Use of Irony and Humour in The Playboy of the Western World

 

The Use of Irony

At the outset, Christy is a poor sort of creature and his deed is reprehensible by any code; yet he progresses to become a proven hero in the end of all." Within this ironic frame-work, irony is piled upon irony as the audience rejects Christy, and then lends him grudging admiration, rejects and then approves the attitudes of those in the Mayo shebeen. By his mere presence, the snivel-

ling coward, Shawn Keogh, Constitutes a sarcastic comment on the situation, since for Pegeen's life-partner he is the only alternative to a parricide. The miserable Shawn with his false piety is also apparently the Church's only answer in lieu of the presence of Father Reilly and the saints of God, all kept well off-stage. When Pegeen's father, Michael James, tries to prompt Shawn to claim Pegeen for himself, Shawn can only grumble that he is “afeard to be jealous of a man did slay his dad". This, for the audience, is reasonable enough, but no less vexing all the same.

Old Mahon himself is a second ironic presence lurking throughout the play, constantly undercutting Christy's heroic image by obstinately refusing to be dead. The audience is ready enough to grant the playboy some of the stage glory he has acquired by Winning races on the beach, flaunting his colourful jockey silks, and attracting all the young women in their bright fed dresses (as authentically worn by the Aran peasant girls). He even pleases us by threatening Shawn's skull with another spade. But in the latter part of the play old Mahon's sly presence is planted like a warning, threatening to thwart our pleasures. Nevertheless, Michael James himself accepts the idea that a daring fellow is the jewel of the world, even though he did split his father's middle with a single clout, and presumably may well do it again to a father-in-law;

and so it seems, by dint of Synge'sironic stage-craft, that Christy's heroic image is solid and complete. When, therefore, Christy is finally chased off, threatening to kill his father a second time if necessary, the audience, as much as Pegeen herself, feels the pain and annoyance of self-deception.

 

Humour :

The dialogue in the play too is a source of rich comedy. Leaving aside a few speeches which . may momentarily depress us or put us in a serious mood, the rest of the dialogue amuses us greatly. The verbal duel between Pegeen and Widow Quin is one of the comic highlights of the play. Widow Quin slanders Pegeen by saying that the latter goes "helter-skeltering” after any man who winks at her on a road, and Pegeen accuses the widow of having reared a ram at her own breast. Then there are the satirical remarks Pegeen makes to Shawn. She tells him that he is the kind of lover who would remind a gril of a bullock's liver rather than of the lily or the rose. And then she ironically advises him to find for himself a wealthy wife who looks radiant with “the diamond jewelleries of Pharaoh's ma". Widow Quin, speaking to Christy, says that Pegeen

is a girl “itching and scratching" and one who stinks of stale whisky. These are examples of conscious wit and humour, but we are also greatly amused by the unconscious humour of many of the speeches of Michael, Old Mahon, Philly, and Jimmy. Michael's way of describing the wretched life of a man who has never married is very funny. Old Mahon's use of words and phrases to describe Christy's shyness and his incapacity to drink or to smoke is highly entertain-

ing, while Philly and Jimmy amuse us by their talk about the exhibition of skulls in the museum in Dublin.

The above has been discussed about irony and Humour  of “The Playboy of the Western World” in detail.