Evaluation of “ The Playboy of the Western World” as a satirical comedy. & The major themes of “ Look Back in Anger”

 

  Evaluation of the Playboy of the Western World as a satirical comedy.

Satirical comedy: Satirical comedy is the form of satire in which the writer uses comic elements to expose the realities of the society or any problem. The writer uses fictional characters to represent the real people to expose and condemn their corruption.

The Playboy of the Western World is a three-demonstration play composed by Irish writer John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theater, Dublin, on 26 January 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's open house in County Mayo [on the west shore of Ireland] during the mid 1900s. It recounts to the account of Christy Mahon, a youngster fleeing from his homestead, asserting he executed his dad.

 

Synge’s satiric view is constantly focused, with more or less directness, towards certain aspects of the peculiar blend of paganism and Roman Catholicism that he saw in the West.

 

 The Playboy of the western world both illustrates and satirizes the Irish national tendency towards the making of myths. During his visit to the Aran Islands in 1898, Synge heard the story of how a Connemara man killed his father with a spade in a fit of anger and was concealed by the islanders of Irishman because they associated the police with the hated English government to which they were hostile.

 

A Satirical Attack on Religious Narrow-Mindedness:

The playboy contains also a subtle attack on religious narrow-mindedness and on false piety. Shawn is so "virtuous" and “pious” that he refuses to spend a night alone with an unmarried girl in a shebeen even to protect her. He may thus appear to be a model of moral rectitude. But this over-scrupulous attitude makes him appear absurd and the audience would no doubt roar with laughter at his refusal to spend the night with Pegeen because of the objections that Father Reilly might afterwards raise. The comedy of this Situation is heightened by Shawn's managing to sli away from Michael's hold and running out of the shebeen, leaving his Coat in the hands of Michael. Shawn's behavior at this time is most funny and Michael makes us laugh still more when he points Out to Pegeen the absurdity of Shawn by assuring her that, when she is married to that fellow, she would not have to keep a watch on his conduct even if he spends a lot of his time in the company of young girls. What Michael means is that Shawn is the kind of man who will never prove unfaithful to his wife. Indeed, Shawn’s subservience to Father Reilly is made to appear extremely preposterous and highly comic. About a dozen times Shawn names the priest, invoking his authority and exhibiting his reverence for the Church. All this devotion of the part on Shawn to the priest, and his compliance with the priest's moral injunctions, are made to appear comic and contemptible. In this way Synge makes fun of excessive religiosity and exaggerated piety. 

A Satire on Excessive Drinking

Synge seems also to be attacking, again in a comic manner, the evil of excessive drinking. We have a number of heavy drunkards in the play. They are Michael James, Philly, Jimmy, and Old Mahon. The chief reason why Michael and his friends are keen to attend the wake is that plenty of free liquor flows there. Next morning Jimmy and Philly, who are already semi-drunk, are seen searching for some more liquor in the cupboards of the shebeen, and Michael comes home singing in a state of intoxication. Towards the end, when Jimmy and Philly feel afraid of handling Christy, Shawn scolds them for their, feeling nervous in going near Christy. On this occasion, he again invokes the authority of Father Reilly, so that his remark becomes comic even though it has much sense in it. Says he: “Isn't it true for Father Reilly that all drink's a curse that has the lot of you so shaky and uncertain now?” This remark has considerable truth in it, because excessive drinking certainly makes a man shaky and uncertain. Then there is Old Mahon about whom Christy says that he used to drink for weeks and then, getting up at dawn, used to go out into the yard "as naked as an ash-tree in the moon of May", in order to throw clods at the stars in the sky. Old Mahon himself tells Widow Quin that on one occasion he drank so much in the company of the Limerick girls that he had almost become a paralytic. Both Christy's account of his father's drunkenness and Old Mahon's own account of this drunkenness are a satire on the evil of drinking.

