Playboy centenary

[Niamh]

I read the last posts before the thread vanished. As far as I remember: Virgil, you asked what everybody is afraid of!

Shawn definetely is the biggest weakling of the play. And, I think, there is another side to it. Shawn repeatedly says:

"I'm afeared of Father Reilly"

Father Reilly remaining an off-stage character all through the play on the one hand represents Shawns profound religiosity.

Does this sound convincing to you? What do you think?

Synge is playing on the role of religion in Ireland at the time by expressing it through Shawn. The Catholic Curch in Ireland condemned unmarried people from intimacy, even plutonic imtimacy before marraige, and shawn refuses to stay the night with Pegeen because he's afraid of the wrath of the church, father Reilly being the personification of this.

[David R]

Hi there,

I've always thought that this is a play that should be read by anyone with a bad father. Although Christy doesn't kill his father in reality, in his mind he has done so. The result is he becomes astonishingly successful as a ladies man and a sports man. He becomes a hero, a playboy of the Western World. We see he begins to grow in confidence as he tells how he killed his father and the locals encourage him. The message is that to be free of bad parents you must kill them psychologically.

There is also the question of why there were riots when the play opened. I believe the rioters were protesting at the amoral nature of the characters in the play which clashed with romantic nationalist views of the peasantry as noble. They didn't see the humourous side of the portrayal. But there is also the idea that it is human nature to be fascinated by wickedness, something which the rioters found unpalatable.

[MSG74]

Please shed light on how does the playboy of western world appeal to the modern audience.