Month: March 2023

This week we read two parts from the book Gulliver’s Travels: A Voyage to Lilliput and A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. Both of these parts have to do with the main character Gulliver coming into contact with different, strange cultures and civilizations. In a Voyage to Lilliput, Gulliver comes into contact with a civilization of humans who are tiny and in A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms he discovers a race of intelligent horses who look down upon a deformed humanoid race that also lives there. Pinning down the exact themes of these parts was somewhat difficult. At the time, the European mode of thought was that Europe and Europeans were superior to the rest of the world and this theory were often used to justify racism and slavery. Ironically, Gulliver comes to hate humanity after coming into contact with the Houyhnhnms, believing them to have a perfect society. He sees more of himself and humanity as a whole in the Yahoos, the deformed humanoid creatures. In contrast to this, Gulliver is critical of the Lilliputians and their obsessions with politicking and trivial matters. Whether or not this was intended by Swift, it seems to shed light on the stupidity of racial superiority by commenting on it with humor and absurdism. Another interesting point that is connected to the other reading for the week, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the idea of innate evil vs corruptibility. While Gulliver Would not be considered evil, he goes from cheerful and optimistic in the beginning of the book to hating humanity and being a cynic toward the end. This would suggest that negative traits like these are Learned rather than innate. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass explains how when he was sold to a new master, his new mistress became Sophia Auld. He explains how she started off as kind but slowly turns cruel the longer he was her slave. This point sheds light on the corrupting nature of slavery And how racism isn’t innate but rather hatred and prejudice that is learned. Another interesting point which I think is related to African American culture today is how Douglass explains at the beginning of the book how he, and all the slaves he met, did now know their birthdays. Along with this fact, slaves were often separated from their families, particularly their mothers, at a young age. This shows how slaveholders essentially erased any sense of identity that slaves could have, since family heritage and their previous African culture could not be passed down when families were separated. I believe this was one of the causes of the developing of African American vernacular and African American culture as a distinct culture from that of Africa. 

At the beginning of the semester, we discussed the concept of the Irish “becoming white” in America. The concept is that Irish people were able to reap the benefits of white Americans by assimilating to American culture. This was made possible by their white skin and ability to blend in, something that African Americans couldn’t do. After reading “Black Irish, Irish Whiteness, and Atlantic State Formation” by David Lloyd, I understood other factors that influence this phenomenon. In the 19th century, Irish people faced discrimination from the British Empire. This had a lot to do with the industrial revolution and the emerging capitalist system in the British Empire. Most of the Irish population at the time were subsistence farmers, which contrasted with the growing urban, industrial system the British Empire needed to grow their empire and economy. Because of this, the Irish were viewed as “peasantry” and were said to have “wildness”, akin to savagery. Irish immigrants in England were said to be “infecting” the working class and were unfit for urban. With Irish immigrants in America, it was a story than in England. The growing industrial economy in America needed people who had no desire to expand westward and would work cheap and relatively low-skill jobs. The Irish fit this bill, which is one of the reasons they were more accepted into society: they supported the capitalist system at the time. In the reading, The Performative Commons and the Aesthetic Atlantic by Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Dillon also comments on how capitalism shaped many of the relationships and attitudes towards ethnic groups at the time and how the transatlantic system was built on colonization and capitalism. She notes that your identity in the transatlantic system was often decided by how you fit into the capitalist-colonial system. An example of this is that the Irish were viewed as lesser by the British since they did not support the growing industrial system of the time. Another interesting point is the similarities in how the Irish and African Americans were viewed by their respective oppressors. They were both seen as “unfit” to entire the emerging industrial society as free workers. They were both viewed as a “savage” race of people who would be dangerous if they fully entered society. Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish philosopher, comments that if black people in the Caribbean were set free, it would become a “Black Ireland”.

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. 