A Satirical Attack on the Attitude to English Policemen

Synge also seems to be making fun of the attitude of the Irish people towards the English policemen who were in charge of law and order in Ireland of the time to which this play pertains. Pegeen describes the "peelers” or the police constables in very contemptuous terms, and so does Michael. Speaking to Christy, Michael says that the peelers in this place are decent, thirsty, poor fellows who would not touch even "a cur dog", much less arrest a dangerous murderer like Christy. Maybe, Synge shared this attitude of contempt towards the English policemen who were regarded as aliens and foreigners by the Irish and to whom the people at large were bitterly hostile.

 

Widow Quin's Murder of Her Husband

Finally, there are satirical touches in the portrayal of Widow Quin who is believed to have murdered her husband and who, on Several occasions, admits that she had "destroyed" her man and buried her children. Now this insistence on Widow Quin’s criminal action might have some purpose behind it. Widow Quin herself shows no sense of guilt at all. In fact, she refers unashamedly to her action in having killed her husband. The village girls are also quite tolerant towards her. It is only Pegeen who condemns her but perhaps even Pegeen does so because Widow Quin has become her rival for Christy's affections. Perhaps Synge seems to imply that Widow Quin's action in attacking her husband was not, after all, very reprehensible because the fault might have been that of the husband. Under certain circumstances, if a woman hits her husband, she may be justified. There is nothing to show that Widow Quin's intention in hitting her man was to murder him. 

 

Conclusion:

In spite of all this, The Playboy is a comedy, but the author has ridiculed the West world in a humorous way. A play which amuses us at every step and makes us laugh again and again but   in the midst of laughter, Western World has been ridiculed in a very subtle way. All of the above I have tried to evaluate of “The Playboy of the Western World” as a satirical comedy drama.

Analyse Santiago's struggle

 

The account of Santiago’s struggle with the marlin has a tragic quality because of the suffering that Santiago undergoes, because of the suffering of the marlin, and because of the endurance of both the fish and the fisherman.

Our admiration and our pity are aroused both for Santiago and for the marlin. From the very first Santiago shows determination. "Fish", he says, aloud, "I”ll stay with you until I am dead". Next, he says, "Fish, I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends", His left hand becomes cramped, and the marlin proves to be bigger than he had thought it to be. He wishes to show to the marlin what sort of a man he is. "But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures". He admires the  manner of the marlin's behavior and its great dignity. He has had no sleep for half a day and a night and another day. It would be good even if he could sleep "twenty minutes or half an hour". His hands have now been badly cut and he is "tired deep into his bones". He feels that the fish is killing him but he does not mind. "Come on and kill me", he says, "I do not care who kills who". His pride is by now gone. The fish, in spite of the agony it is undergoing, has proved obstinate and tough. When the fish has been killed, there come the sharks to eat it. Santiago has hardly enjoyed his feeling of Victory ("I think the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today” ) when the first shark, a Mako, appears. He drives his harpoon into the shark's brain "with resolution and complete malignancy". Here he also speaks those memorable words: " But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated". He knows he has performed another heroic act. "I wonder how the great DiMaggio would have liked the way I hit him in the brain ? he says with reference to his killing the Mako. Then come the two galanos and Santiago says "Ay", a word which a man might utter if nails were driven through his palms and into the wood. This image of the crucifixion is intended to convey the agony of Santiago. When the thought comes to him that more sharks might come in the night, he says, "I’ll fight them until I die". But by midnight he knows that the fight is useless. He knows that he is now beaten finally and is without remedy". His journey up the hill to his shack and his posture as he lies asleep on his bed are again described in terms reminiscent of the Crucifixion, to emphasize his suffering and his endurance. When he tells the boy that he has been beaten, the boy says that he has not been beaten by his adversary, the marlin, and Santiago agrees. "No. Truly. It was afterwards". He is not averse to talking with the boy about future plans

and when he falls asleep again he dreams about the lions (a symbol of youth and strength). Santiago's heroic quality does not forsake him till the end. Throughout, his ordeal and his attitude of mind are so described as to arouse our admiration and our pity for him. And as the marlin shows precisely the qualities which Santiago has, we pity and admire the marlin too. Thus both man and fish are tragic characters. The man returns home physically broken, though spiritually still strong, while the fish is reduced to a skeleton which yet produces a feeling of awe in all those who see it. Apart from his courage and endurance, other qualities which make Santiago admirable in our eyes are his tenderness, compassion, and love for the various creatures (birds, porpoise, flying fish, green turtles, hawks bills, etc.), his charity, his faith, and his piety.

