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European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 155
Significance of the Title ‘The Playboy of the Western World’
Dr. Rashmi
English Department
G.C.W Sampla, Rohtak
ABSTRACT: Edmund John Millington Synge is an Irish playwright, poet, travel writer, prose
writer and collector of folklore. He is a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and is one of
the co-founders of the Abbey Theatre. J.M. Synge, the innovator of the Irish Literary
Movement, got inspiration from Yeats to describe the life of the people who has the
beautiful amalgamation of ideal and actual; love and hatred; sorrows and ecstasies. Synge’s
canvas is limited but the range of his experience is wide, varied and deep. He is best known
for his play ‘The Playboy of the Western World’. The play is best known for its use of the
poetic, evocative language of Hiberno English, heavily influenced by the Irish language, as
Synge celebrates the lyrical speech of the Irish. The playboy of the western world is built on
a myth, that of a simple person, Christy Mohan, who professed to have killed his father in
order to escape his tyranny takes shelter in a country and boast of being a murderer,
become a hero in the eyes of the whole village population. The phrase ‘Playboy of the
Western World’ is first used by Widow Quin. She has used it sarcastically taunting Christy
after old Mahon appears for the first time in Mayo. The themes of dream and reality
patricide and self-discovery of Christy are all recapitulated.
Keywords: Irish, Revival, Myth, Tyranny, Murderer
Introduction: The plays of Synge rise head and shoulders above the dramatic conventions of
his fellow playwrights are not purely poetic plays or peasant plays, though they have
something of both, still less are they problem plays the greatest of them was “The playboy
of the Western World” and it was soon after words performed in half a dozen European
languages. This play tells the story of a peasant boy who flees from home under the
impression that he has killed his father. Synge’s strength lies in the juxtaposition of the most
earthly realism with the highest flights of fancy. His character speak a language which is
imaginative, because it is not cramped by industrial conformity or newspaper emotions:
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European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 156
“Bravery’s a treasure in lonesome place, and a boy would kill his father”. Within his small
world his characters are completely convincing and enormously alive.
Synge has narrated the source-folk belief in this connection in the Aran Islands: “This
impulse to protect the criminal is universal in the West. It seems partly due to the
association between justice and the hated English jurisdiction , but more directly to the
primitive feeling of these people who are never criminals yet always capable of crime, that a
man will not do wrong unless he is under the influence of a passion which is as irresponsible
as storm on the sea. If a man has killed his father and is already sick and broken with
remorse they can see no reason why he should be dragged away and killed by the law.”
Synge has been exhausted by the angry hostility to his play. The Free man’s Journal has
described the play as “unmitigated protracted libel upon Irish peasant girlhood....His play,
Synge insisted, is a comedy, an extravaganza is made to amuse...”
Title of ‘ The Playboy of the Western World’.
‘The Playboy of the Western World’ was first performed in Dublin in 1907. It evoked
harsh reviews from critics. The Irish audience treated the glorification of a murderer as
something shocking and disgraceful. But Synge himself clarified that the play was not
intended as a social document or an indictment (criticism) of the Irish race. Synge writes in
the ‘Preface’ that he wrote the play as ‘a piece of life’ without thinking whether it was a
comedy, tragedy or extravaganza’. He says that he has given to the audience something ‘of
the rich joy found only in what is superb and wild in reality’. The central issue in the play is
the choice between the happiness in illusion & courage in truth.
The play cannot be easily classified. It does not fall in any of the three well
known categories – Comedy, Tragedy, Tragi-comedy. It may be called an extravagant
comedy with strong elements of farce in it. From another point of view, it may be call ‘a free
comedy’ in which the moral issues are reversed. But Synge is not merely concerned with the
glorification of a man “who killed his dad’”. The illusion of Christy’s greatness is nourished
and raised to heights by a community who believes in myths. The whole community of Maya
is equal maker of Christy’s illusion. Christy Mahon is the ignorant and humble son of an old
farmer. He arrives at the coast of Mayo, a remote village in the Western Ireland. He is
Page 3 of 5
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 157
running from law after killing his father with a blow of a spade. Instead of rejecting him, the
people of Mayo receive him as a hero because they need a myth to give colour and
excitement to their dull lives. Christy changes from a timid and bashful coward into a hero, a
poet & a bold lover. Although the people reject him later, the myth has already done its work.
The title of the pay is very significant. The whole play is about the development of the
personality of Christy Mahon. The world ‘Play Boy’ occurs a number of times in the play.
From a pretender or an actor Christy becomes a real hero in the end. The entire action of the
play takes place in the course of just twenty four hours. During this brief period of time. The
character of Christy undergoes complete transformation. We first hear about Christy from
Shebeen who tells Pegeen that he had heard a strange young fellow groaning in distress in a
ditch above the hill. A little later, this strange fellow enters Michael’s house looking ‘very
tired, frightened and dirty’.
He very timidly asks for a drink & complains that he is bad-tired. On being asked
if he is running from the police, he says that he had murdered his father in a potato field in
his native village. He is surprised at the way everybody reacts in the public house at his
confession. Everybody thinks that he had performed a brave deed with the exception of
Shawn. The kind of reception that Christy gets from these people has a very stimulating
effect on him. Pegeen pays him all kind of compliment and these compliments further
boost his confidence. By the end of Act I we find Christy thanking God for the good luck
that has befallen him. Two women have quarrelled over his hand. He feels that he should
have killed his father much earlier. What Christy’s father tells widow quin about his son
confirms our impression of his earlier life. According to old Mahon his son was incapable
of doing any useful work on the farm. All that he did to fool over little birds & makes
faces at him in the mirror. He goes on to say that there was no question of his son running
after girls for his son felt terribly shy of them. The women of his village use to make fun
of him and would call him ‘the looney of Mahon’s’. But Christy’s transformation has
already begun. The visit of several village girls who bring gifts for him further adds to his
confidence. Now he shows the tendency to magnify his deed. One of the girl says, “he
tells it lovely’. This new found self-confidence enables Christy to distinguish himself the
village sports. He comes out with flying colours in almost every contest.
