The Playboy of the Western World

Christy Mahon as a Comic Hero

In The Playboy of the Western World, when we first meet Christy it is by way of report. He is
presented as a tramp, “a kind of fellow above in the furzy ditch groaning wicked like a
maddening dog”, or a “queer fellow above, going mad — “The first impression we get is one of
timidity and fear: in short he is a coward but not totally lacking in spirit. His retort to Michael’s
accusation that maybe he is wanted for “robbing and stealing” is given with a flash of family
pride: ”And I the son of a strong farmer”. He relaxes as the others convince him that he is in a
house safe from the ‘polis’, and begins to respond to their interest in the curiosity about his
origins.

The “lie” Begins

He is now definitely to be feared and respected, simply by what he has said. The hero in Christy
is about to emerge; he is ‘a lad with the sense of Solomon’: “the peelers is fearing him”, he
‘should be great terror when his temper’s roused’, brave enough to “face a foxy divil — on the
flags of hell”, and to stand up to “the loosed khaki cut-throats, or the walkin dead”.

Synge’s Sympathy For the “Lie”

The local response to Christy’s appearance on the scene highlights for us the drabness of such
rural living, where the imagination has been starved, and there is longing for some excitement.
Behind the obvious comedy in this scene we see certain pathos: Synge was most definitely not
out of sympathy with such peasant people.

So Christy has now progressed from tramp and coward to poetic hero, which brings us to the end
of Act I. By this stage it is obvious that Synge has created a mock-hero, a parody of the hero of
Celtic epic literature.

Christy Settles in to his new Image

At the start of Act II Christy’s status as hero is confirmed at this point by the arrival of the local
girls bearing gifts, and by the Widow Quin’s announcement that she has entered him ‘in the
sports below for racing, leaping, pitching’. All heroes must be put to the test: it is a feature of
the epic poem that the hero must prove his prowess and strength in epic combat. For Christy this
is to be done in the more humble local sports. At the height of his heroic success Christy is
suddenly brought back to earth with a bump when he sees “the walking spirit of my murdered
da”, “that ghost of hell”.

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Christy becomes ‘The Playboy’

Once again Synge deglamorizes the peasant and his lifestyle, reality keeping a firm grip on
fantasy. The cult of the hero needs to be exposed for what it is; gratuitous violence
masquerading as bravery. . The Widow Quin dubs Christy sarcastically ‘the walking Playboy of
the Western World’. Christy is now in the hands of the Widow Quin and she being the practical
person she is cashes in on his fear of exposure. The Act ends with Christy half-reassured that he
has bribed the Widow into silence, and off he goes to his greatest test as hero, indeed the
traditional test of all heroes.

Christy: Proven Hero at last without ‘Lies’

In Act III Christy successfully proves himself at the races winning all before him, so when he
returns to the Shebeen in triumph he is master of all. There is no limit to his courage and
confidence now.

Fantasy is Finally Driven out by Reality

At that point Christy’s final test begins. His father, ‘a raving maniac’, bursts in and attacks
Christy with a stick. The spell, which had mesmerized them all, is suddenly broken. The hero
becomes the victim who is to be sacrificed for the people. Pegeen dismisses Christy with ‘Quit
off from this’. Christy now realizes that he is finished here, his future is elsewhere and when his
father comes back from the dead again, the two are re-united in a new relationship which makes
them independent of the society that had made Christy into a hero and a poet.

Comedy and Satire in the Parody

However, Synge’s purpose is to make a mock-hero of Christy, probably a response on his part to
the determined efforts of his contemporaries to manufacture super-peasants for a political ideal.
The only relic of the real hero left is the ‘gift of the gab’ upon which Christy is solely
dependent. The ancient hero is reincarnated in a ‘feckless peasant’ struggling to escape the
grinding poverty and dullness of life in the West of Ireland. For Synge there is no glamour in
such harsh reality but a little fantasy can bring humour and escape, if only temporarily, so that
not only Christy but the people of Mayo can go ‘romancing’, he for ‘a romping lifetime’, they
for a few days at least.

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