S/LI/53. Examine the Óperfectly seriousÔ elements of J. M. Synges play, ÑThe Playboy of the Western World

When it was first performed on the 26th of January 1907, J. M. Synges The Playboy of the Western World was notoriously ill received. Shouting, booing and groaning plagued the shows second night; on the third night the police were called and arrests were made. It was an unprecedented response, especially to a play that fulfils almost all the expectations for a comic drama well into the final act and was originally regarded as such. This essay examines the possible reasons behind why the audiences of the time reacted with such horror, the cultural and social background to the play and also the presentation of the main characters. It also looks at the wider issues of modernism, the construction of the self and the linguistic construction of reality, and how J. M. Synge used these to get his ideas across.