Literature Network » J. M. Synge

'Playboy': A Torrent of Words Signifying Not Very Much

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From: The Washington Post
Date: 20050223
Author:Tricia Olszewski

He's young, he's good-looking, he . . . just killed his father.

But in "The Playboy of the Western World," no one in a rural Irish village holds the crime against Christy, a stranger who shows up at a pub looking for food and shelter. The locals, in fact, celebrate the lad's misdeed. Mistaking an accident for an act of courage, the men toast him and the women swoon.

Though Irish playwright J.M. Synge intended "The Playboy of the Western World" as farce, its 1907 debut created quite a stir in Synge's native country, denounced for its seeming exaltation of patricide and condescending portrayal ...

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