The Playboy of the Western World

The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge ; it was his masterpiece; capturing his major themes in their most complex form. It is difficult today to discern why the play was so controversial, but the playwright managed to offend not only the repressive sexual mores examined in other plays but also the image of the peasant as a rural saint.

The playboy of The Western World- first a satiric comedy written and performed just over one hundred years ago, still addresses many themes that are relevant in today's society. The play is set in rural western Ireland, still under British rule and still in relative poverty, the play is set over just one day. The general themes that are addressed in the play are; feelings of community, the importance of fantasy and reality, Heroism, love, authority and morality. All of which can be applied to today's society.

The play is the story of Christy Mahon, a young man running away from his farm, claiming he killed his father. The locals are more interested in vicariously enjoying his story than in condemning the immorality of his murderous deed. He captures the romantic attention of the bar-maid Pegeen Mike, the daughter of Flaherty. When Christy Mahon first walks into Flaherty's tavern boasting eloquently of how he has killed his father, the townspeople do not berate him for committing an immoral and evil deed. Instead, his story of rising up and destroying his father (a figure of authority) inspires the people in the pub and Christy becomes an unlikely hero. This singular act signifies the importance of fantasy and storytelling, the people in the tavern have not seen the deed and they do not know if its necessarily true but it creates a great deal of excitement in their rather mundane and boring lives. Storytelling, embellishment and stories of "heroism" are still just as important today, but expressed through different mediums such as the mass media rather than in the setting of a tavern.  When Christy attempts to kill his father again in front of the villagers they turn against him, because seeing this immoral act in reality betrays the fantasy they had envisaged in their heads about Christy and his challenging of authority. In the end when Christy is banished from the Village with his father, Pegeen then laments betraying and losing Christy, The Playboy of the Western World. The ending signifies that language, fantasy and love is superior to mundane, boring and oppressive lives.

In the end Pegeen and the others are stuck with their old lives, while the father and son go off to start a new one - based on storytelling. The play's ending asserts the triumph of fantasy, imagination and language over convention and repression.

The play is a singularly arresting play by reason of its extraordinary combination of qualities that are ordinarily deemed contradictory. It is a comedy of Irish peasant life, extravagant, even boisterous at moments, yet based on the tragic theme of the murder of a father by his son; it is illuminated not only by the richest of humor but by poetic touches of poignant beauty, and all told in language so vivid and picturesque, so full of the zest and color of life, as to make ordinary English seem pale and tame.

The ultra-Nationalists professed to regard the play as an attack on Irish morals and character and organized hostile demonstrations when ‘The Playboy’ was first produced at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1907, and later in London, and in the United States. In reality Synge has done the highest service to the Irish cause by creating dramas of artistic distinction and originality from purely Irish material.

In his preface to the play Synge says, “I have used only one or two words that I have not heard among the country people of Ireland or spoken in my nursery.” Another quotation from Synge furnishes a most significant commentary on ‘The Playboy.’ “On the stage one must have reality and one must have joy; . . . the rich joy found only in what is superb and wild in reality. . . . In a good play every speech should be as fully flavored as nut or apple, and such speeches cannot be written by anyone who works among people who have shut their lips on poetry.” ‘The Playboy’ is based on a story Synge heard in the Aran Islands; its language, its humor, its poetry, its flavor, its “reality,” its “joy,” are all drawn from Irish country folk and transmuted by the hand of the artist into an enduring work of art that is very human and very beautiful. The play contains an ironic mixture of rebellion and conformity to social conventions.

The play is a portrayal of Playboy in the early twentieth century of Ireland - Playboy did not have the meaning it has today, rather it meant hoaxer or tricker. Whereas, today it denotes a pleasure seeking person indulging their lifestyle in all sorts of mal-practices especially having innumerable woman affairs and flirting.

" The playboy of the western world" was presented as a microcosm of the world itself. It may have taken place in the Aran Islands but it still can be linked to societies in different parts of the world. His characters, most importantly his protagonist represents the universal youth in search of his identity and how he finally finds his place in the society as he realizes his full potential among other more complex themes in the play. The Playboy has a two-fold theme, patricide and the transformation of a young man by change in circumstances and environment. The story deals with how the Mayo people make a hero of a Youngman who just committed patricide. The glorification of a murderer by the people of Mayo seem quite for fetched but Synge here decribes a real character by telling us in his book ‘The Aran Islands’ of an actual case of this kind whereby the people of Aran Island gave shelter and helped a murderer who had killed his father. Hence already it is a play whose foundation lies in being real and so relevant.