Why Dimmesdale keeping her identity secret.

 A man and a woman, who are still essentially the old Adam and Eve, deceive themselves into thinking that they can escape the consequences of their sin of adultery. The woman serves a prison term and has to wear on the bosom of her dress the letter "A" which is the sign of her shame. The man, who was the occasion of that shame, lives a life full of torture because of his inability to confess his guilt and because of the remorse which gnaws upon his conscience. Meeting in the forest, they plot an escape from the world of law and religion. For a moment, the hope of liberation seems to transfigure not only them but the dark forest where they have met. When Hester flings aside the scarlet letter and loosens her hair, the forest glows to life because of Nature's sympathy with the lovers and its approval of their bliss. Yet Hawthorne cannot permit these lovers the happiness that they seek. He is not as harsh as his Puritan ancestors, but he condemns Hester's plan of escape.

For all his disagreement with Puritanism and its persecuting zeal, he does not swerve completely to the side of romanticism which means unlimited freedom for the individual. The sinful priest purifies himself by public confession and becomes worthy of the only way that remains for him to salvation, namely death. Even Hester  must finally accept loneliness and self-restraint instead of the love and freedom she had dreamed. Passion has opened up for her no new possibilities, only closed off older ones. Thus in The Scarlet Letter, passion justifies nothing, while its denial redeems all."

When it is known that she is pregnant, she is sent to the scaffold for committing adultery. She later gives birth to her daughter, Pearl, and is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A”  on her bosom, which stands for adultery.

Seven years have passed since Pearl’s birth. Hester has become more active in society. She brings food to the doors of the poor, she nurses the sick, and she is a source of aid in times of trouble. She is still frequently made an object of scorn, but more people are beginning to interpret the “A” on her chest as meaning “Able” rather than “Adulterer.” Hester herself has also changed. She is no longer a tender and passionate woman; rather, burned by the “red-hot brand” of the letter, she has become “a bare and harsh outline” of her former self. She has become more speculative, thinking about how something is “amiss” in Pearl, about what it means to be a woman in her society, and about the harm she may be causing Dimmesdale by keeping Chillingworth’s identity secret.

Absurd elements of Waiting for Godot

 

A form of play that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that lack realistic or logical development.

 

Martin Esslin wrote a book titled “Theatre of the Absurd” that was published in year 1961. It dealt with the dramatists who belonged to a movement called “Absurd Theater” though it was not regular. Samuel Beckett was one of those dramatists who had largest contribution in “Absurd Theater”. His play “Waiting for Godot” also belonged to the same category and was called absurd play.

 

   The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s, as well as one for the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. Their work expresses the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. In an absurd drama human condition is shown as meaningless. There are disjoined, meaningless dialogue, and incomprehensible behavior. In an absurd drama plot has no logical or realistic development.

 

  Beckett's Waiting for Godot is an allegorical absurd play. There is no particular time and place in the play. It reveals the despair, nothingness, frustration of the post-war generation and its appeal becomes bitter as the plots are established on a false imagination. The play actually is full of nothingness, restless tiredness and  childish fun. The for-nothing waiting of the characters and their activities give the play a rich tone of absurdity.

 

  An absurd work is a frightening one. It has in itself no norms, no absolutes, no consoling certainties and no direction, It simply exists. Nothing and nobody living in it has any pre-ordained scene or purpose. The absurd dramatists are all concerned with the failure of communication of the modem humanity which leaves man alienated. They are also concerned with the lack of individuality and the over emphasis on conformity in our society.

