43 pages • 1 hour read
John Millington SyngeThe Playboy of the Western World
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1907A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Romanticization of Heroism and Violence
In The Playboy of the Western World, Synge critiques the romanticization of heroism and glorification of violence. To do so, he depicts a fickle, rural Irish community that jockeys to embrace an entertaining yet falsely esteemed outsider.
Synge uses a comedic representation of patricide to expose the superficiality of heroes. The isolated community of County Mayo quickly welcomes scraggly Christy as a hero, based on his tall tales of murder. Instead of recoiling from the fabulist criminal and turning to the police, the villagers celebrate Christy’s alleged patricide as heroism. The village’s comedic allegiance to Christy reflects the social attitudes toward police and organized authority; the citizens of County Mayo would rather protect and embrace the murderer than welcome the authorities into their community. However, once Christy attempts to murder his father a second time in front of them, the hero myth shatters, and the villagers fear lawful repercussion. This quick shift in allegiance reveals the superficiality of County Mayo’s heroic ideals and social values.
In revering a murderer, the County Mayo community idolizes violence and equates brutality with masculinity. After the arrival of Christy, the social belief of violence as masculine affects the villagers’ perception of other characters, particularly Shawn. When Shawn refuses to have a physical altercation with Christy in Act III, Michael James casts Shawn aside as a “cowardly” “puny weed,” proclaiming, “A daring fellow is the jewel of the world, and a man did split his father’s middle with a single clout, should have the bravery of ten” (69). In this reference, Christy is the “daring fellow” because he violently felled his father. Although Christy’s “soft” physical stature does not align with the community’s perceived definition of masculinity, Christy uses his cunning storytelling to convince them otherwise. After accepting Christy’s brave feat of patricide as truth, the community—and particularly the village girls—suddenly regard him as a man of physical prowess and athleticism. This intentionally ironic and amusing turn of social perception is a commentary on the villagers. The bored residents of County Mayo are without heroes and entertainment, and Christy suffices for both.
However, the comedic arrival of Old Mahon eventually exposes the truth of Christy’s true nature—a lying, lazy, and insolent son who is the laughingstock of their hometown. To reclaim his social status, Christy again attacks his father with a loy, believing that he is now a “proven hero” who will surely secure the affection of Pegeen Mike. Whereas the County Mayo community first embraced Christy’s grandiose proclamations of patricide, the crowd rejects such violence when it happens in their village. In another ironic twist, the crowd—led by Pegeen Mike—calls for Christy to hang, which is a lawfully approved recourse of violence. Synge portrays the residents of County Mayo as lacking true depth of character. Their fickleness, in regard to both their idolization of a false hero and their moral convictions, suggests that these Irish citizens are apt to favor violence as it suits them. Synge’s depiction also conveys the social preference for storytelling, or tall tales, rather than the truth. Christy renounces the villagers as “fools of the earth” for rejecting him and threatening to hang him. Old Mahon shares this sentiment and declares that he will tell stories of the villainous “fools” of County Mayo, thus continuing the proliferation of false heroes and tall tales.
Fathers and Obedience
One of the primary sources of conflict in The Playboy of the Western World is between fathers and their disobedient children. There are three sets of parents and fathers (or father figures) in the play that support this theme: Old Mahon and Christy, Michael James and Pegeen Mike, and Father Reilly and Shawn.
The play’s final depiction of Christy and Old Mahon suggests that true disobedience is a rite of passage for a son to become a man. Of all the father-child relationships portrayed in the play, only Christy’s resolution is positive. From his disobedience, Christy obtains power over his father and becomes the patriarch. When Christy is asked his motive for killing his father, he begins by saying, “He was a dirty man, God forgive him, and he getting old and crusty, the way I could put up with him at all” (18). Christy regards his aging father as annoying and burdensome. Christy goes on to tell the crowd that Old Mahon would often get violent himself, be it with the police or other men nearby, stating that “it was a bitter life he led me till I did up a Tuesday and halve his skull” (26). Christy attempts to elicit sympathy. It is this story the people of County Mayo have in mind when Old Mahon comes looking for Christy and vows revenge on his son. They turn against him, saying that he must have tormented him to the breaking point. Old Mahon replies, “Torment him is it? And I after holding out with the patience of a martyred saint till there’s nothing but destruction on, and I’m driven out in my old age with none to aid me” (48). Old Mahon feels abandoned by the son he raised and cared for. In his old age, he has been discarded as useless to his son, to the point where Christy would rather kill him and be rid of him than stay behind and help his own father. However, Old Mahon shows a glimpse of pride when Christy seizes the patriarch mantle from him. He looks back at his son and broadly smiles in the play’s closing scene. This parental approval cements the commentary that disobedience is rewarded with independence.
