In my viewing of The Playboy of the Western World, I found myself shocked at how prevalent the idea of a “hero” was in the play. This is first seen in Christy’s introduction to the villagers of Mayo, when they view him as a hero as he describes his killing his father;they admire his physical superiority and view him as noble. Despite the fact that he did not truly possess all of the admirable characteristics the group projected onto him, he accepted this persona, and even romantically talks to Pegeen despite the fact that she is only truly interested in his hero-like persona. Despite his best efforts to mask his true identity, Christy cannot hide his lies forever—the fact that his father is still alive poses a major problem, but more than that is the fundamental impossibility to hide who one truly is. The play ends in the death of Christy’s heroic sham and all of the villagers turning against him.
Christy’s identity scheme featured in The Playboy of the Western World reminded me of in-class discussions of the Americanization of the Irish identity. As Prof. Mouton-Kinyon explained in class, some people adopt an Irish heritage without truly knowing any of its history due to a desire to be part of the group that is seen as “the underdogs” that can tell a triumphant story of all they overcame. In other words, these people long to be “a hero” just as Christy did. It is interesting to consider the ways in which we as a society enable this falsification of identity just as the villagers of Mayo enabled Christy from his first line of the script in the play. The play and conversations in class cause me to ponder how we can make space to acknowledge privilege and true identity in conversations about personhood, and even simpler than that, how we draw the line between who we are and who we want to be when describing ourselves.