The Playboy of the Western World Lesson Plan

According to Padraic Colum, Synge's friend and fellow playwright, the audience turned on Playboy the moment Old Mahon entered, saying that the scene was too "representational," by which he likely meant "literal." What does he mean by this, and why might this moment have been so upsetting to audiences?

Ask students to talk about how Christy described the incident with his father: he takes up an increasingly elaborate rhetoric, using stylized, romantic phrases to paint a storylike image of what happened.

When Old Mahon enters, the reality of what Christy did is put on full display: there is no romance to real-life violence, just blood and gore. Synge spends the first act...