the things around. He gloats about his great luck while tidying up Pegeen’s boots and washes himself. He gloats about his good looks too. Shawn has already made the news of Christy’s arrival known in the town. Three village girls-Sara Tansey, Susan Brady, and Honor Blake-arrive at the bar with gifts for the heroic man who killed his father.( a fourth girl Nelly also is with them but the name is not mentioned in the dramatis personae) Christy flees to hide in the inner room, but they fetch him out and gives him gifts. Sara has brought duck eggs, Susan has butter, and Honor gives a piece of cake. Nelly brings him a boiled pullet (which had been crushed the previous evening by the curate’s car.) Widow Quin enters and rebukes them asking them to prepare breakfast for Christy. She seats him near her, eager to listen to his story. He tells them of the quarrel with his father. Mahon had urged him to marry the half lame and half blind and 45-year-old Widow Casey, described as “walking terror” who weighed 205 pounds. She chased both young and old men, and in fact had suckled Christy in his infancy. Christy’s refusal to marry inflamed his father’s wrath and he swung at him with his scythe. Christy impresses the listeners with the dramatic narration of the scene: “I gave a leap to the east. Then I turned around with my back to the north, and I hit a blow on the ridge of his (Mahon’s) skull, laid him stretched out, and he split to the knob of his gullet.” The female listeners toast him. The widow holds hands with him when Pegeen enters and is struck by the sight. She sends them all away. As she leaves, Widow Quin reminds Christy that she has registered him in a local athletic competition on the sands that evening featuring racing, leaping, and pitching.

Shawn Keough now returns, followed by Widow Quin, to tell Pegeen some of her sheep have strayed into a neighbour’s field to eat cabbage. While Pegeen runs off to fetch the sheep, Keough offers Christy a new hat and coat, as well as breeches and ticket to the U S A, if he will just go away so that Shawn can resume courting Pegeen. The widow persuades Christy to try the new clothes on, telling him he can decide on Shawn Keough’s offer later. When Christy goes into another room to try them on, Shawn tells Widow Quin that he thinks that Christy has no intention to leave. He is just dressing up for Pegeen only.

The widow enters into a deal with Shawn to drive Christy away from Pegeen. She demands his red cow, a ram, the right-of-way across his rye path, and a load of dung at Michaelmas. Shawn, more than willing, offers a wedding ring, a wedding suit for Christy apart from other wedding gifts, including two goats for the wedding dinner.

Christy reappears strutting in the new clothes. Shawn leaves so the widow can seduce Christy. But Christy’s mood changes when distracted by a fearsome sight coming toward the pub sending him to hiding behind a door. His father is still alive and has arrived outside. The climax of the play starts here when Old Mahon wearing a hat over a bandaged head bursts into the pub and asks Mrs. Quin whether she has seen a young man on the run. Quin handles the situation cleverly with a combination of flattery and guile, telling him that hundreds pass by each day to catch the Sligo boat, then asks why he is looking for him. Mahon says, “I want to destroy him for breaking the head on me with the clout of a loy.” Proudly showing his head in a mass of bandages and plaster, he tells her: “It was he did that, and amn’t I a great wonder to think I’ve traced him ten days with that rent in my crown?”. He identifies himself as Christy’s father while the widow who is able to see Christy behind the door-questions old Mahon about his son. Mahon refers to his son as a good-for-nothing lout who is afraid of women, who gets drunk on the mere smell of liquor, and had once taken medical treatment for smoking a tobacco pipe. He refers to Christy as “dark and dirty,” and “an ugly young blackguard.”

Widow Quin tries to put Mahon off Christy’s track by telling him Mahon’s son is now on the way to catch a steamer to sail away “to the north or south”. Mahon is duped into going on a wild-goose chase. After old Mahon leaves, the widow mildly scolds Christy for pretending to be the Playboy of the Western World. Then she invites him to marry her and live with her and she would keep him safe.

Outside, young ladies call for Christy to escort him to the sporting competitions. Christy, meanwhile, reveals his love for Pegeen and tells the widow that he would be forever in her debt if she helped him win Pegeen. The widow promises to help him in return for a ram, a load of dung at Michaelmas, and a right-of-way across the land he would own when he marries. Christy agrees.

