Women In The Playboy of the Western World Essay

Consider the Position of women in J.M.Synges The Playboy of the Western World.

In Playboy of the Western World Synge sets out to dismantle Yeats construction of self-sacrificing and pious Irish womanhood the revivalists had encouraged him to portray in The Countess Cathleen. Irish nationalism sought land reform and Home Rule for the Irish and encouraged the Irish revivalism in theatres as propaganda for their cause. They promoted the ideal of a unified Irish peasant whose women were Christian. Historically the Irish had been pagan and nationalists also sought to show Gaelic myth and legends (as male) to further their cause. Synge deliberately rejects stereotypical idealised Irish womanhood. Synge understands that Irish women have developed in a feudalistic Ireland wracked by Land Wars, famine, civil unrest and ongoing violent oppression from the colonist English, the peelers and the militia. Irish women had become competitive, violent, sexually rapacious and non-spiritual and are seen by Synge as pagan. Synges main female character Pegeen is an anti-Cathleen figure; she is a strong and all knowing sexualised Magdalen against the naive Cathleen, the virginal Madonna (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, p.67).

Synge rejects Yeatss Madonnas and shows real Irish women to shock his audience into self-critique (Reynolds, 2008, p.50). At its premier on January 26th 1907 the audience broke up in disorder at the word shift (Grene, 2002, p.80). The line is, if you brought me a drift of chosen females, standing in their shifts...? (Synge, 1987, p.127). This is made more insulting to women when Shawns comment drift of heifers is considered, (Synge, 1987, p.123).Yeats draws attention to drift and shift by making them rhyme, drawing comparison between cattle and Irish women.

The riots in the theatre were initiated by Nationalists, incensed that Synge had shattered their propagandist image of women, so central to nationalist iconography, ... an insistently desexualised one and ...Synges drift of females in their shifts were scandalously erotic. (Grene. N, 2002, p.83). Synges depiction of women as sexual angered the nationalists who wanted idealised women to further the nationalist cause. Nash argues that at the centre of a web of discourses of racial and cultural identity, femininity....was being used in attempts to secure cultural identity and political freedom. (Nash, 1993 cited in Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, p.67). Yet Synge shows Pegeen and the villagers eventually violently rejecting Christy, the attempted murderer as they learn to choose a passive and peaceful future for themselves and by implication Ireland.

Synge employed ...controversial content to engage and shock his audiences into self critique. (Reynolds, 2008, p.50). He wanted audiences to ask themselves why the women had become violent and sexually voracious. Years of repression by the occupying English army, the Peelers and the Roman Catholic Church had taught them to fight violence with violence. In Playboy of the Western World the pagan violent streak of men is admired by the women and priests are merely distant figures. Synge introduces a nation with a pagan cultural legacy; the warrior hero has long been admired in Irish folklore and Synge invites his audience to ask why this should be and to look to the future of a unified peaceful Ireland.

First to discuss is the violence of women in The Playboy of the Western World. Llewellyn-Jones says that the romantic view of peasant literature that associated with Anglo-Irish elements in the Celtic Revival [is] so challenged by J.M.Synge (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, p.67). Synge visited County Mayo, a lonely barren region with strong traditions of violence and resistance to English rule, where he noticed that the people in it are debased and nearly demoralised (Armstrong, 1987, p.66) For Synge the revivalists idealised history and also Irish women. Synge portrays women characters as he thought they were, trapped rural women in a landscape virtually bereft of men, (Kiberd, 1996, p179). The women are central to the plot and strong violent characters, whilst the men are weak and scared of violence. The main female character Pegeen is a fine, hardy girl would knock the head of any two men in the place (Synge, 1987, p78). Pegeen is compared to the weak Christy who is described as, making mugs at his own self in a bit of glass," (Synge, 1987, p.107) and seen in Act two cleaning a girls boots. This shows Christy is subservient even to girls and women are dominating.

Pegeen has learnt to be merciless; Kiberd says, she lights a sod of turf to cripple her former lover. This brutal act, deemed to be beyond belief by many of the plays first critics, is entirely in keeping with her character... (Kiberd, 1996, p.171) She is not one of the female women Mahon describes (Synge, 1987, p.108).

Yet this is not the whole picture of Pegeen. In the initial stage directions Synge describes her as wild looking, but she is also described as fine and as she writes, so she has education. Synge is dramatising Pegeen as she is but with hints of how she may have developed in different circumstances.

The untamed women also admire strong, violent men such as, Daneen Sullivan [who] knocked the eye from a peeler: (Synge. 1987, p.76) as they challenge the authority of repressing forces. The Irish girls walking four miles to be listening to a man of violence such as Christy to whom they attach playboy status. (Synge, 1987, p.100) as Christy

Pegeen laughs at weak men such as Shawn, A soft lad the like of you wouldn't slit the windpipe of a screeching sow" states Pegeen. (Synge, 1987, p88). Women have been driven to violence by their poverty and the constant brutality of the repressing forces. Pegeens father sums this admiration of violence up when he says, "A daring fellow is the jewel of the world...." (Synge, 1987, p.124).

Pegeen seeks a dominant aggressive male as only the weak men have not emigrated. When she discovers that Christy has only performed a dirty deed and not real violence she turns on him. Kiberds essay Remembering the Future explains this. Pegeen uses violence to counter violence; a measure which Synge demonstrated could never find a peaceful solution. Synge suggests a future model for a more passive woman.

