Is The Playboy of the Western World a farce or a comedy?

Playboy of the Western World is a comedy rich in farcical elements. In fact the play is a boisterous comedy which keeps us amused and laughing throughout. The comic elements, many of which are coarse and crude, are so abundant in the play that sometimes it seems that the play is more a farce than a comedy. Moreover, like a comedy the play does not end with the ringing of the marriage bells. The play may also seem to have no definite purpose or aim. For these reasons, I think it would not be a crime if we term The Playboy of the Western World as a farce.

In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include sexual innuendo and word play. Farce is also characterized by physical humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances. In dramatizing Playboy of the Western World Synge does not disdain the effects of farce on the sage, the primitive appeal to eye and ear, which transcends nationality and education. Indeed it is likely that his close acquaintance with the plays of Shakespeare and Moliere encouraged him to include so many farcical scenes in his own comedies.

There seems to be a steady increase in the number of farcical scenes as the play progresses. The humour of situations in this play is often farcical.

There are two ludicrous scenes in the first act: The first situation is when Shawn trying to escape from the clutches of Michael in order to avoid sleeping at the shebeen for the night, manages to run away, he leaves his coat behind in Michael’s hand. He is so terrified of having to spend the night alone with Pegeen, an unmarried girl, that he has to make a run from shebeen in order to avoid being forced to stay by Michael. There are undertones of subtler comedy on each occasion.

Another situation is Pegeen and Widow Quin each pulling Christy in her own direction because of their rivalry over the young man. We have known of two men fighting over a woman but here we have a farcical situation because here two women fight over a man and each pulls him toward herself. It is an indignified physical situation which immediate appeal is primitive and visual.

In Act 2 there are more such scenes. Christy hiding a mirror behind his back when the village girls come to see him, constitutes a funny sight for the audience while this situation becomes even more comic when one of the girls says that Christy is so vain that he even wants to look at the reflection of his back side in the mirror, adding that probably men who murder their fathers become conceited. 

Sara putting on Christy’s boots is funny too. Then we feel amused to find Philly who is already semi-drunk searching for more liquor and, on finding all the cupboards in the shebeen locked, cursing Peggen as the devil’s own daughter.

Christy hiding behind the door when he sees his father is alive and coming towards the shebeen locked is another comic situation. Here the comedy arises from Christy’s discomfiture at finding his father to be very much alive and also from the contrast between what Christy has proclaimed and what turns out to be the real fact. The appeal is till mainly visual in this swift series of comic sketches, and, highly-colored language is a delight to the ear.

In Act III, where we move from one farcical incident to another at bewildering speed: Jimmy and Philly, slightly drunk, talking nonsense about skulls and bones; Old Mahon’s second entrance; Michael James’s drunken return from the wake; Shawn Keogh fleeing from Christy’s threats of violence; Old Mahon beating his son before the assembled villagers; Sara’s petticoat being fastened on Christy; Christy biting Shawn; Pegeen scorching Christy; Old Mahon’s last return on all fours.

The efforts of Widow Quin and Sara to fasten a petticoat on Christy in order to disguise him as a woman so that he may be able to escape from the wrath of the crowd is also funny, because they are trying to convert a supposed hero into a female.

One of the most amusing situations which is bound to evoke a roar of laughter from the audience is Christy’s managing to bite Shawn’s leg and Shawn’s screaming with pain.

But perhaps the most amusing situation in the whole play is the second resurrection of Old Mahon. The old man comes back into the shebeen on all fours not having been killed even by the second blow which Christy has given him, this time again with a spade. Apart from Synge’s obvious delight in farce, such scenes often have a clear dramatic function: the hero is being humiliated and ridiculed as a very proper punishment for his vanity, boasting and lies.

Thus, we see that Playboy of the Western World is a farce in a good sense of the word. The play has the capacity to entertain the audience to the utmost satisfaction with its comic and farcical elements.

The play Playboy of the Western World as a tragi-comedy

Playboy of the Western World by Synge can be termed as a tragi-comedy. A tragic-comedy is a play which claims a plot apt for tragedy but which ends happily like a comedy. The action seems to end in a tragic catastrophe until an unexpected turn in events brings out the happy ending. In such a play tragic and comic elements are mixed up together. The play Playboy of the Western World ends in comedy though it might have well ended as a tragedy.

In one mood we may suggest that Playboy of the Western World is sheer extravagant comedy, with elements of strong farce in the resurrection of Christy’s father, and in the deflation of a boastful man. As such, it embodies the classic elements of reversal and recognition. And yet it is a comedy which ends unhappily for Pegeen who is unable to marry Christy, the Playboy. Another way of looking at this play is to regard it as a satirical comedy. It is a satire on the proverbial willingness of the West to give shelter to the criminal and murderer. In that case Christy, the Playboy, becomes a comic Oedipus, the man who killed his father.

