The Playboy of the Western World: Act 2 Summary & Analysis

It’s the morning after. Christy is cheerfully going about his duties as pub-boy, cleaning boots and counting up the glasses. He happily imagines spending the rest of his life at the pub, picturing a romantic life of drink, conversation and fairly easy work. He picks up the looking-glass from the wall and admires his reflection, thinking about Pegeen’s comment about his handsomeness.

Four young village girls—Susan Brady, Nelly McLaughlin, Sara Tansey and Honor Blake—arrive at the pub. Christy gathers his coat and the looking-glass and hides in the inner room while the village girls search for him. They want to see a man who has “killed his father.”

The girls notice Christy’s boots by the door, which Sara mischievously tries on. Just then, Honor looks inside the inner room and notices Christy. They call him out. He enters, hiding the looking-glass behind his back. They ask where Pegeen is, and he explains that she is tending to the goats.

The girls quiz Christy enthusiastically about whether he is the man who killed his father. Christy confirms this, while secretly trying to re-hang the looking-glass behind his back. The village girls present Christy with gifts: Sara has brought duck eggs, which she says are “the real sort;” Honor brought some cake to aid his “thin stomach;” and Nelly brought a hen, which she makes Christy feel the breast of.

As Christy dutifully admires the breast of Nelly’s hen, Nelly notices the looking-glass behind his back. She exclaims, “them that kill their fathers is a vain lot surely.” The girls giggle, making Christy feel embarrassed.

Widow Quin comes in, having just entered Christy into all of the village’s sports events taking place later that day. Surprised to see the village girls and their gifts, she instructs them to make Christy breakfast. She sits down with Christy and asks to hear his “story” before Pegeen comes back.

Christy describes how his father had recently ordered him to marry a hideous widow, whom he describes as “a walking terror from beyond the hills,” massively overweight and with a “blinded eye.” Christy, chewing on a chicken leg under the eager eyes of Widow Quin and the village girls, tells how he refused to wed this widow. His father had then called her “too good” for him and threatened to “flatten [him] out like a crawling beast” crushed by a wagon.

Christy concludes the story: his father had lifted his scythe up above his head and wished Christy “mercy” on his soul. Then, the fight ensued, with Christy quickly dealing the fatal blow using his loy. As he tells this, he uses the chicken bone as a prop. The girls call him a “marvel” and his story a “grand” and “lovely” one.

Sara says that both Christy and Widow Quin are heroes, and that they should get married. She pours them a drink and toasts to “the wonders of the western world.” At this point, Pegeen comes in. The girls “spring away from Christy.” Pegeen angrily dismisses them and Widow Quin, who reminds Christy about the “sports and racing” taking place at noon.

Now alone with Christy, Pegeen “imperiously” orders him to complete tasks around the pub. Trying to soften her mood, Christy picks up a loy and tries to tell her again about killing his father. She complains that she’s heard the story “six times” that morning and that, furthermore, he shouldn’t be telling his story to everyone who’ll listen.

Pegeen purposefully teases Christy, scaring him that that the village girls might tell his story to the “peelers,” who she says would take great joy in hanging him. Christy, increasingly concerned, puts his boots on, believing he had best be moving on again. Christy laments the lonely prospect of “passing small towns with the light shining sideways when the night is down,” and hearing lovers in ditches while “passing on with an empty hungry stomach failing from your heart.” 

Pegeen calls Christy an “odd man.” He says anyone would be odd “living lonesome”; Pegeen points out that she has only ever lived with her father, but she’s not odd. Christy asks her, admiringly, “how would a lovely handsome woman the like of you be lonesome when all men should be thronging around to hear the sweetness of your voice.” 

Pegeen suspects Christy of pretending to be “lonesome” to win her affection, but he insists that “I was lonesome all times and born lonesome, I’m thinking, as the moon of dawn.” She’s surprised, considering he’s a “fine lad with the great savagery to destroy your da.” Christy tells her that his heart is “scalded” because he has to leave, “stretching out the earth” between them. “I’ll not be waking near you another dawn of the year till the two of us two arise to hope or judgment with the saints of God.”

Pegeen finally lets on that Christy is safe at the pub and that there’s been nothing in the newspapers about his father. Christy is deeply relieved and talks rapturously about having Pegeen’s company from now on.