Playboy of the Western World shows the appreciation for challenging authority, and how that differs across the Atlantic. Christy Mahon stated that he killed his father as soon as he walked into Pegeen’s shebheen. I honestly thought that she was going to be scared and kick him out of her shebheen, but she let him stay. She wanted to hear his story and felt sympathetic towards him. No one else offered to turn him in at the beginning because they admired his father’s murder, who is an authoritative figure to Christy. Pegeen was not concerned with being arrested for harboring a fugitive, which shows she prioritizes challenging authority than following the law. Playboy of the Western World was written while Ireland was still under British rule. I believe that this play is a testament to how Irish people felt about authority at the time: that they were being wrongfully governed by a far away government. Throughout this play, they talk about the police as if they are distant figures and are not worried about them coming to the shebheen anytime soon. The citizens take matters into their own hands once they find out Christy did not kill his father, furthering that they do not need authority to execute justice. I believe that this reflects how many Irish people felt that they could govern themselves without British rule, which would culminate to their victory in the Anglo-Irish war years later.

However, such challenges to authority did not have the same outcomes in the US. When George confesses his love to Zoe in The Octoroon, he says that they would have to run away to be together because challenging authority here would have more drastic consequences. Zoe could have been killed for marrying the man that she loved, but Pegeen would not have been killed for that. The US government was not distant while the British government was in Ireland. These two plays show that challenging authority means different things in different countries. One could be praised for murder and get away with it in Ireland, while another could not marry the woman they loved if they were a different race without fearing being killed. Overall, I think Playboy of the Western World shows how people expressed their political values and how that is different from similar causes in the US.

The protagonist of John Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, Christy Mahon, is transformed into a local hero among Mayo for murdering his father. Whilst Christy does not personally view himself as a heroic figure as Christy is preoccupied with legal anxieties, Christy quickly understands that the story positions Christy as a legend. For the villagers, heroism is defined as an act of defiance against an authoritative figure, viewing the death of Christy’s father as heroic as opposed to murder. The villagers believe that Christy saved himself from a monotonous and tedious existence, which the villagers are unable to alleviate themselves from. The loy is employed as a symbol of Christy’s heroic elevation as the long spade, used traditionally for farming, represents Christy’s rural farming life, implying Christy’s ability to transform a tool of his toil into a tool of power and rebellion. Synge presents a close-knit community longing for a saviour figure, symbolised by Pegeen as a figure keen to accept and praise Christy.

However, Christy is juxtaposed with Shawn, who refuses to play the role of Pegeen’s protector. Pegeen casts away from Shawn once learning of Christy’s story, revealing Pegeen’s visceral desire for a heroic figure. However, once Synge reveals that Christy’s father is not dead, Pegeen and the villagers turn on Christy. The Playboy of the Western World explores the easiness of considering a story fantastical as opposed to real, highlighted by the mythical pedestal that Christy is placed upon. After Christy leaves Mayo, Pegeen is presented as distressed, illustrating Pegeen’s unwaning longing for a protective and heroic figure. Linked to the exploration of heroism, Synge presents the villagers’ attitudes towards authority. Christy is celebrated for killing Old Mahon, whom Christy describes as tyrannical and the villagers seem unconcerned about the legal repercussions of harbouring a fugitive. Whilst Christy is originally viewed as a worldly and authoritative figure, the villagers turn on Christy and Christy is saved by Old Mahon. Despite Christy trying to kill Old Mahon twice, Old Mahon is presented as Christy’s authority figure and Old Mahon’s saving of Christy presents authority as simultaneously oppressive and protective. The villagers conclusively remain ambiguous towards authority as whilst they are tempted by the prospect of defying authority, they concurrently desire the security that authority provides, fearing the potential consequences of authority figures turning against the village. 

When I was watching “Playboy of the Western World” and “Riders to the Sea,” one particular phrase that appeared in both works stood out to me—the “big world.” Characters in both plays refer to the “big world” as a place separate from their own. Michael, in “Playboy of the Western World” tells his family that “in the big world, it’s knives they use.” Maurya, in “Riders to the Sea,” notes another difference between this big world and Ireland: “In the big world the old people do be leaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things behind for them that do be old” (13). It is unclear whether the big world is the same as the western world that the title of “Playboy of the Western World” refers to, but Ireland is clearly not a part of this big world.