 

  Characterization and characteristics of a play are not drawn and seen in Waiting for Godot. Conflict and collision of characters, psychological and inner suffering and developments of characters, turning point of any particular event and fascinating dialogues are the important characteristics of a play which are not found in this play. Instead of it, the play goes through nothingness with false wish which is a new trend in drama and it is absurdity.

 

  The play starts with the waiting for Godot. We do not know what or who the Godot is. Two passers-by - Estragon and Vladimir wait for Godot when the play comes to an end. The time-difference of the play is just one day and there are two acts in it. But it seems to us that time has become stopped; the including characters cannot remember anything; even, they cannot identify the same place. This absurdity, uncertainty and the destruction of time and place show the meaninglessness of human existence. The opening statement of Estragon is very significant: "Nothing to be done."

  

   In Waiting for Godot, we observe the use of symmetry in the incidents. We meet Pozzo and Lucky in each of two acts before the presence of the boy. In every case, we get the boy-messenger who says that the Godot will not go that day; he will go the day after. Symmetry is everywhere in the drama- inwardly and outwardly - which is an important characteristic of an absurd play. The stage itself is divided into two parts and the tree is in the middle. Symmetry is also presented as an opposite ideology in the play. In Act-I, we hear a long lecture of Lucky; hard to get, but suggestive And in Act-II, we get Lucky as disabled, he can't speak.

 

   The use of language is very remarkable in the play and it serves Beckett's purpose significantly. The nothingness of life and the impatience mentality of human being are sincerely expressed by Beckett's own language skill.

 

  In the play, we see another absurd feature, the half comic-grotesque. Comic tone is heard from the very beginning i.e. to catch the boot, to see something by the cap etc. In the last scene the falling down of Estragon's trouser is very comic though the desire is to commit suicide where there is no scope of fun.

 

From the above discussion, we may conclude that Waiting for Godot is an absurd drama because of its absurd characters, their meaninglessness of life, language, repetitiveness etc.

Some Question and Ans of The Playboy

 

Why does Christy Mahon in The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge tell strangers that he killed his father?

In The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge, when Christy Mahon initially appears, he is exhausted, confused, and terrified of being arrested. He is not thinking particularly clearly, and begins by asking if police regularly visit the pub. That arouses the curiosity of the villagers and makes them enquire as to what he has to fear from the police. Christy's account of killing his father is only elicited from him gradually, and under pressure. It is only once he does admit to it, and finds that his auditors are rather impressed by his courage, that he becomes comfortable boasting of the act.

 

Why does widow Quin and Sara want to help christy escape from the crowd to the later stage of the play?

Answer:

      Christy chases Mahon out of the pub with the loy. After a great noise and “a yell” outside, Christy comes back in. Widow Quin hurries in too, telling Christy that the crowd is turning against him and he needs to escape before he gets “hanged.” He insists that he won’t leave Pegeen, who should be impressed with him again now that he has dealt his father a fatal blow.

      Though its offstage, it’s clear that Christy strikes his father again. The crowd is bloodthirsty and wants justice, without having a clear sense of the parameters of that justice. In essence, they want to impose their own collective authority and Widow Quin knows that they will come for Christy and tries to help him escape.

Gulliver's Travels is an adventurous novel with lots of humour and satire within it. Explain.

Jonathan Swift's masterpiece satire Gulliver's Travels is written in the form of a travel story and details a sailor's journey to four very different fantastical societies. But the book is not a simple adventure story. It is a pungent satire on man. It is also a critical and insightful work satirizing the political and social systems of eighteenth century England. Through frequent and successful employment of irony, ambiguity and symbolism, Swift makes comments addressing such specific topics as current political controversies as well as such universal concerns as the moral degeneration of man.