Shawn runs in, accompanied by Widow Quin, and tells Pegeen that her sheep are “eating cabbages in Jimmy’s field.” She rushes out of the door to stop them. Having got rid of Pegeen, Shawn anxiously offers Christy a one-way ticket on a ship to the U.S.A, also offering up his best clothes. He wants Christy to “leave us in the peace we had till last night at the fall of dark,” explaining that he intends to marry Pegeen and can’t have a “clever fearless man” like Christy around.

Widow Quin also tries to convince Christy, letting slip the rumor that Pegeen intends to marry him. This makes Christy “beam with delight.” As Christy goes into the inner room to admire his new hat and coat, Shawn worries that Christy isn’t going to leave. He’s sure Pegeen will prefer Christy over him, which Widow Quin confirms: “it’s true all girls are fond of courage and do hate the likes of you.” Shawn says he would inform on Christy but is scared Christy will kill him.

Widow Quin makes a deal with Shawn: she will contrive to marry Christy if Shawn will provide her with a cow, a ram, right of way across his property, and the permission to cut turf on his land. Shawn eagerly agrees.

Widow Quin compliments Christy’s appearance as he comes back in: “it’d be a pity surely to have your like sailing from Mayo to the Western World.” She makes a sign for Shawn to leave her alone with Christy; he makes his excuses and goes out. Christy boasts of his life to come as a “gallant orphan,” insisting he will stay at the pub.

Suddenly, Christy staggers back, thinking he’s seen the “walking spirit” of his father. Widow Quin looks out, seeing only a “tramper.” Old Mahon comes in; Christy hides behind the door. Mahon asks Widow Quin if she has seen an “ugly young streeler with a murderous gob on him.” Mahon wants to “destroy him for breaking the head on me with the clout of a loy.”

Mahon takes off his hat and shows Widow Quin his bandaged head. She’s impressed with the wound, which Mahon said was done by his “own son.” She says that Mahon must have “vexed” and “tormented” his son greatly to make him “strike that gash.” Mahon, offended, claims to have the “patience of a martyred saint,” painting a picture of his son as lazy, foolish, and vain.

Widow Quin, with one eye on Christy, asks Mahon why his son was “so foolish”—was it because he “was running wild after the girls maybe?” Mahon explains that his son would hide like a frightened hare whenever girls were around. Furthermore, he adds, his son couldn’t handle his alcohol and “would get drunk on the smell of a pint!” His son, he sums up, is the “laughing joke of every female woman.”

Widow Quin gets rid of Mahon by saying she thinks she’s seen the man he’s looking for heading to catch a ship on the coast. Mahon goes out to follow her directions. She swings the door and looks at Christy, who is cowering in fear. Laughing, she calls him the “walking playboy of the western world.”

Christy frets about what Pegeen will say when she hears about his father’s visit. Widow Quin thinks she’ll kick him out for being a “little schemer.” Christy rages to himself about his father: “to be letting on he was dead, and coming back to life…coming in here and laying desolation between my own self and the fine women of Ireland.”

Christy despairs to Widow Quin about the prospect of losing Pegeen’s affection, who he says has “the love-light of the star of knowledge shining from her brow.” Widow Quin rejects this “poetry talk for a girl you’d see itching and scratching.” Christy says Pegeen is the kind of woman “fitted to be handling merchandise in the heavens above.”

Christy and Widow Quin hear people approaching the pub. Widow Quin hurriedly puts her proposition to Christy: that she has taken a “fancy” to him and wants him to live with her, where she can “tend” to him and he won’t have to worry about talking about whether he is a murderer or not. He instead begs her to help him win Pegeen’s heart, as the village girls clamor for him to come outside. She makes him promise that, if she helps him, he will give her “right of way” and a “ram,” to which he agrees.

Widow Quin suggests that she and Christy pretend Old Mahon is a “maniac” and not Christy’s father. Susan, Sara, Honor and Nelly run in, calling for Christy to “come on the sports now.” He goes off, leaving Widow Quin to say to herself, “well, if the worst comes in the end of all, it’ll be great game to see there’s none to pity him but a widow woman, the like of me.” She leaves too.