The Playboy of the Western World: Act 1 Summary & Analysis

The rural setting creates a sense of isolation in which not much usually happens. Shawn is nervous because he is god-fearing and doesn’t think he should be alone with Pegeen Mike, his fiancée, until they are married.

Synge’s use of the looming darkness of night creates a kind of space into which a hero might enter and conquer Pegeen’s fears, acting as her protector. Shawn is the foil to any potential hero, displaying a cowardly disposition which will contrast with Christy on his arrival.

This is an early introduction of the power of language in the play, in this instance specifically of stories and myths. It shows that the village community in general is hungry for tales of heroism, especially those that relate to Ireland. Shawn links criminality and heroism together with sexual attraction, knowing that he cannot compete with the above and again appealing to religion as the true authority; Pegeen doesn’t share this view.

Pegeen is, in a way, deliberately testing Shawn’s character, who is failing miserably to show that he has any courage at all. Widow Quin can be assumed by the audience at this point to have killed the aforementioned Marcus Quin.

Shawn makes matters worse for himself, intensifying the sense of threat and fear that Pegeen is already feeling and highlighting the fact that he is even more scared than she is.

Though the other characters are not as outwardly religious as Shawn Keogh, their speech is rooted in the Christian religion. “God bless you” is the usual greeting between them.

The wake that Michael and company will attend is not going to be a somber affair, but a raucous occasion with drinking that will most likely last until morning. The soldiery referred to is perhaps a reference to men returning from the Boer War, in which some Irish men went to South Africa to fight against the English authorities (who also have dominion over Ireland).

Here the audience gets a sense of the competing authorities at play in the village. Michael is trying to exert his authority over his future son-in-law, but Shawn is too afraid of religious judgment to assent to the demand. Michael’s mention of the man in the ditch heightens the sense of danger, again creating more space for heroism to eventually emerge.

This is a slapstick moment that colors Shawn’s character as buffoonish and leaves the audience in doubt of his devout religious beliefs.

Michael links Christianity to cowardice, which isn’t to say that they go hand in hand, but that Christianity does not automatically make someone brave. A pot-boy is a boy or man employed by a pub or inn to take care of some of the chores. This neatly develops a reason for Christy to be invited to stay.

Christy arrives in a state of fear. He displays a lack of education in not knowing the word “larceny,” which also emphasizes his youthful naiveté. His reference to his father as strong is ironic, given that the audience soon learns that Christy has killed his father. “Polis” means police.

The locals at the pub are evidently intrigued by Christy and his need to escape from the law. Because they don’t respect the “polis,” anyone who rebels against those authorities is likely to win their respect. The explicit mention of the Boer War situates the play in the early 1900s, but also carries with it a gesture towards the Irish conflict with their English authorities.

Christy perhaps doesn’t intend to reveal his crime to the others, but Pegeen’s striking gesture reminds him of his fight with his father and, out of instinctive reaction, it makes him confess what happened. Pegeen’s comment highlights the fact that, though he is handsome, Christy doesn’t exactly seem the type to commit murder.

The mention of the loy and the potato field gives a sense of the rural drudgery of Christy’s former life, hinting that his murderous act was in part an attempt to escape that world as much as it was an action of frustration towards his father. The villagers don’t take much convincing that Christy’s actions were justified, partly because the violence is overshadowed by the mythic qualities of the story Christy tells—that is, Christy’s deed is exactly the kind of thing that Irish poets or balladeers might have written about.

Christy is thus firmly placed in his role as hero, “saving” Pegeen from her fear of the long dark night. His act is directly equated with bravery, but it’s ironic that he’s the one to save her from her fear since he is also a confessed murderer.

The men can now go to the wake reassured that Pegeen will be safe under Christy’s protection, which shows how their values are deeply anti-police and shaped by Irish mythology. Without those counterbalancing influences, Christy would be the type of person from which Pegeen would need protection.

This is too little too late for Shawn, who had earlier been adamant that he wasn’t able to stay with Pegeen. She throws his religion back at him, much preferring to be in Christy’s company than his.

This shows Pegeen’s tendency to mythologize Christy. There is a wide gulf between her assumption that he comes from a family of greatness and the reality that his existence has, until now, been that of mundane rural peasantry. The value of his “story” is apparent here.

This is the beginning of Christy’s courtship of Pegeen, which is intimately linked to his growing confidence. This confidence is exemplified by his speech—his sentences start to be come longer and more poetic as he senses the grandeur that comes with his newfound status as a hero. Pegeen links his outlaw status directly with his poetic talk.

The speed with which Pegeen is willing to mentally dismiss her engagement to Shawn exemplifies how her engagement to him is based on convenience and the simple fact that there has been, until now, no one better around. She listens to Christy’s story in rapture.

Christy’s description of his father is later mirrored by his father’s description of him in Act Two. Here, Christy spells out the sheer boredom of life with his father, in which hunting rabbits was his only escape. It adds somewhat rational motive to his decision to slay his father.

The peelers are the police, so named because they were first instated in Ireland by the English politician Robert Peel. For this reason, the police are equated with English authority and accordingly despised. Widow Quin’s arrival is Shawn’s attempt to interrupt what he knows will be the growing attraction between Pegeen and Christy.

Widow Quin is right to point out that the image of Christy eagerly drinking milk is quite at odds with the idea of him as a heroic killer. Pegeen shows that her affections for him already run deep by talking about him in her own poeticized language.

Widow Quin feels an affinity with Christy because she, too, has committed murder (although Christy only thinks he has). She expressly links the act of murder with Ireland’s mythic culture, correctly describing what both she and Christy have done as the kind of thing that would be immortalized by poets. Stories and poetry thus act as a kind of de facto authority within this rural community.

The audience doesn’t learn anything further about Widow Quin’s burial of her children, but the mention of it highlights her as an isolated figure. As Shawn has already done, she equates the ability to commit murder with a kind of personal strength, which she in turn implies is sexually attractive.

The “black ram” story, in keeping with Synge’s desire for realism in the play, is based on a story told to him by one of his landlords. It paints Widow Quin as a kind of evil spinster undeserving of the archetypal hero, and speaks to the power of gossip and rumor in the rural Irish community.

Widow Quin tries to stir up trouble and destabilize Christy’s growing affections for Pegeen. The timid way in which he insists on staying at the pub is intended as a direct contrast to his supposedly heroic deed, and hints that there might be more to the story than first meets the eye.

Christy lies in bed, sensing the honor and valor that, to his surprise, have come with the telling of his story. At this point, he doesn’t realize that the blow he inflicted on his father was not fatal.