 Ostensibly, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels is adventure story detailing a sailor's journey to four fantastical lands. It tells the story of the various wonderful voyages undertaken by a man called Lamuel Gulliver. The narrative is in the form of an adventure story. To any young mind, Gulliver is an adventurer exploring various fantastic lands. To a child, both Lilliput and Brobdingnag are strange and wonderful lands full of fascinating events. The way the pigmies handle the man-mountain' Gulliver, the way they feed him, the way Gulliver visits the capital of Lilliput, the way he cripples the enemy fleet and the way he extinguishes fire in the Lilliputian royal palace by urinating on it are all exciting and amusing. In addition to their littleness, Lilliputians customs as well as sources of their conflicts are also sources of great amusement to any young and inexperienced mind. Again, Gulliver as a pigmy among the giant Brobdingnagians gives endless amusement tor the children. Gulliver meets several mishaps in the land of Brobdingnag and they are all bound to interest the young reader.

 Similarly, strange and surprising events take place in Laputa and Lagado. the Laputans with their strange behaviors in a flying island are very funny people. The experiments which are in progress in the Academy of Lagado are also very interesting. Gulliver's interviews with the ghosts and spirits of the great dead on the island of Glubbdubdrib are also a source of great interest. Gulliver's last voyage takes him to another fantastic land of the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. Here too the element of the marvellous predominates. That horses, the Houyhnhnms are perfectly rational animals and controls the human-like Yahoos and their way of governing the society as well as life-style are all parts of a fanciful story. Any young mind ravels in the narratives of the fantastic places, objects and events throughout Gulliver's Travels.

But, Gulliver's Travels is not a simply adventure story. It is more than a children book. It is a great satiric masterpiece. Swift’s purpose in writing the book is to 'vex' the world by exposing the evils, follies and absurdities of human life. The whole book is a direct and outspoken condemnation of the follies and faults of human beings. By presenting the Lilliputian society and court as corrupt Swift attacks his contemporary political institutions and the politicians. The diminutives in the fantastic island symbolically suggest human capacity of infinite pride and Corruption. The second book is also a bitter and pungent satire on English politics and society. Through Gulliver's account of English society and the giant king's subsequent reaction of his panegyrics Swift exposes the avarice, hypocrisy, perfidy, cruelty, madness, malice and lust of Englishmen. The third book is a satire on unrealistic philosophers and scientists in pursuit of useless knowledge and their intellectual pride. The last book contains the most scornful, the most incisive and the most corrosive satire on mankind. In the abominable and filthy Yahoos, who are brutal, un-teachable and mischievous, and by contrasting them against the ideal Houyhnhnms, Swift exposes the innate depravity of human beings.

Much of the humor in Part I comes from the visual imagery of the contrast in size between Gulliver and the Lilliputians. The image of their hundred arrows shot into his hand that feel like the sting of needles seems funny because such little people can be so fierce and yet cannot do much to damage such a huge visitor. Other instances of humor revolve around Gulliver's physical needs, and again, most of these relate to the size difference. The Lilliputians feed Gulliver plates of a meat that he takes to be something like mutton legs, yet they look like tiny bird legs to him. When the little people transport Gulliver during his sleep to their city, he wakes up with a violent sneeze. Only weeks later does he learn that two inquisitive guards had climbed onto his face and stuck their spears up his nose. Along with the humor about physical needs, the story contains scatological humor dealing with Gulliver relieving himself.

Thus, Gulliver's Travels is not a simple adventure story; it is rather a bitter satire on mankind. Every aspect of human life has been severely castigated and humor in the book

Gulliver as a misogynist. Explain it

 Gulliver as a misogynist because Gulliver hates humanity through women. Swift portrays women as inferior creatures, comparing them to lusty, dirty, and ignorant animals, ultimately leading to Gulliver’s disgust in women in general at the end of the novel. In the moral domain, women inspire as much aversion as they do on the physical side. We know that Misogynistic reflecting or exhibiting hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women. Reflecting or exhibiting ingrained and institutionalized prejudice against women; sexist: misogynistic attitudes stemming from the highest corporate level. In Lilliput, Gulliver illustrates the carelessness of women, when he retells the story of the fire. The only way to extinguish the fire is through urination, an act so rude and grotesque that a woman could not handle it. The queen is autocratic and infuriated when Gulliver urinates on her apartment to keep it from burning. She decrees that public urination be banned and that the contaminated building be left as it is. The method by which Gulliver describes this event, leads the reader to believe that only a woman would act so harshly to his actions.

