The Playboy Of The Western World Summary

The Playboy of the Western World, John Millington Synge’s last completed work, is the author’s greatest play, and in many ways his most difficult to interpret. J.M. Synge wrote several of his most famous works during the years of the Celtic Revival, and played a significant role in the social movement along with his friends and colleagues Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats. J.M. Synge uses the representation of the Irish in his play The Playboy of the Western World to radically critique the idealization of the Irish. The social situation of the Ireland ,during this time has to be discussed. England was ruling over Ireland in a tyrannical manner. The liberties of the people were being crushed and they were being mercilessly exploited. The people of Ireland were fighting for their liberation.The play is set in country Mayo, which Declan Kiberd describes as “a colony in the throes of a land war, as the last phase of the campaign against feudalism, in Ireland is enacted” (1995:166). The country Mayo is a poverty-ridden place that inhabits the peasants, who try to make ends meet through their agrarian duties. The world of the play, Khasawneh posits, “demonstrates a violent environment and the texture and the form of the play celebrate readiness of the citizens to accept murder under certain conditions as an act of heroism.” Of course, the amoral tendency can also be seen as an act of resistance of the English/colonial law. The characters in the play are worn out by the state of their