The Playboy of the Western World

The loy (a long, Irish spade) is a symbol that represents the humble origins of Christy’s character. When asked how he killed his father, Christy replies, “I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all” (18). The use of a loy as a murder weapon reminds audiences that Christy was a farmer. Pegeen Mike first assumes that Christy must have lived like a king before murdering his father, but he assures her that this is not the case. When the “murder” happened, Christy and his father were “digging spuds in [a] cold, sloping, stony, divil’s patch of a field” (35), and his life at home was more miserable and poor than his life with Pegeen Mike. The loy is mentioned throughout, never letting the reader forget Christy’s old life. At the end of the play, a physical loy makes an appearance when Christy chases Old Mahon out of the bar with the intention of truly killing him this time. However, Christy fails to kill his father this time too and is left to return with him to their old life. The loy also signifies Christy’s inability to dominate his father by force.

Father Reilly is never seen or heard on stage. However, this does not negate the power he has over the young Shawn, the religious suitor of Pegeen Mike. Father Reilly symbolizes the Catholic Church, and strict morals and religious obedience are motifs that recur throughout the play. Shawn is ruled by fear: fear of breaking the rules, upsetting Father Reilly, and being punished by not being allowed to marry Pegeen Mike if he steps out of line. Additionally, Shawn states. “If I wasn’t so God fearing, I’d near have courage to run behind him and run a pike into his side” (45). Shawn is fearful by nature and uses his fear of the priest—and by extension, the church—as a further excuse for his lack of violent tendencies, which the villagers view as a lack of manliness.

The Irish system of values is front and center in The Playboy of the Western World. Patricide is condemned by some but held up as a heroic act by others. Marriages are regarded as being healthier if the husband is more “manly,” even if he is immoral, and the villagers change their minds flippantly as to whether Christy should be hanged or not for his attempted murders and lies. Christy’s arrival challenges social values and implies that moral laws are, in the end, decided by the people and not by God.

The word “rage” recurs throughout the play and is associated with both physical violence and sexual desire. In the play, passion incites physical violence and elicits sexual desire, both “forbidden fruits” that the people of County Mayo must face within themselves upon the arrival of the “Playboy of the Western World.” Synge uses his comedy to subvert and ridicule stereotypical masculinity and femininity. Specifically, the play critiques masculinity that elevates the brutish, violent men and links physical strength with ultimate manliness.

Violence, the play explains, stems from a rage that is present within each person. Many of the characters have never acted on that rage, yet they admit to feeling it. When Christy says that he and Pegeen Mike are similar, she responds by saying, “I never killed my father. I’d be afeard to do that, except I was the like of yourself with blind rages tearing me within, for I’m thinking you should have had great tussling when the end was come” (23). Pegeen Mike has never been driven to try to kill her father, but she knows that it is possible for her to feel outraged enough to act on it. She can’t comprehend how someone could murder without being angry with the person and acknowledges that such anger is only human. Likewise, when Old Mahon is telling the story of Christy hitting him on the head, Widow Quin accuses Old Mahon of instigating it. She says, “It was a bad blow surely, and you should have vexed him fearful to make him strike that gash in his da” (48). Widow Quin, and the others, blame the victim first before they accept that Christy was in the wrong. If rage is incited, they figure, it must be warranted.

Another use of the word “rage” has sexual connotations. Rage is linked to the play’s commentary on violence being viewed as masculine, and therefore, sexually appealing. Pegeen Mike is drawn to Christy much more than she is to Shawn, who she teases for lacking any rage at all. She is excited by Christy’s story and his romantic words, saying, “I’ve heard all times it’s the poets are your like, fine fiery fellows with great rages when their temper’s roused” (23). Here, Pegeen Mike directly ties in Christy’s ability to speak poetically with this internal rage, the same rage that drove him to kill his father.

Another example of rage’s sexual connotations is when the village women rush to hear Christy’s story. Pegeen Mike calls out the Widow Quin for “gasping with the rage [she] had racing the hill beyond to look on his face” (28). Widow Quin, like the other women in the village, is attracted to the man who split open his father’s skull. In this context, rage is equated with lustful, feminine desire as opposed to violent acts of masculinity. Widow Quin affirms that Pegeen Mike’s cheeky accusation is right when she tells Christy, “There’s great temptation in a man did slay his da” (28). She was sent to “rescue” Pegeen Mike from the temptation of sleeping with a criminal like Christy. However, Widow Quin isn’t intent on following that rule for herself, as she spends a great deal of the play trying to seduce him.