Synge’s Playboy of the Western World

Synge’s Playboy of the Western World

In The Playboy of the Western World, several aspects of human

relationships can be identified and these aspects can be studied

according to the factors tha influence human relationships. The

influencing factors predominant in this play are the perception of

self and others; whether the relationship is built up on honesty and

reality or deception, fantasy and story telling; and if a person

allows a second party to develop their character without influencing

it with their expectations of the person’s personality and their own

personal ideas of what the relationship ought to be.

Let us firstly look at how perceptions of oneself and other people

affect human relationships and examples of how this is expressed. If

we look, in particular at Christy’s character, we can see how the

perception of others influences his perception of himself, and

therefore, we observe that the relationship he has with Old Mahon, his

father, is very different to that he has with the people of Mayo. This

is because Old Mahon perceived Christy as “the fool of men” with

everyone mocking him and making fun of him and Christy unable to

handle tobacco and alcohol. As Christy was perceived as “the fool of

men” he acted the character the people there thought him to be. Also,

in his interactions with women Christy was said to, “if see a red

petticoat coming… he’d be off to hide in the sticks.”

However, when Christy reaches the village of Mayo, he is constantly

flattered by the people he meets there as they perceive him to be a

hero. The flattery he receives fuels his confidence and he begins to

consider himself as the playboy that Mayo villagers see him to be. In

contrast to his former character, h...

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...what the second party

want the character relationships to be. For example, Pegeen wanted a

romantic and brave poet for a partner and Christy who wanted to be

Pegeen’s partner made himself into what she wanted him to be; she and

the other villagers wanted a hero and Christy wanted to be a hero. We

can see that the saying although somewhat clichéd becomes relevant

here “easy come easy go.” Christy, at first seemed to fit the role of

a hero and the villagers of Mayo seized that idea quickly and created

a hero out of him. Christy, now with an inflated ego, continued to

lead the people to believe he was a hero which they happily accepted

although they had little evidence of his claim, except his physical

prowess in the sports games. When they discovered that Christy had

lied about slaying his da they turned on him as quickly as they had

turned him into a hero.