 In “A Voyage to Brobdingnag”, when the farmer shows Gulliver to his wife, she screams with disgust, the way a woman would react to a bug. Gulliver in Brobdingnag discovers that his sense was more acute in proportion to his littleness. He sees everything magnified, he examines everything as if through a microscope. Looking up close at the women’s anatomy, Gulliver notices that their skin seems very rough, discolored and greasy. Also he has difficulty breathing because of their strong and repugnant scent. He is disgusted by the sight of their huge pores, spots, pimples, hair and moles and even more repulsed by one maiden who places Gulliver on her nipple to play. Swift uses the Maids of Honor to illustrate flaws in a woman’s beauty that are generally overlooked or hidden. Gulliver expresses his aversion to their naked bodies.

They were, “very far from being a tempting sight”, and gave him, “any other emotions than those of horror and disgust”. Gulliver makes the connection that the women of England, that he normally finds so beautiful, have the same flaws, but he just does not see them as easily because they are of the same size: “This made me reflect upon the fair skins of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass, where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough and course and ill coloured.” Only the women are described as having such horrible discolored skin. Men had it too, but he only brought attention to the women.

 

When Gulliver describes a grotesque vision of humanity in Brobdingnag, he generally uses women as the objects of repulsion. It is the Empress who eats in a grotesque fashion. When Gulliver sees beggars and homeless, he describes in unkind detail the lice crawling on their clothes. The homeless beggar with cancerous breast is a horrific sight to Gulliver as he can see into the crevices and cavities in her body, destroyed by vermin and disease. That is “the most horrible spectacle that ever an European eye beheld”. Swift deploys the rhetorical “instruments” necessary for such disavowal figuring the decaying body as female. In Brobdingnag, Gulliver is shocked to see the “monstrous breast” of a nurse giving suck in front of him. Even the act of feeding does not escape his disgust: “I must confess no object ever disgusted me so much as the sight of her monstrous breast…”. The flying island of Laputa  has been the object of several feminist discussions particularly to show that women are repeatedly described separately from men. The women are described by geometric shape and mathematical figures. Furthermore, the women are not allowed to explore or travel off the island without specific doctrine from the King. In Laputa, a wife is someone who would rather prostitute herself than stay with her neglectful husband. According to Susan Bruce, Gulliver’s Voyage to Laputa enacts men’s ultimate inability to control women’s bodies and desires.

 

In Houyhnhnms women were also supposed to be gross, lusty, sexual, benevolent and disgusting as the description of the Yahoo female shows: “The females had long lank hair on their heads and only a sort of down on the rest of their bodies. Their dugs hung between their fore feet and often reached almost to the ground as they walked.” A young female Yahoo gets “inflamed with desire” at the sight of Gulliver. Never does Swift suggest they are more than what he presents them to be, nor does he suggest that they think, feel, love or are morally responsible. The Yahoo female who, driven by sexual craving, throws herself on Gulliver is a strikingly horrific image.

While the Houyhnhnm females are sexually modest and controlled, the Yahoo females are sexually aggressive: “A female Yahoo would often stand behind a bank or a bush, to gaze on the young males . . . and then appear, and hide, using many antic gestures and grimaces . . . and when any of the males advanced she would slowly retire, looking often back.” However, Gulliver encounters several women in his travels but we never hear their opinions. We never find out how women think or what they feel about their own society. We also never find out what they think about Gulliver’s society. The reason for this is that women did not have figurative voices. The conversations that he had with the queen, the lady and the women in Laputa are not brought up because it doesn’t matter. Women’s voices were not important. So we could say Gulliver as a misogynist.

