The Playboy of the Western World – John Millington Synge

The drama focuses on Christy Mahon who is looking for accommodation and arrives at a hostelry which is located in a village in Mayo, a county in Western Ireland. Here, amongst others, he meets Pegeen Mike who is supposed to marry her relative Shawn Keogh. Christy’s story about having killed his father is of high interest to all the people he meets in the hostelry. Thus, he is seen as a hero. However, Pegeen Mike now admires Christy. This endangers the planned marriage between her and Shawn. When Christy’s father, who is supposed to be dead, appears Christy is no longer seen as a hero. He tries to re-establish his status by again trying to murder his father. However, the old man does not die and father and son leave the village. Now that Christy is gone Pegeen Mike has to marry her relative Shawn Keogh.

Information on John Millington Synge

Name:                                      John Millington Synge

Date of birth:                           1871

Education:                               Synge attended Trinity College Dublin to study Irish language and history

Famous works:                         Riders to the Sea (1904), The Playboy of the Western World (1907)

Additional information:              Synge was raised by his very religious mother together with four

siblings. Influenced by Darwinism Synge abandoned the ideology of his mother and also religion itself.

On behalf of the writer Yeats, Synge spend several summers on the Aran Islands in Western Ireland. His stays very much influenced his later works which got very famous.

Information on The Playboy of the Western World

Title:                                        The Playboy of the Western World, drama

Publishing date:                       first premiered in 1907

Place:                                      Abbey Theatre, Dublin

Reactions:                                The opening night resulted in massive criticism and riots due to the fact that many of the audience thought that Synge’s piece delivers a very unpleasant and inappropriate picture of the Irish peasantry. However, Synge obviously knew that his drama would not be loved by everyone. Whereas he thought that the virtuous side of the Irish was well known, he was of the opinion that there is a side of the Irish temperament that is too wild to be dealt with within pieces that are intended for Irish readers. The reason for all the criticism was that the audience was convinced that Synge presented the Irish as a nation of murderous savages. Spectators criticised this even though the Irish peasants were seen as very noble and honest people during that time. Synge failed in trying to fight all the critique claiming that the drama is based on a true story and the language he used within his piece is typical of the country people.

Modernism/the early 20^th century

Dates:                                     late 19^th and early 20^th century

Background information:           The era was very much influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin. Also, that period is characterized by a break with traditional styles in poetry.

Main stylistic devices:              comparison; irony; satire

Main themes:                            breaking down of social norms; rejection of standard social ideas, traditional thoughts and expectations; rejection of religion

Famous and most influential authors and books:

John Millington Synge (The Playboy of the Western World)

James Joyce (Ulysses)

Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse)

Bibliography:

Lengeler, Rainer (Hrsg.). John Millington Synge. The Playboy of the Western World.

Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000.

http://www.online-literature.com/periods/modernism.php