Abstract
The Playboy of the Western World is Synge’s masterpiece, the play which brought him international fame. By having Christy Mahon, the Playboy, believe mistakenly that he has killed his father, Synge explores the comic possibilities of the Oedipal theme which involves both parricide and incest. This brilliant and extravagant comedy is given tragic overtones as Synge once again contrasts the world of dream or illusion (the Playboy’s world) with the world of gross reality unredeemed by the imagination (the peasant’s world). When the play was first presented at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin audiences rioted, affronted by the violence of the action and by the image of Ireland which it embodied.
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References
Bourgeois, p. 203.
J. F. Kilroy, ‘The Playboy as Poet’, PMLA, LXXXIII (1968) 439–42;
Mary R. Sullivan, ‘Synge, Sophocles and the UnMaking of Myth’, Modern Drama, XII (1969) 242–53;
S. Sultan, ‘A Joycean Look at The Playboy of the Western World’, in M. Harmon (ed.), in The Celtic Master (Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1969) pp. 44–55;
R. R. Sanderlin, ‘Synge’s Playboy and the Ironic Hero’, The Southern Quarterly, VI (1968) 289–301;
T. R. Whitaker (ed.), ‘Introduction: On Playing with The Playboy’, in Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Playboy of the Western World (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969) pp. 1–20.
Nic Shiubhlaigh, p. 81.
Mercier, p. 146.
Frye, pp. 180–1.
Sultan, pp. 44–55.
Greene and Stephens, p. 265. In the same letter Synge qualifies what he calls his ‘Extravaganza theory’ with the remark, ‘Of course Playboy is serious.’
A. Price, Synge and Anglo-Irish Drama (London: Methuen, 1961) p. 170.
Frye, p. 45.
Greene and Stephens, p. 255.
Frye, p. 46.
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© 1982 Eugene Benson
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Benson, E. (1982). ‘The Playboy of the Western World’. In: J. M. Synge. Macmillan Modern Dramatists. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16915-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16915-3_7
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