Discuss the laboratory from Laputa

Laputans are the inhabitants of the flying island called Laputa. The Laputans have prostituted science by fixing on knowledge for knowledge’s sake, instead of putting intellectual theory to practical use. Where Scientists, in Swift’s send-up, would make poor rulers. Even Bacon, whose New Atlantis was the first scientific utopia, implicitly recognized this; while Bensalem’s key institution is Solomon’s House, it is not the sole governing body. One reason why Bacon thought scientists should not rule alone is that, while scientists pursue knowledge as an end in itself, politicians seek to use such knowledge as a means for other ends. The realities sought and delivered in the laboratory, in other words, are a different kind from those sought and delivered in the political arena.

The activities of the members of the Academy of Projectors, though they involve experiment, are yet related to the abstract thinking of the King. For the most part, they are based on some wrong-headed abstract conception, and are really examples of reasoning downward, taking "the High Priori Road" They are aspects, therefore, of the modern tendency to ignore "the old forms" and to rely on a spider-like spinning of thought, By blending experiment and High Priori reasoning in the Academy at Lagado, Swift is able to show scientific "projects" as yet another example of the kind of thinking which leads away from the methods of a Christian and humanist tradition. Indeed one of the projects is an exact allegorical equivalent of the process of reasoning downward to the foundations of plain experience. There is a most ingenious architect who has contrived a new method of building houses, by beginning at the roof and working downwards to the foundation, which he tries to justify by the practice of those two prudent insects-the bee and the spider. Again. the notion of ploughing the land with hogs to save the charges of ploughs. cattle. and labour results, upon experiment, in no crop and a good deal of trouble and expense.

Such projects leave an impression of uselessness, dirt, temporariness, or death. An eminent member of the Academy has been busy for thirty years converting things into their opposites. Air has been made tangible and marble has been made soft; land is sown with chaff, and woolless sheep have been reared; the hooves of a living horse are petrified. In short, the projects are conducted in an atmosphere of aimless activity, distorted values, and a perversion of things from their proper purpose. While the general effect of the  images we associate with Lilliput and Brobdingnag is of man and other animals as vigorous physical beings, the effect of Laputa and its subject Kingdom of Balnibarbi is of a deliberate giving up of the physical and the vital for the abstract, the mechanical, and the unproductive. The prevailing images in Laputa and Balnibarbi are not of real people and animals, but of ruins, mechanical constructions, men who look like allegorical figures and women who are thought of in geometrical terms. Animals are only negatively present, as in the pathetic horses and sheep of the Academy. Laputa itself is a mechanical device, because the flying island expresses not only the Laputans’ desertion of the common earth of reality but their conversion of the universe to a mechanism, and of living, to a mechanical process.

Academy of Lagado, Gulliver meets a culture completely dedicated to the sciences. Swift lampoons his era’s enlightened thinkers by directly parodying their own experiments, this time implementing a different body part. One of the academy’s most famed physicians claims to be able cure illnesses by inserting objects “eight inches up the anus.” Another hopes to “reduce human excrement to its original food.” Guided by real-life research, Swift ridicules philosophers with common sense, showing that even the world’s most brilliant minds are still capable of humbling mistakes.

 In his poem, “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” Swift moves from satirizing the sciences to poking fun at the arts. He attacks romanticized ideals of femininity by once again focusing on their bodily functions. Imitating the epic illusions used by his literary peers, Swift compares Celia’s chamber pot to Pandora’s Box and Paradise Lost. After further deconstruction of the feminine ideal, Swift’s male protagonist reaches the disturbing conclusion that his darling “Celia shits!” This crude discovery grounds both genders in reality and parodies any poem portraying women as anything other than eating, breathing, pooping characters.

 Academy of Lagado, Gulliver meets a culture completely dedicated to the sciences. Swift lampoons his era’s enlightened thinkers by directly parodying their own experiments, this time implementing a different body part. One of the academy’s most famed physicians claims to be able cure illnesses by inserting objects “eight inches up the anus.” Another hopes to “reduce human excrement to its original food.” Guided by real-life research, Swift ridicules philosophers with common sense, showing that even the world’s most brilliant minds are still capable of humbling mistakes.