Commentary:-The action builds up in the scene with the arrival of the village girls and the intervention of the Widow and her joining with Shawn to get Christy off Pegeen. The village girls are excited by the sensational arrival of a dashing youngster who has a story behind him. It is a change from their daily routines, with exciting prospects. Sexual jealousy accompanies Christy’s popularity, further complicating the plot. Synge’s masterful stagecraft becomes evident when the act ends with the ‘dead’ Mahon appearing on the scene, putting Christy in real trouble, building up the suspense on another level, apart from the anticipations regarding the romantic affair. The mainspring of the comedy is this event. It looks forward to the climax in the next act. On three levels Synge’s stagecraft draws applause: the delineation of atmosphere, the development of character and the building up of the dramatic action without letting go the audience’s attention.

Act III

Returning from the wake, Jimmy and Philly enter the tavern. Michael is later brought home in a cart! The two drunks discuss Christy’s alleged speculating on the consequences of the discovery of the dead body. Even as they talk, Old Mahon unable to trace his fugitive son enters and sits at a table. Jimmy speaks to Philly reminiscing about a boyhood experience when he found a dead man’s bones in a graveyard and tried to put them together like a puzzle. Old Mahon interrupts the conversation showing them his skull, saying, “Tell me where and when there was another like of it.” The two men are impressed when he tells them that it was his own son who struck him. But they are still unaware that Mahon is Christy’s father.  Widow Quin enters, aghast to see old Mahon back. Mahon tells her he had no luck tracking down his son. Quin gives him a drink and seats him out of earshot of the others. Then she tells Jimmy and Philly that old Mahon is daft and actually it was a tinker who split the man’s skull. Mahon, when he hears about the local hero, Christy-claims it was Christy who did it. But the other men believe Quin’s story.

Cheering is heard from outside .The race is on. Everyone in the tavern looks out the window. They see Christy winning the mule race. Mahon also gets excited when he realises that the champion is none other than Christy. The spectators raise him onto their shoulders; old Mahon identifies his good-for-nothing son. In her attempt to save Christy from trouble, Widow Quin declares that Mahon is mad. In her view if Mahon’s description of his son as a good for nothing is to be believed, then how he could be such a great sportsman and be the hero to many people? Mahon confesses that he has not been in his normal mind these days: “There was one time I seen ten scarlet divils letting on they’d cork my spirit in a gallon can; and one time I seen rats as big as badgers sucking the life blood from the butt of my lug.”

Widow Quin uses the opportunity to encourage the old man to leave because the boys in the crowd may treat him badly. Mahon goes on his way, followed by Philly who declares he will provide the old man supper and a place to rest, then check to see if he is as mad as the widow says.

Christy enters the tavern in his jockey’s uniform accompanied by the admiring Pegeen and other girls while the crowd outside is still cheering. The villagers give him prizes, including bagpipes and a fiddle. Christy, basking in the glory of the moment, proposes to Pegeen, and she accepts happily.

Michael Flaherty now returns from the wake and congratulates Christy for his great victory in the race. When Pegeen tells him of the proposed marriage to Christy, the old man first objects. But soon, when Shawn Keough is afraid to fight Christy for Pegeen, old Flaherty changes his mind. He renounces Shawn as a coward and consents to Christy as his future son in law.

Christy’s fortunes turn when old Mahon returns with a club. He reveals his identity to the crowd, and begins beating Christy. The crowd then turns on Christy for posing as a murderer. Even Pegeen condemns him, saying, “And to think of the coaxing glory we had given him, and he after doing nothing but hitting a soft blow and chasing northward in a sweat of fear.”

Christy is left with the only choice left- kill his father a second time. This event is the most exciting moment, perhaps the climax within the climactic sequence. The two men fight. Christy grabs the club and chases Old Mahon outside. Outside the tavern (offstage) before the village crowd, Christy hits him down. The audience hears a cry, then dead silence. But Christy’s handiwork elicits only fear and contempt from the watchers. When returns to the tavern dazed and exhausted, the crowd, having directly witnessed a real murder before them, is horrified. Pegeen’s words explain their changed attitude. “I’ll say, a strange man is a marvel, with his mighty talk; but what’s a squabble in your back-yard, and the blow of a loy, have taught me that there’s a great gap between a gallous story and a dirty deed” Now they think that Christy should be brought before the law.