A tragedy

But again we may see the play, if we wish, as a tragedy, with Pegeen as the heroine-victim. Pegeen found her man, made him, won him in the teeth of opposition from her own sex, and then lost him. Pegeen’s loss at the end is absolute and beyond comfort, because she has lost his body too; while the complacent Shawn sees the obstacle to his marriage with her removed.

A distorted tragedy

According to the critic, The Playboy has a very special place in the history of tragedy. This critic regards it as a deliberately distorted tragedy, all the joints wrenched out of place by a comic vision that Synge imposed upon it. This play contains in itself a number of the formal qualities of traditional tragedy. The hero possesses, or acquires through the story of his murder of his father, a Promethean virtue in his destruction of the “jealous old tyrant”, a tyrant who was about to force him into a hateful marriage. It is, however, a distorted tragedy because at the end we find ourselves face to face with the comic resurrection of the slain tyrant-father, and the dissolution of the heroism which had been built up by Christy’s imagination and the imagination of his listeners. The hero vanishes, the son is reconciled to his father, our interest, in so far as it is tragic, is transferred to Pegeen whose final speech is a lament reminding us of the lament of Dido, the Queen of Carthage, over the departure from her kingdom  of her lover, Aeneas.

Serious Elements in the Play: The Two Murders

Now, if we were to choose a label for this play, we would unhesitatingly describe it as a comedy, though we would at the same time admit that there are some tragic elements in it. The Playboy contains an abundance of fun, and at places makes us laugh heartily. The tragic elements in this play do not produce any lasting impression on our minds, and though Pegeen’s lament at the end at having lost her over is quite moving, it does not alter the character of the play as a comedy.

Christy’s Grievances against his Father

Christy’s complaints against his father in the course of his conversation with Pegeen in ActI have also a certain degree of seriousness about them. Christy describes his life in his native village as having been one of drudgery with few recreations. He tells Pegeen that his father was drinking and cursing all the time, and ill-treating him under the influence of a hard-hearted woman. Christy’s account of his past life and of his father’s callous treatment of him certainly gives rise to the kind of pity which we associated with a tragedy.

Old Mahon’s Grievances against His Son

Subsequently it is the father’s turn to complain against his son’s misbehavior. Talking to Widow Quin (in ActII), Old Mahon says that his son had driven him out in his old age when he had nobody to aid him. He tells Widow Qui that his son was an ugly young “streeler” with a murderous mouth, “a lier on walls”, a “talker of folly,” an idler who did not do any useful work at all, an ugly background. Even if half of what Old Mahon alleges against his son be true, we have every reason to sympathise with him.  We  are inclined to sympathise with the old man even more towards the end when he has to accept defeat at the hands of his son and when Christy tells him that he will be the leader from now on, the master of all flights, and that the old man will have to cook his oatmeals and wash his potatoes.

Widow Quins Futile efforts to Save Christy from the Crowd

Then there is something pathetic about Widow Quin’s efforts to save Christy. The  whole crowd has turned hostile to Christy, and he finds himself helpless. Widow Quin alone stands by his side and tries to take him away beyond the reach of the crowd, but Christy refuses to go away because he does not want to leave Pegeen. Widow Quin tries even to disguise his as a woman in order  to make it easy for him to slip away, but he is determined to stay on in the hope that Pegeen will marry him. This attempted disguise also has its comic side.

The Persecution of Christy

The persecution of Christy by the crowd is also a melancholy episode in the play. Without going into the merits of what Christy has done or not done, the manner in which the crowd, and especially Pegeen, treats him does arouse a feeling of sympathy in us. Pegeen declares that the world will see this man beaten like a schoolboy, and she refers to him as an ugly liar who was trying to play off as the hero. She goes to the extent of scorching his leg. Michael and others have bound Christy with a rope, and he lies struggling vainly on the floor. All this has a touch of tragedy. But even this situation has been enlivened by various comic touches.

Pegeen’s Lament at the end

But it is the final speech of Pegeen which lends to this play a certain distinctly tragic quality. After Christy has left, all Pegeen’s dreams vanish. She has told him earlier in this Act that she and he would make an excellent pair of “gallant lovers,” and she had said that she would be burning candles to celebrate the divine miracle which had brought him to her. She has also told her father that she was now determined to marry Christy, and she had obtained his consent. But all Pegeen’s hopes have come to nothing, and she finds herself deserted by her lover, though the fault is entirely her own. After having finished reading the play, out thoughts do remain with Pegeen for some time, and we share the grief to which she gives expression in her final speech.