The distinction between the big world and Ireland, or the western world and Ireland, raises some questions about how the characters in these plays conceptualize their sense of place in the world. What, exactly, is the big world? What are the boundaries of the western world, of which Christy is the only playboy? Paradoxically, it seems like Ireland is at once a leader of the Western World and separate from it. Widow Quin laments Christy’s sailing from “Mayo to the western World,” implying a separation between the two, even as she claims Christy is the playboy of the western world. And though the big world is separate from Ireland, Sara calls for a toast to the wonders of the western world, which include “the pirates, preachers, poteen-makers, with the jobbing jockies; parching peelers, and the juries fill their stomachs selling judgments of the English law”—most of which are particular to Ireland. These characters share a lack of clarity about Ireland’s place within the world. Is their country, with its “stony scattered fields and scribes of bog,” part of the western world or isolated from it? (“Playboy of the Western World”).

The only clear boundary between Ireland and the western or big world is the sea which surrounds them. Indeed, the sea is a force to be reckoned with in “Riders to the Sea”—it kills Maurya’s husband and all five sons until “there isn’t anything more the sea can do to [her]” (23). Multiple characters in “Playboy of the Western World” refer to the sea that must be crossed to leave Ireland. Evidently, although the sense of place in these plays is contradictory, the sea/the Atlantic is a defining feature. The movement of the ocean, which we discussed when reading Gilroy’s work on the Atlantic, is an organizing feature for their conception of Ireland.

I was doing some reading on The Playboy of the Western World after finishing watching it, and was intrigued to learn that the play caused riots after it opened in Dublin in 1907. The audience was offended by its depiction of backwards morals and believed that it gave a bad name to Irish people. The points that prompted the largest objections were the glorification of patricide as committed by Christy Mahon, and the mention of women’s undergarments. People attended the show and threw objects at the stage to protest its subject matter, and this continued when it opened in New York in 1911. The cast of the play even got arrested at one point for putting on an immoral show. I would find it very interesting to explore how this play moved across the Atlantic, and how the change from an Irish audience to an American audience affected the public’s understanding of Irish customs and culture.

Theatre in general has a long history of causing moral panic and outrage. As we discussed in class, The Octoroon also stirred up a lot of controversy after it was released, because of its portrayal of interracial relationships, slavery, and the inclusion of a Native American character. Much of the content we are reading for this class has been incredibly subversive, for depicting the lives and stories of historically marginalized groups. I don’t know if this is a stretch in thinking, but this reminded me of the current push to ban books happening in many states in the U.S. Proponents of this idea have stated that books with LGBTQ+ themes or discussions of race are inappropriate for children, and they have backing from wealthy Republican donors. The protests against and censorship of plays from the 19th and 20th centuries shows just how long these types of moral panics have been prevalent. I am very grateful that these plays have survived, and that we are able to discuss and learn from them.

The social construct of race and racial identity is one that has been so influential that it became deeply-ingrained into the structure of American society from the beginning. While the emphasis of race in American society manifested an abundant amount of negativity in a multitude of different ways, one of these ways which is important and different to consider is how negativity surrounding specific racial identities can greatly alter one’s self image and beliefs about what they think that they are worthy and/or deserving of. 