Pegeen leads the group to tie Christy up. She ignores Christy’s requests to release him and calls him a “saucy liar” whom they would not risk their live for. While she prepares the fire to scorch him, Christy he threatens his torturers saying” if I’ve to face the gallows, I’ll have a gay march down, I tell you, and shed the blood of some of you before I die” which intimidates Shawn. Then they burn his leg with sod as per her suggestion. There is yet  another dramatic turn when the ‘dead’ Mahon returns surprising all. He asks Christy why he is tied up, Christy replies, “They’re taking me to the peelers [police] to have me hanged for slaying you.” Michael explains that the villagers have to guard their homes against the law. If they let him escape they would be held responsible.

This provokes Mahon’s sympathy for his son. A new bond develops between the father and son Old Mahon, now admires his son for his bravery. He releases Christy and declares, “My son and myself will be going our own way, and we’ll have great times from this out telling stories of the villainy of Mayo, and the fools is here.” Christy willingly follows his father but declares that henceforth he will not submit to his father’s tyranny. He is a changed man-confident now, self-assured. He leaves declaring “Ten thousand blessings upon all that’s here, for you’ve turned me a likely gaffer in the end of all, the way I’ll go romancing through a romping lifetime from this hour to the dawning of the judgment day.”

Shawn Keough declares that a miracle has been worked in his favour, confident that “Father Reilly can wed us in the end of all, and we’ll have none to trouble us when his vicious bite is healed.” But Pegeen dismisses him with a box on his ears. The curtain rings down on Pegeen, throwing a shawl over her head lamenting, “Oh my grief, I’ve lost him surely. I’ve lost the only Playboy of the Western World.”

Commentary:-The playwright does not belie the expectations of the audience. The plot moves swiftly to its comic finale. The air of comedy is retained, in spite of some violent action. Though we may pick a few flaws in the action and characterization, these may not be too obvious to the average spectator. The threads of action are bound together in a fitting way with a dash of farce too. Within the confines of the seedy shebeen the action is compressed. What takes place outside is suggested to the audience through the sound effects and the reactions of the characters onstage. Some of us may be unhappy with the playboy’s loss of his sweetheart and Pegeen’s rejection of her fiancé and the cruelty with which she burns his foot also Pegeen’s change of attitude is too theatrical and unconvincing. It is too sudden considering her infatuation. But granted all these, Synge is able to hold the action alive till the final episode.

The title-The name ‘Playboy’ refers to Christy Mahon. (It should not be confused with the more recent sense of the term).It can mean a romantic swashbuckler, daredevil an idler or a play actor who poses as something he is not. All these descriptions would it our hero. Synge makes Widow Quin admiringly refer to him twice by that name (“Well, you’re the walking Playboy of the Western World…”). In the concluding line Pegeen says: “I’ve lost the only Playboy of the Western World.”

“Western world” is a general Irish way of reference to the west coast of Ireland which is the westernmost border of Europe.

Themes: While trying to identify the themes we should keep in mind that the dramatist was not trying to put up some kind of ‘agenda’ political or otherwise. What we are watching is a rowdy comedy with twists and turns and lot of action and laughter. Its setting and language help provide a refreshing sense of the rural Irish life at the turn of the century.

1.   Escaping the boredom and ennui of routine existence

Christy Mahon is a very young fellow suffering under his tyrannical father living a humdrum existence till immediately before the opening of the play. But a moment comes when he acts decisively to change his life. The occasion is when he is ordered to marry a widow many years his senior. He runs away and arrives at Flaherty’s pub a fugitive from the law. But he takes advantage of the villagers’ credulity and interest in a good story and dramatically recounts the how he cracked his father’s. This endears him to his listeners. He as well as the villagers who have so far been living a life of routine boredom now enters into a semi- fantastic world of adventure and romance. Christy is indulging it all and the playwright provides the audience with melodrama and action more than charting the moral growth of the protagonist. to the rural folk of County Mayo an alleged parricide becomes a hero who  excites them relieving them from the routine life. In the end he is revealed as no hero and the villagers turn against him because they follow the conventional values of society that shuns crime especially parricide. The return to their humdrum life. Christy who came from the outside world had provided them with a romance that they enjoyed and when he is gone they are back again to the world of farming and pub life embracing its monotony.

2.    Satire on naivety and credulity of the peasantry-

One reason why the play was found provocative was its alleged depiction of the Irish people as credulous and naïve. Christy Mahon is easily able to win the admiration of the villagers by claiming to have killed his father most violently. The pub girl leaves her fiancée for him and the local widow wants to seduce him. They believe his self glorifying tale without considering its serious implications. But then when the victim of the assault turns up and there is a real attempt to murder him, they scandalized peasants, suddenly turn against Christy and even try to hand him over to the law. His sweetheart even tortures him. The villagers appear to us as naïve credulous and morally insensitive.

