The 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 The 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.