Funny Situations

Some of the situations in the play are uproariously funny. For instance, Shawn slipping away from Michael’s hold and leaving his coat in Michael’s hands cannot fail to make the audience in a theatre roar with laughter. Other funny situations are Pegeen and Widow Quin each pulling Christy’s boots; Christ’s holding a mirror behind his back; Christy hiding himself behind the dooe when he sees his father alive and coming towards the shebeen; Philly searching for some more liquor when he is already semi-drunk; and above all, Christy’s biting Shawn on the leg and Shawn’s screaming with pain.

Humor of character

Most of the characters in the play make us laugh because of their absurdities or weakness. Drunkenness is most often amusing and we here have four heavy drunkards-Michael James, Philly, Jimmy, and Old Mahon. Michael and his friends make it a point to go to a wake in order to drink the free liquor that is served there. Old Mahon once drank himself almost to a state of paralysis when he was in the company of Limerick girls. Cowardice is another comic trait. Shawn Keogh of Killakeen amuses us not only by his refusal to fight Christy but by refusing even to feel jealous of “a man did slay his da.”

Humor of Dialogue

The dialogue in the play too is a source of rich comedy. Leaving aside a few speeches which may momentarily depress us or put us in a serious mood, the rest of the dialogue amuses us greatly. The verbal duel between Pegeen and Widow Quin is one of the comic highlights of the play. Widow Quin slanders Pegeen by saying that the latter goes “helter-skeltering” after any man who winks at her on a road, and Pegeen accuses the widow of having reared a ram at her own breast. Then there are the satirical remarks Pegeen makes to Shawn. She tells him that he is the kind of lover who would remind a grit of a bullock’s liver rather than of the lily or the rose. And then she  ironically advises him to find for himself a wealthy wife who looks radiant with “the diamond jewelleries of Pharaoh’s ma.”

A Boisterous Rollicking Comedy on the Whole

In spite of all this, The Playboy is a comedy, and a boisterous, rollicking comedy at that. A play which amuses us at every steps and makes us laugh again and again cannot be called a tragedy just because it ends in the frustration of the hopes of the heroine. The heroine’s frustration at the end is almost neutralized by Christy’s departing speech in which he thanks the people of Mayo for having transformed him into a hero.

How does Synge dramatize the theme of romantic illusion gone to pieces in The Playboy of the Western World?

Soon after Synge met William Butler Yeats in Paris, Yeats advised Synge to spend time living on the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, to "live there as if you were one of the people themselves" and to "express a life that has never found expression." Synge heeded Yeats's advice, spending a good amount of time living on the islands and recording his observations of the inhabitants' behavior and personalities. His observations, eventually collected in a series of essays, became translated into the central themes, settings, and characters in his plays, which would be heralded for their lyrical yet realistic portraits of the Irish spirit. Daniel Corkery, in his Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature, considered Synge's Aran materials "descriptive of the consciousness of the people."

One story Synge had heard on the Islands concerned a young man from Connaught who killed his father with a spade. The man then fled to Aran, where he begged the inhabitants to shelter him. This tale would become the plot of Synge's play, The Playboy of the Western World, which first appeared on the Dublin stage in 1907. In this play, Synge incorporated his observations of Irish life, uncovering what Robin Skelton in his The Writings of J. M. Synge, deems the "heroic values" and the "awareness of universal myth" that characterize the islanders. Skelton also determines that, through his studies, Synge was able to create "images and values which point towards the importance of reviving, and maintaining, a particular sensibility in order to make sense of the predicament of humanity." The "particular sensibility" that Synge artistically recreates in The Playboy of the Western World is what he calls in his preface to the play "popular imagination [in Ireland] that is fiery, and magnificent, and tender." The Irish penchant for employing the imagination in the creation of myth becomes the focus of the play as Synge explores the lure of mythmaking as well as its inevitable clash with reality.

The characters in the play initially appear unsophisticated and unsentimental. The independent, strong-willed Pegeen especially is characterized as adept at seeing others clearly. Although she has agreed to marry Shawn, she has an accurate perception of his drawbacks. She notes his conservatism and berates him for it. Yet, Shawn does have a touch of the poet, at least in the opening scene when he declares that as he was standing outside of her door, "I could hear the cows breathing, and sighing in the stillness of the air." This lyrical line foreshadows the arrival of the more verbally talented Christy, who will steal Pegeen's heart with his poetic overtures. Shawn will become the voice of reality for the villagers, even though they will pay him little heed.

