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John Millington Synge
(1871-1909) is considered as the greatest dramatist of the Irish Literary
revival. The characters drawn by him were real human beings of flesh and blood.
He did allow his feelings to colour his portraits. A.C. Collins notices a
Shakespearean touch in The Playboy of the Western World. He says,
No doubt, neither
Pegeen nor the other girls, nor indeed any of the characters are even likely,
but, whatever Ireland thought the outer world could rejoice is the vitality and
humour of the conception. Here was human nature simple and crude, cunning and
brutal, greedy, spiteful and changeable but warm in the blood and capable of
poetry…
Synge did not agree
with the Irish patriots who presented all Irish men as noble and women as virtuoso.
He presents real life human beings at its best and at its worst, in
spirituality and in animal savagery. In the present play Synge has given us
picture of the ways and manners, the joys and sorrows, the whims and follies of
the peasants of Mayo, a country in western Ireland. In the play, Christy
(Christopher) Mohan is basically an extremely naïve and likeable character
whose lies are more in the nature of his unconscious fantasies which grow with
the active help of Mayo crowd, particularly Pegeen and other girls. We laugh at
his boastfulness and also like and sympathise him.
Christy is a shy,
ignorant and humble son of a farmer Old Mohan. Though he worked very hard but
was cruelly dominated by his father. He was neglected, mocked and also
ill-treated by others. Christy hit his father with spade and thought was killed
when he forced him to marry a rich old widow. He tells to Pegeen,
Upto the day I killed
my father, there wasn’t a person in Ireland knew the kind I was. And, I there,
drinking, waking, eating, sleeping, a quiet simple poor fellow with no man
giving me heed.
After the incident,
Christy took shelter in Aran Islands. The people of that place (Mayo) instead
of treating him as criminal, regarded as a hero. Thereby, he distinguishes
himself in the village sports. He falls in love with Pegeen and charms her with his imaginative power. His
love which he finds fully reciprocated releases springs of poetic eloquence in
him. The growth of Christy’s fantasies is also an earnest of his growing
confidence in him. This is true that he is continually deflated, but he is also
amazed at the interest that he has been able to arouse in the people of Mayo
and he begins to discover himself as new. By the time he is exposed his
personality is completely changed. He also transforms Pegeen from being a sharp
tongued woman into one who is gentle and eloquent.
The classical elements
of reversal and recognition have a great impact on Christy’s character. The
reversal in his fortunes follow the return of his father and recognition of his
new self comes to him not long after. He feels angry with the mob for a very
short period but soon recovers and before going away blesses the Mayo people
for turning him into a ‘likely gaffer’. He makes his triumphant exit with his
father confident in his belief that here onwards he will be master of all
fights. His self-discovery leads him to have a mature and confident
personality.
There is a great
controversy among critics regarding the real nature of Christy. His name sounds
like that of Christ. The question is whether the similarity is accidental or
intentional. Some critics have raised him to the level of Christ, while others
regard him as an anti-Christ. W.H.Maclean points a close parallel,
saying that Synge called him Christy because his nature is similar to that of
Christ. But according to Alan Price the play shows the transformation of
a weakling into a hero. Whereas, Una Ellis-Fermor says that the play
shows a dribbling idiot being developed into a poet hero. Critics like H.D.Pearce
do not agree that Christy can be called a hero; rather he is only a leader of
destruction and discard.
Therefore, one can say
that as a result of his experiences in Mayo, Christy becomes a wise,
self-confident and mature person who can no more be tyrannised over by anyone.
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