While readers typically focus on Swift’s mastery of bathroom humor, his critical portrayal of accepted governmental, scientific, and artistic standards remains applicable to today’s society. Instead of using bodily fluids as a crutch, Swift strategically hides his highbrow social attack within the bladders and bowels of his characters.  From vain politicians to irrational logicians to idealized women, he humanizes the social elite and unifies the world through one of our few shared experiences – the restroom. All of the above discussion about the Laboratory from Laputa.

Jimmy's Relationship with Alison and Helena.

 

Jimmy's marital life and his relationship with wife Alison is one of the chief concern of the play, Although Jimmy and Alison had a love marriage, their marital life was full of tension. Alison's parent's apposition to the marriage due to Jimmy's low 80cial status enraged Jimmy. He could never forgive Alison's family members for their disapproval of him and constantly bullies his wife in a way to get back to them. He treats her in a callous manner attacking and abusing her parents, her brother in a ruthless manner. le finds fault with her for her endless ironing of clothes, for being devoid of animation and enthusiasm, of being silent when he expects her to retaliate to his attack, for being "pusillanimous", for having the passion of a python, for coming under the influence of Helena, for being indifferent to the ailing Mrs. Tanner and so on. He shares some occasional moments of tenderness with her and plays the bears-and-squirrels game, thus escaping to the world of fantasy and shower their uncomplicated love for each other. But otherwise his attitude towards her is of scorn and contempt. He humiliates her in front of Cliff by comparing her sexual passion to that of a python. He cares little not to hurt her feeling while criticising her family members. In fact he deliberately tries to bully her by ridiculing her parents and brother and attacking them with harshest possible language. Alison rightly says to Helena that he treats her like a hostess of the middle class against whom he is waging war Jimmy considered Helena as one of his "natural enemies" when she is first introduced. There is no love between them and he does not even spare her from his ruthless verbal assault. His behaviour with her is very un-gentleman like. After the kissing incident, she becomes his mistress and he shares a good report with her. In her Jimmy finds a good soulmate. She replaces Alison completely in the Porter's household. She takes over Alison's work on the ironing board, ceaselessly ironing clothes wearing one of Jimmy's old shirt.

Though Jimmy does not play the bears-and-squirrels game with her, yet he shares some tender moments expressing their love for each other. On Alison's return when Helena decides to leave her, he is hurt. He accuses her of hypocrisy for trying to lead a saint's life. He also accuses her of trying to escape the pain of being alive. After her desertion he is so distressed that he bangs his fist against the window frame. 

 

  The premise of the play is that Jimmy is lower-middle-class, both Helena and Alison are upper/middle-class, and most of their problems stem from this difference. Alison is less excitable and doesn't stir up as much trouble as Helena. The two women appear to be aligned in many ways and are supposedly friends, but Alison is more practical and is willing to walk away from Jimmy, whereas Helena seems willing to put up with his poor behavior. Alison betrays Jimmy by leaving him, but Helena betrays Alison by taking up with Jimmy. Where Alison is discouraged by the abuse she endures from Jimmy, it lights a fire in Helena. For example, once Alison has gone home with her father, the fight between Jimmy and Helena crosses the line, and they end up getting romantically involved.  When act 3 begins, Helena has taken on Alison's role, and she is only able to see the error of her ways when Alison returns to see Jimmy. Neither of the women is especially important to Jimmy, as he isn't sad to see Helena leave and does not seem especially glad to have Alison return. They are similar in their station in life but different in how they handle Jimmy's behavior. Alison and Helena both end up living with Jimmy Porter, Allison as his wife and Helena as his mistress.

Allison and Helena are both upper-to-middle class, something that drives Jimmy crazy. In a way, both Alison and Helena rebel against their families by taking up with Jimmy, but Alison, it seems, actually loves him.

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.