When Christy arrives, the process of mythmaking begins. The characters' love of storytelling becomes evident soon after Christy's arrival, as they quiz the lad about who he is and why he has arrived in their community. Their interest is immediately piqued when Christy inquires whether the police often stop at the pub. As Christy is reluctant to tell them the true reason for his fear of the authorities, all at the pub begin to create their own versions of his story. Pegeen assumes that "he followed after a young woman on a lonesome night." The others decide he is either being chased by bailiffs or landlords, or perhaps he made counterfeit coins or married more than one wife. Their curiosity about him increases as they construct one scenario after the other that Christy refutes until Pegeen reasons that the fearful boy "did nothing at all." She declares him "a soft lad" who "wouldn't slit the windpipe of a screeching sow." Her accurate portrait of his weak character prompts Christy's rebuttal, and he declares that he murdered his father.

Immediately, all are caught up in the drama of the event; even Pegeen is amazed at this daring feat. They will not let Christy rest until he has told the entire story, and when he has finished, they all determine him to be a brave and fearless lad who should be given the job of watching over Pegeen as she works at night in the pub. Shawn expresses the only voice of reason at the scene when he warns, "That'd be a queer kind to bring into a decent quiet household with the like of Pegeen." The others dismiss him, caught up in their vision of the hero in their midst.

The villagers' shower of praise begins to transform Christy from a weak and fearful boy into a confident young man who declares himself "a seemly fellow with great strength in me and bravery." The transformation, however, is gradual. Often, his confidence is checked by his fear of the police catching up with him, which causes him on one occasion to cower in the corner when someone knocks on the door of the pub.

Christy especially blossoms under Pegeen's attention, becoming the romantic hero all assume him to be. No one can beat him at games and sports, and by the end of the day, he is heralded as "the playboy of the western world." Christy's newfound confidence inspires him to construct lyrical declarations of love for Pegeen, who, completely won over, declares, "it's the poets are your like, fine fiery fellows with great rages when their temper's roused." Synge illuminates the seductive power of the imagination in his depiction of the relationship between Christy and Pegeen. Christy leads a willing Pegeen into his visions of their future, full of afternoons when he declares they will be "making mighty kisses with our wetted mouths, or gaming in a gap of sunshine with yourself stretched back unto your necklace in the flowers of the earth." Christy's new confidence allows him to stand up to Michael James's reservations about him marrying his daughter and to threaten Shawn with bodily harm if he does not leave the two of them alone.

Reality abruptly shatters the mythmaking, however, with the appearance of Christy's battered but still breathing father, who declares that his "dribbling idiot" son is lazy, stupid, and inept with women. When confronted by his father, Christy teeters on the edge of the reality and the myth, fearing his father's wrath but unwilling to give up the adoration of the crowd. Initially, Christy appears to revert back to his fearful self as he insists, "he's not my father. He's a raving maniac would scare the world." Eventually, the myth wins out, and Christy determines to finish the job he started and goes after his father with a club. The myth, however, has exploded for the villagers, who see Christy's once "gallous [splendid] story" of murder now as "a dirty deed" as it is played out in front of them.

Christy's fall from his mythic status infuriates the villagers who turn into a nasty mob, fueled by their shattered illusions and bent on revenge. All resort to conventional behavior in their demands for retribution. Ironically, by the end of the play, Christy has become the man the others had envisioned him to be. While he is bound and threatened with hanging, he bravely declares, "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." His father recognizes that his son has transformed into a courageous and capable man and so allows him to take the upper hand. Pegeen also notices the transformation, but she is too late. As Christy declares that he has become "a likely gaffer in the end of all" and exits triumphantly to "go romancing through a romping lifetime from this hour to the dawning to the judgement day," Pegeen's vision of an escape from her conventional life evaporates. She understands, after he leaves, that she has truly lost "the only playboy of the western world."

Elizabeth Coxhead, in her article on Synge for British Writers, quotes Lady Gregory, one of the founders with Yeats of the Irish Literary Theatre and a strong supporter of Synge's works, who expresses her view of the Irish character by recognizing "our incorrigible Irish talent for myth-making." In The Playboy of the Western World, Synge deftly illuminates that talent and the subsequent tension it inevitably produces between imagination and reality. His villagers are ready for a hero to rescue them from their monotonous and difficult lives and so do not examine Christy too closely when he appears. The lure of the dream, however, is difficult to reconcile with reality, at least for those who cannot break free from the bonds of convention. For others, like Christy, the "Irish talent for mythmaking" can become the inspiration for the fulfillment of the dream.