At the time of Dion Boucicault’s play The Octoroon, a play about a young girl named Zoe who was one-eighth black in 1800s America, American society had deemed that even the smallest amount of black lineage designated (and dominated) your racial identity as black, even if you were able to visually pass as white. Given the extreme negativity towards blackness and black people at this time, this was often something that people wanted to hide if they were able because they knew that if people found out they were even the smallest bit black, they would forever be defined by that very small component of their racial identity. The Octoroon’s Zoe deals with this issue very heavily and personally: after hearing a love profession from George, a white man who could give her a good life, she begins to spiral about how her culturally-dominant black identity is what will indefinitely drive them apart. In addition to this belief, it is also very clear how deeply this racial identity is wired into and intertwined with her personal identity. Not only does she describe herself as being cursed and an “unclean thing,” but also that her race binds her to a life of suffering that she may never escape from (Boucicault, 154). As a white man who does not understand, naturally, George is very confused and tries to reason with Zoe, however, as certainly as her racial identity is defined, her mind is made up and there is no changing it.

In “The Playboy of the Western World,” I was intrigued by the way that death and violence were treated with such lightheartedness by the characters. I recognize that this play is largely satirical, but it was still interesting that Pegeen and her family praised Christy once they heard that he had murdered his own father, even if it was provoked by the father’s mistreatment of his son. Death is taken so lightly that this was considered honorable, and even heroic. Not only this, but Pegeen and her family simply accepted Christy’s explanation without any evidence that he had a justifiable reason to kill a man, and her father, Michael, even left her alone with him at night. 

This is not the only instance in which revenge murder is not only tolerated, but encouraged. When Christy’s father shows up later in the play, and Christy is proven to be a liar, the characters once again act upon Christy’s father’s word, without any sort of proof. There is no legal trial or official judgment when the characters decide to hang Christy; they simply decide to take matters into their own hands, which makes sense in the context of the play because it is already established that killing is almost a necessary way to deliver justice, about which nobody seems to think twice. Michael even says, “If we took pity on you, the Lord God would, maybe, bring us ruin from the law to-day, so you’d best come easy, for hanging is an easy and a speedy end” (1:57:35). This represents the underlying religious tone that is present throughout the play, and how God is a huge factor in the characters’ actions. The idea that God would prefer that they actually kill Christy instead of spare him is ironic, and does not really align with the forgiving nature of God that Catholics tend to preach. 

The tension between a supposedly-merciful God and the characters’ tendencies towards violence as a religious form of revenge serves as a point of reflection for the audience. The play might be considered a critique on Irish Catholicism, if it allows for such brutality. This makes me wonder if the play, which was set in the early 1900s, applied to the context of our class, might even be speaking to hatred involving racism. Although it does not directly deal with race, I wonder if the play’s depiction of Irish Catholic values gone astray can be applied to Irish racism towards Black Americans during and after the Civil War, especially with the knowledge of Daniel O’Connell’s disgusted stance on Irish Catholic involvement in American slavery.

The movie “The Playboy of the Western World” provides a glimpse into the social norms, customs, and beliefs of the early 1900s. One of the main social implications presented in the film is the stereotypes of women. For example, Pegeen was initially put off by Christy’s confession of killing his father. However, she began to compliment him on how such a fine gentleman he was, and promised he would find peace being in her spare room. She repeatedly said this and urged him to stay. She was oddly attracted to how ‘masculine’ Christy was and figured he would be a strong protector since he went as far as to kill his own father to end his bad treatment. I believe this is an unfair stereotype because it suggests that women are largely emotional and use little to no logic. She almost immediately looked past his alleged actions and thought of him as an ideal man regardless of his terrifying actions. The film also explores themes of violence in Irish culture. The villagers are initially horrified by Christy’s confession, but they soon become fascinated by his story and view him as a hero for standing up to his father. This point is significant because the villagers’ speech, behavior, and attitudes toward sin and morality were greatly shaped by a deep devotion to Catholicism. This is interesting because it appears that the glorification of violence is so great that it ultimately trumps their religious values, which makes Irish people seem like they admire aggression. Finally, the film highlights the importance of community in Irish culture. The villagers in the film are portrayed as a close-knit group who look out for one another, despite their differences and disagreements. This sense of community is emphasized by the way the villagers rally around Christy, showing the importance of social bonds and connections in Irish society. All in all, this movie provides a fascinating glimpse into Irish culture in the 1900s.