Reynolds argues that Synge, disrupted the melodramatic representation of the hero as super-masculine and the heroine as wholly feminine, two extremes also celebrated by Gaelic-based nationalism. (Reynolds, 2008, p. 60).Synge is showing that women have become violent and dominating as there are no strong men to control them. Christy asks Is it a crazy-house for females that I have landed in now? (Synge, 1987, p.116) According to Reynolds Pegeen Mike also defies its (nationalism) passive feminine ideal. (Reynolds, 2008, p.60) Pegeen is easily able to dominate the weak men left in Ireland, such as Shawn. She snaps at him in scene one, Whisht [sic] I am saying; well take no fooling from your like at all. Yet she can use her feminity to charm Christy, (with a honeyed voice) And you, young fellow, youd have a right to stop, Im thinking, for wed do our all and utmost to content your needs. (Synge, 1987 p.85).

Reynolds indicates that the play appraises values associated with the stem family, (Reynolds, 2007, p.60) and Playboy depicted the family ... as corrupted, (Reynolds, 2008, p.61). Synge introduces fragmentation of society and of the family. There are few mothers and the one mentioned, Widow Casey is the walking terror (Synge, 1987, p97) with poor maternal instincts having buried her children and destroyed her man. (Synge, 1987, p.111). Motherhood is reduced to a means of producing more doomed Irish peasants. Reynolds continues, Playboy also refused to depict positively the mother-worship encouraged by the stem family. (Reynolds, 2008, p.61). Mothers are either absent or terrors as Widow Casey.

The young resent their fathers and so Pegeen admires Christy who has made a violent stand against his father, Old Mahon. Pegeen does show reluctant allegiance her father; but she would like to question his authority, I never cursed my father the like of that, though Im twenty and more years of age (Synge, 1987, p.89). The girls love a man of violence, such as Christy, the Playboy of the Western World (Synge, 1987, p.108). They idolise a protector figure that is able to challenge the dominance of patriarchs.

Secondly Synges female characters in this text are not the usually idealised innocent maidens of Gaelic folklore or Yeatss plays, but sexually predatory and coarse talking. The Widow Quin is there to remind the audience of Pegeens unsaintly corporeality. (Grene, 2002, p.84). She says, a girl youd see itching and scratching (Synge, 1987, p.109) and Pegeen knows she is the fright of seven townlands for my biting tongue (Synge, 1987, p.121). Also In the Playboy of the Western World the women take the initiative in wooing (Kiberd, 1996, p.176) and Kiberd argues that the role of sex-object is played by the male lead [Christy] (Kiberd, 1996, p.166). This is very unusual in Irish plays, normally it would be assumed to be the woman. The women show they are openly competing for Christys favours by offering gifts. Sara offers, a brace of ducks eggs while Nelly has a pullet and suggests he feels the fat on that breast Mister. (Synge, 1987, p.96). This sexual innuendo would have shocked audiences. The women also tempt the men, Let you not be tempting me (Synge. 1987, p.79). Shawn says to Pegeen, she wants him to stay the night but he is scared of Father Reilly. For Synge to portray females as sexually tempting was shocking to members of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland who favoured Yeatss self-sacrificing Countess Cathleen as a role model for Irish women.

Synges females are sexually competitive; the widow Quinn competes with Pegeen for the favours of Christy. He boasts two fine women fighting for the likes of me (Synge. 1987, p.93). Quinn tries to use her own violence to attract Christy, she has killed her father with a worn pick, and the rusted poison did corrode his blood, (Synge. 1987, p 91). But the early audiences of mainly nationalists wanted to see a romanticised version of women and not the more honest one Synge portrays. When Pegeen says, And you without a white shift or a shirt in your whole family. (Synge, 1987, p. 99) the initial audience of 1907 was outraged as it suggested the immorality of Irish women and rejected the idealised view usually portrayed in theatre. The play caused a sensation in Dublin, (as Synge hoped), the audience attacking the theatre in their outrage at the portrayal of women as sexually predatory and bestial.

Thirdly, the women in The Playboy of the Western World such as Pegeen are not religious; Kiberd argues that Father Reilly is so peripheral a figure to those fundamentally pagan people that Synge does not allow him to appear on stage... (Kiberd, 1996, p.166). The females are aware of the Roman Catholic Churchs distant authority. Pegeen replies to Shawn Stop tormenting me with Father Reilly (Synge. 1987, p.77), but they do not have any true belief in religion as the women do in Yeatss The Countess Cathleen. Pegeen mocks the weak Shawns devotion to the Church, Its a wonder, Shaneen; the Holy Fatherd be taking notice of the likes of you; (Synge. 1987, p.76).

Christian values had hardly penetrated the violent pagan culture and men of violence are admired, rather than the Roman Catholic priests. References are made to ancient myths and pagan heroes. Pegeen likens Christy to the last of the Gaelic poets admired as a pagan, its the poets are your like, fine fiery fellows with great rages when their tempers roused.(Synge, 1987, p.87). Kiberd states that the Irish only rise to intensity of feeling when they are recounting deeds of violence. (Kiberd, 2002, p.169). So for women Irish culture is irrevocably linked to violence, the women seem incapable of describing poetry except in terms of violence. (Kiberd, 2002, p.170).

In contrast Synges priests are distant, Holy Father and the Cardinals of Rome, (Synge. 1987, p 79), not to be admired for their spirituality but feared symbols of repressive Ireland, male authority on a par with peelers, to be thwarted if at all possible. Pegeen pays only lip service to religion; it is a habit not a source of comfort or reassurance as it is in The Countess Cathleen. This is an example of habitual religion, words used without sincerity.

Men (together). God bless you. The blessing of God on this place.