The Story Archive

The Playboy of the Western World

J. M. Synge · 1907 CE · Play · English · Modernist

A frightened young man comes into a Mayo shebeen at night saying he has killed his father with a spade, and the customers, far from handing him over, make a hero of him while the publican's daughter takes his part against her intended. Fame agrees with him: he carries off the sports on the sands and grows into the story the country has told about him. Riots met the first week at the Abbey, and Yeats came out to defend it from the stage.

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Attributes

Genre
ComedySatireTragicomedy
Theme
Appearance vs RealityFame & GloryComing of AgeIndividual vs SocietyTradition
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
TricksterAnti-Hero
Plot structure
Mistaken IdentityIronic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The Fair / CarnivalThe ThresholdThe Mask
Conflict
vs Societyvs Personvs Self
Mode / tone
ComicIronicSatiricalPastoral
Culture / tradition
English

Closest analogues