3.     Initiation The ‘growing up’ theme–Christy Mahon is a young man who is exposed to violence and harshness. Though he shows signs of cowardice and fear, the adulation that he receives from the people in the village including Pegeen, the widow and the other girls builds his self esteem. Christy discovers his hidden capabilities, including his power of self expression and physical capabilities.

In the second confrontation with his father, he shows himself as capable of what he claimed in the beginning. That he is manly enough. His departing lines show that he has arrived at a new mode of relating to his father who has been his bugbear. He will be in charge of his life in the future. Thus through violence and romance he grows up morally.

4.    Violence – If violence is to be taken as a theme, then we can see that it is an analysis of the two aspects of human violence. In a narration of violence the listeners are entrapped by the heroic quality of bold action without ever considering the moral and social implications of violence and murder. Violence for Christy is a way of expressing himself against an oppressive world represented by his tyrannical father. He takes advantage of it by projecting himself as a manly hero who stands up to his father and asserts his will. The villagers living in a state of lifeless boredom find the sensational story exciting. Though they are conventional and would not approve of a horrendous crime like parricide, they are distant from it except for the sensation they enjoy listening to a dramatic story. But when they actually witness the attempted murder, which is a repetition of what was earlier presented to them as a tale told by Christy, they are horrified and repulsed. They condemn it and begin to see its real horror. The comic treatment of the subject makes it bearable for the audience .It is also to be note that the climactic violence is made to happen offstage. Besides it ends with reconciliation between the contenders. 

Characters-

Synge’s success as a dramatist is partly due to his adeptness in characterization. His study of the language, customs and attitudes of the rural peasants provided him with enough material to create a masterful drama. In Playboy , he is at his best with this. Christy Mahon is the most memorable character in this play. He is initially presented as a country bumpkin, ragged and hungry, seeking shelter. But he speaks a poetic language and is able to transform himself during the course of action. He is good at telling stories and takes advantage of this talent. He has vivid imagination and his speech is full of colourful images and poetic language that endears him to his listeners. His speech displays a romantic sensibility in him. While describing his uninspiring life in sordid surroundings, we hear the voice of an uneducated poet with a feel for nature. Initially modest and timid, he soon waxes eloquent about his courageous deed when he learns that he can win the admiration of his listeners. He falls for Pegeen, but in the end learns that women are fickle. He refuses to give her up even after she has disowned him. But the realization comes to him while she prepares to burn his foot: “That’s your kind, is it? Then let the lot of you be wary, for, if I’ve to face the gallows, I’ll have a gay march down, I tell you, and shed the blood of some of you before I die.” He reconciles with his father, but the relationship will no more be that of a timid victim and a tyrannical father. He has learned to be his own master and perhaps his good for nothing father’s too. This moral growth distinguishes Christy.

Pegeen Mike- Critics point out that the charaterisation of Pegeen is conventional. She is interesting enough as a comic character the village belle whose fickleness adds to the comedy. The playwright describes her as “a wild looking but fine girl, of about twenty …in peasant clothes.” She is intelligent assertive and passionate. She has a sense of social importance on account of her father as the owner of the pub. In the beginning she is seen as content and happy with the arranged marriage to Shawn. But when Christy Mahon steps in, her allegiance changes. Despite the fact that she is worried about staying alone at the bar during the night, fearful of criminals, she has no fear to be alone in the house with the youthful guest who has confessed to parricide. She even defends him, attributing an aristocratic origin for the vagabond. She is incited to jealousy when the other girls come with gifts for Christy. She picks up a quarrel with the widow who wants to possess the young man. However she betrays her lover when the village turns against him on account of his attack on Old Mahon. She may have reasons to disown him for having won her heart by defraud, but it is to be noted that she was ready to approve of his murder earlier. Now that she is witness to his attack on Mahon, she hates him and even attempts to bind him up and torture him. She thus turns out to be fickle and even cruel. She loses her lover and also her fiancé in the end. There is no real  moral or psychological development in Pegeen. Synge’s presentation of Pegeen lacks subtlety in this sense.