Conversely, Pegeen Mike’s ineffectual disobedience of her father does not resolve favorably. Although the first act introduces Pegeen Mike scolding her father, Michael James, for leaving her alone at the bar, they have an overarching amicable relationship. However, when Christy shows up, Pegeen Mike becomes more rebellious and defies her father’s wishes for her to wed Shawn. She insists that the only man she will be marrying is Christy. Michael James is taken aback by his daughter’s change in attitude and sinks defeatedly into a chair. He says, “Oh aren’t you a heathen daughter to go shaking the fat of my heart, and I swamped and drownded with the weight of drink?” (68). He is even more irritated by Pegeen Mike’s disobedience because he has been drinking. Just as Michael James is persuaded to accept Pegeen Mike’s stance, Pegeen Mike’s perception of Christy changes for the worse when his lies are exposed. Pegeen Mike loses her “playboy,” yet she still refuses a marriage to Shawn as consolation. Instead, she resigns to remain unwed. In this way, Pegeen Mike’s disobedience results in her living out her life unmarried.
Similarly, Shawn’s devout obedience to his priest, Father Reilly, results in his loss of Pegeen Mike. Father Reilly is Shawn’s unseen and unheard father figure. Although he never graces the stage, Father Reilly rules over Shawn’s emotions, specifically through fear of punishment. Shawn refuses to stay overnight in the house with Pegeen Mike, claiming, “I am afeard of Father Reilly, I’m saying. Let you not be tempting me, and we near married itself” (13). He fears that Father Reilly will perceive him as a sinner if he stays with an unwed woman. Likewise, he refuses to fight Christy for the same reason. He is the only child figure in the play to not rebel against his father figure. As a result, the County Mayo community regards Shawn as a coward, and they ridicule his piousness. Shawn is assumed to eventually wed Pegeen Mike. However, in the final scene, Pegeen Mike wishes him to leave her sight due to his cowardice. Shawn loses her respect of him as a man due to his fearful obedience to Father Reilly.
Marriage as a Social and Economic Institution
Synge presents marriage as a social and economic institution that reflects the values of the characters in the play. The characters do not pursue marriage out of romantic love. Instead, they seek out relationships for personal gain. The most notable example of this is the romance between Pegeen Mike and Christy. Pegeen Mike initially teases Christy, calling him a “soft lad” and rebuking his claims of patricide. However, when the bar patrons welcome Christy and celebrate him as a brave hero, Pegeen Mike becomes attracted to him. Pegeen Mike views Christy as a grand prize when the other eligible village girls flock to him. In turn, Christy muses that he should have killed his father sooner, as doing so has resulted in the attention of women. Just as Pegeen Mike is drawn to Christy’s elevated social esteem, Christy’s vanity fuels his desire to win Pegeen Mike’s heart.
Similarly, the shrewd Widow Quin recognizes the advantages of marrying young Christy and tries to win his affection. When her scheme fails, she strikes a deal with Christy to help him wed Pegeen Mike in exchange for social and economic gain. Throughout the play, the manipulative and cunning Widow Quin strikes deals with several characters, often in conflict with each other, for personal gain. She is best characterized by her widow title, one achieved through the murder of her husband. Widow Quin reclaims her agency as a woman by ridding herself of her husband and a union that did not serve her. Unlike Pegeen Mike, Widow Quin has agency that allows her to pursue whomever she chooses and in whichever manner she prefers, no matter how scandalous.
Shawn, a devout Catholic and farmer, vies for Pegeen Mike out of a sense of duty and tradition. In Act I, Shawn declares Pegeen Mike as his betrothed, although she has no romantic interest in him. As her cousin, Shawn believes he is entitled to marry Pegeen Mike, with the approval of her father as well as his priest, Father Reilly. Despite Pegeen Mike’s protestations, Shawn continually refers to her as his betrothed. Synge does not portray Shawn as a man genuinely in love. In fact, Shawn himself describes Pegeen Mike as his opposite; whereas Pegeen Mike has “the divil’s own temper,” Shawn is “a quiet simple fellow” (45). Shawn relentlessly pursues Pegeen Mike throughout the play, even after she declares herself for Christy. In the end, Pegeen Mike would rather remain unwed than marry the onerous Shawn.
The play’s conclusion illustrates Synge’s commentary on misguided motivations to marry. All the characters seeking elevated social and economic status via marriage find their aspirations unfilled. When Christy is rejected by Pegeen Mike and County Mayo, he resolves to live his life as the philanderer he pretended to be, thus rejecting the institution of marriage entirely. Without Christy, Pegeen Mike similarly rejects marriage. Widow Quin also rejected marriage by murdering her husband. Only the God-fearing Shawn is unrelenting, and he naively believes in the impending “miracle” of his marriage to Pegeen Mike. In the closing scene, Pegeen Mike hits Shawn and brusquely banishes him. This dismissive violence solidifies the matrimonial unfulfillment for all characters.
