The Theme in John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World

    Since the theme is the abstract concept, which is explored in a literary works; frequently recurring ideas, repetition of a meaningful element in a work, and sometimes the theme is also called a motif, so I would like to conclude that there are two themes, which are obviously appeared in John Millington Synge's "The Playboy of the Western World". They are ironic value of violence and gender role.

    John Millington Synge is a bold writer for his period. His play, "The Playboy of the Western World", is written right around the year 1907, and creates quite uproar in his native Ireland because it depicts the Irish in a very uncomplimentary way. It becomes a satirical work, which represents the life of citizens, who enforce violence in the name of God.

    Act I is set in a village in a coast of Mayo. The story begins when a stranger called Christy Mahon comes in to the country pub and looks very tired, frightened, and dirty. Some of the locals, including young Pegeen Mike and Shawn, the man she is unwillingly supposed to marry, all begin questioning who he is and where he has come from. Christy explains that he has just killed his father, and now he is running away from peelers (police). They are shocked at his confession, but they do not fear him or take him to the peelers.

    Especially Pegeen, She tells him he will be safe from the peelers in their village, and suggest him to stay there, at least for the night. She views Christy's act of killing his own father as something awesome and heroic, rather than horrifying and sinful. She gets him a drink, and has him warm himself by the fire.

CHRISTY

-- shaking his head, with simplicity. -- Not the girls itself, and I won't tell you a lie. There wasn't anyone heeding me in that place saving only the dumb beasts of the field.

[He sits down at fire.]
PEGEEN

-- with disappointment. -- And I thinking you should have been living the like of a king of Norway or the Eastern world.

[She comes and sits beside him after placing bread and mug of milk on the table.]

    They speak to each other with quite a bit of flirtation, but their conversation is interrupted when Widow Quin comes in. She has heard of a "heroic" man who has come to their village, and tries to convince Christy to go stay with her. Pegeen and Widow Quin argue for some time in a battle of winning Christy. At one point, Quin insists he should come with her and Pegeen replies, "Are you dumb, young fellow?

    What an ironic scene, Pegeen who really admire Christy suddenly calls him dumb, at the time that Christy would go along with another woman, but Pegeen doesn't call Christy dumb for killing his own father. The fact that Christy's act was a very criminal and violent one just seems to make him more attractive. From the depiction above, I would like to categorize "The Playboy of the Western World" into ironic comedy play.

    The theme of irony in valuing violence is also can be seen from the characters' lack of respect for authority. Pegeen does not value the peacefulness of her community, but she admires people who challenge authority. Violence is also something that Pegeen values in a man or husband. In their society, anyone who has the courage to challenge authority or take something from the authority is a hero in their eyes. When Christy Mahon comes into the village and tells his story of killing his father, they are not angry at him but they respect and praise him for what he has done.

    Beside ironic in valuing the violence, the theme of gender roles is quite evident throughout the entire play as well. It seems as though the typical male and female roles have switched positions in many cases of "The Playboy of the Western World." Pegeen and Widow Quin are the two main female characters in the play, who display characteristics of a stereotypical male. They are both wild, self-sufficient, and seem fearless. In the opposite, Christy Mahon and Shawn Keogh, the main male characters, demonstrate characteristics associated more with females. Shawn Keogh is cowardly and afraid of authority figures and what they may think about him. Throughout the play, Shawn is afraid of Christy Mahon because he is a dangerous and savage man. Shawn who are willing to mary Pegeen ask the help of Widow quin to get away Christy from Pegeen. This is quite a gender reversal; the man is bribing the woman to help him in wining his battle. 

    Here, it seems that Synge is deconstructing the role of male and female. Those two terms do not stay in their positions. In structural approach, or binary opposition theory, male is the opposite of female. Nevertheless, in the matter of fact, opposition sometimes becomes rough to its opposite because of dominating. Male is the opposite of female, and male dominates female. Male is strong and female is weak. Male is brave and female is fear. But those attributes do not exist in this play, since Synge makes the deconstructions,

"Deconstruction tries to show how such opposition, in order to hold themselves in place, are sometimes betrayed into inverting or collapsing themselves, or need to banish to the text margin center ninggling details which can be made to return and plague them." (Eagleton: 1983, 133)

    Probably, it would be too soon to call Synge as a feminist writer, but obviously, there is feminist discourse in the play, since I can see that male and female are alike or their characteristics are overlapping each other in some occasions. 

         Pegeen Mike is a tough girl. She is even capable of hiding a man, which means against the authority. Pegeen looks down on Shawn Keogh's cowardly behavior. Compared to Christy, Shawn is a kind of coward, with no savagery or masculine words in him at all. Pegeen prefers a man who is brave and can protect her. Widow Quinn is portrayed as a dangerous woman who killed her husband. She is a strong woman who takes care of herself and lives on her own. The gender role reversal plays an interesting part throughout the play giving a sense of twisted belief system and breaking gender stereotypes.

    There are so many themes, which can be distributed to the John Millington Synge's "The Playboy of the Western World." Nevertheless, I chose two themes that I feel are most dominant and vital to the plot from the beginning until the end of the play. I hope that I give numerous examples of ironic of valuing violence and gender role in the play by making some quotations, and take the critical theory as well to support my argument that can make the all explanation seem make sense.

Reference:

Eagleton, Terry, Literary Theory, An Introduction, (Basil Blackwell, 1983)

Synge, John M., The Playboy of the Western World, (http://etext.virginia.edu/     etcbin/toccer- new2?id=SynPlay.sgm&images=images/ modeng&data=/     texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1)