Widow Quin– Quin is presented simply as a woman of thirty. She is probably a victim of an arranged marriage of convenience, being married to a man much older than her and now dead. She is a victim of rumour in the village that she has murdered her husband. She owns land and livestock and seems to be fully in charge of her life. She acts as a foil to Pegeen, in trying to win over Christy for herself. She accepts Shawn’s offer because both have interests that complement each other. Shawn wants to get rid of his rival in love, while Quin wants a husband. Hence she attempts to seduce the boy but is defeated by Pegeen. She displays great presence of mind in her attempt to dupe Old Mahon who comes in search of Christy. She even persuades the old man to believe that he is mad. Synge uses this character masterfully to develop the plot and action of the play.

Shawn Keogh:-Keogh is perhaps the most comical of all the character in the play. Synge describes him as a “fat and fair young man.” He is also wealthy. He is a contrast to the other characters in the story. He is abstemious and punctilious as opposed to the easy going whiskey swilling males at the bar. He is forever worried about what Father O’Reilly will say and is anxious about getting dispensation from the Church for marriage. He is also timid and afraid of violence. He contrasts with the bold and increasingly aggressive Christy who is his foil in love. It is no wonder then that Pegeen prefers Christy in his place. His life gets complicated when Christy arrives and steals Pegeen’s heart. He tries to get rid of his rival using his wealth. He uses Widow Quin to attempt to seduce Christy. Then he offers to buy a one way ticket for Christy to migrate to America. He fails. The final failure is when Pegeen after having lost her ‘playboy’ turns her back on him, though he is hopeful of marrying her. He wins our sympathy in the end.

Old Mahon– The first picture of Mahon that we get is from Christy, who is very modest in  his description at the beginning. Then he gets the attention of his listeners he adds to his earlier representation to portray the picture of tyrannical reprobate a violent rascal of a father. He informs his listeners that the old man had been in a lunatic asylum and conducted drunken orgies with ‘Limerick girls.’ When he enters the Shebeen he is most rude with the strangers, refusing to greet them as per custom. Justifying his son’s description the old man fights with him, but is defeated. The experience transforms him and he now becomes like “a heathen slave” to him.

Flaherty’s friends: – Synge gives brief physical descriptions of Michael James, Philly Cullen and Jimmy Farrell. They carouse together and generally give an air of easy if not lazy living. They go to wakes, get drunk and enjoy the fun of teasing Shawn and Christy and even take to flirting with the women. Through their conversation we get a lot of information about the society in the village. They along with the villagers provide the function of a chorus in a realistic way.

Synge’s Style

In The Playboy of the Western World Synge shows himself at his best in the way he uses colourful language and vivid imagery, recreating the life of a community remote from the urban world. His employment of the colourful dialect of the Mayo County Irish is a reworking of the syntax and vocabulary of Gaelic- the ancient language of the Celts of Ireland and Scotland. Synge was keenly interested the spoken language of the rustic people of Ireland. He had lived several years in the Aran Islands off the Atlantic coast, in Galway Bay and learned their lingo. This enabled him to use the intonations and speech patterns of the people of western Ireland. For centuries, Gaelic and Gaelic-English mix have been spoken there.

Synge flavours his dialogue with authentic western-Irish regionalisms and vulgarisms, as well as inflections and rhythms characteristic of western-Irish speech. However, he also peppered the dialogue with words or phrases common in other parts of Ireland. Synge explained his writing scheme in the preface to the play. Synge acknowledges this in his preface. He claims that he has used only one or two words that he had not heard among the country people of Ireland, or spoken in his own nursery before e could read the newspapers. He acknowledges his indebtedness to the poor working class people such as the herds and fishermen along the coast from Kerry to Mayo, or from beggar-women and ballad singers nearer Dublin to the folk imagination of these fine people. Synge says that the seemingly strange or wild expressions that the audience may find in the play are perfectly normal among the country folk whom he knew intimately. His language is a product o his intimacy with the peasant folk of the remote regions of Ireland.

Synge’s language:-Synge claimed that he had learned the pronunciation and rhythms of the Irish peasants on the Aran Islands which he overheard during his stay there. He refined it perhaps to suit his dramatic purpose. But the play does retain the rhythm and tang of the dialect of the remote villages, which is a mix of English and Gaelic. Many of the expressions in the play would have to be explained to the audience especially if they are only readers because in staging these may not cause so much of a problem, but in reading the experience is different.

Imagery– The overall imagery of the play recreates the cultural milieu of the West coast. The characters speak in vivid metaphors and hyperboles. For example, when Michael Flaherty asks Christy Mahon whether he has committed larceny, Christy replies that he has no need to stoop to thievery, for his father “could have bought up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his tail pocket, and not have missed the weight of it gone.” Similarly his description of his life with his father before his escape brings before us a vivid pictorial effect

…God help me, and there I’d be as happy as the sunshine of St.Martin’s Day, watching the light passing the north or the patches of fog, till I’d hear a rabbit starting to screech and I’d go running in the furze. Then when I’d my full share I’d come walking down where you’d see the ducks and geese stretched sleeping on the highway of the road, and before I’d pass the dunghill, I’d hear himself snoring out, a loud lonesome snore he’d be making all times, the while he was sleeping, and he a man’d be raging all times, the while he was waking, like a gaudy officer you’d hear cursing and damning and swearing oaths.

Humour- The play is conceived as a comedy and indeed it does have strong comic flavour springing out of the plot situation as well as the peculiarities of the characters. Much of the humour grows out of the dialogue. Individual characters provide occasions for laughter by their peculiarities. Shawn Keough for his naiveté and timidity, old Mahon with his obsession for ‘Wakes” which are occasions for carousal rather than sentiment or solemnity, the peasant girls with their foolish crush over a ragged fugitive from law, the scheming widow Quin, the capricious switching of romantic loyalty in Pegeen, and of course Old man Mahon who surprises us all with twice returning from the dead. Synge’s mastery of comic manipulation derives from the fact that he is able to convince the audience by the smooth transition from one situation to the other through dialogue and motivation of the characters. In other words his art conceals artificiality. Irony is one of the chief weapons in Synge’s armoury for example when Pegeen describes him as a soft fellow and Christy protests that she is lying Pegeen playfully threatens to hit him with a broom the following dialogue ensues:

CHRISTY – [twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror.] — Don’t strike

me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.

PEGEEN -[with blank amazement.] — Is it killed your father?

CHRISTY – [subsiding.] With the help of God I did surely, and that the Holy Immaculate Mother may intercede for his soul.

His invocation of God and the Virgin Mary in helping him commit murder is supremely ironic.

The Elements of Irishness– (Note: We have already stated the features of Irishness in the play in the earlier sections therefore details are not necessary here. Only the points are indicated) -The social and geographic- setting of the play- Irish peasantry nominally Catholic but still mostly illiterate, superstitious and readily swayed by emotions. The practice of arranged marriages for social and economic convenience is prevalent. They are mostly cut off from the larger world outside. Their credulity is exploited by someone like Christy. They are reliant on and even afraid of the arbitrations of the local priest. Their language has a peculiar rhythm and tang that distinguishes their local and quality of life. Customs such as wake are important. Alcohol addiction and sexual jealousy are also there.

– Poverty- The setting also reveals poverty and their struggles of the people to make both ends meet. The harshness of the peasant’s lot is visible in all their

– Synge is critical of their life but at the same time he is sympathetic too. He does not idealize them. Instead he provides a stark look at the life of the Irish peasant. It is also to be noted that singe does not deal with urban life, like Sean O’Casey, his compatriot. But a certain contrast with the urban world is implied in the intrusion of Christy into the peasant’s world. Though Christy is no sophisticated city man he puts on the airs of superiority over the peasants by his swashbuckling

-Synge’s view of Irish identity has been debated in terms of his own Irishness and also his supposed prejudices against the Catholic peasant. This is an open question.

Reference

• Ayling, Ronald. J.M. Synge: Four Plays : Riders to the Sea, the Well of the Saints, the Playboy of the Western World, Deirdre of the Sorrows : A Casebook. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992. Print.
• Bourgeois, Maurice. John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre. Bronx, N.Y.: B. Blom, 1965. Print.
• Luckhurst, Mary. A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama, 1880-2005. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006. Print.
• Mathews, P. J. The Cambridge Companion to J.M. Synge. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. Print.
• Presland Howe, Percival, ed. J. M. Synge; A Critical Study. New York: Haskell House, 1912. Print.
• Robinson, Lennox. Ireland’s Abbey Theatre: A History, 1899-1951. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1951. Print.
• Saddlemyer, Ann. J.M. Synge and Modern Comedy. Ireland: Dolmen ;, 1968. Print.
• Skelton, Robin. Irish Renaissance: A Gathering of Essays, Memoirs, Letters and Dramatic Poetry from the ‘Massachusetts Review’; Dublin: Dolmen, 1965. Print.
• Synge, J. M., and J. M. Synge. The Playboy of the Western World; and Riders to the Sea. New York: Dover Publications, 1993. Print.