The Playboy of the Western World

I think this play is rather strange. It does offer different ideas about happiness that contrast the ones I explored after reading Lear.

I think Christy challenges the idea that only those who "Let be" (and live for others) achieve true happiness, and those who interfere with their "destiny" and live for themselves never taste happiness. At the beginning of the play, Christy is a meek young man who cannot even stand up to his aged father. Christy describes his father as a terrible, dangerous man, and he paints his home life as one worth escaping. It sounds as if Christy only cares for his father, and never for himself. However, instead of facing his father like a man, Christy takes a cowardly escape, killing his father and running from the scene. I believe a real man would not hit his father from behind and run away. Still, if Christy had stayed with his father, he would have lived a very unhappy life. He would have been forced to marry a less-than desirable woman solely because his father wanted her money. Thus, Christy's actions suggest that sometimes we must interfere with the direction our life is taking because we know that the future will not bring happiness. I agree with this idea, but I disagree with the way Christy obtains his freedom from his father.

Ultimately, I think Christy does achieve happiness because he finally takes control of his life. He does not end up with Pegeen, but he feels assured that he, "will go romancing through a romping lifetime" (pg 110) after escaping the hangman's noose. In taking a twisted journey to find happiness, Christy becomes a man and realizes that his happiness can expand beyond marrying Pegeen and living his life out in Mayo.

In the end, we cannot seize control of our lives and live only for ourselves; however, we cannot sit back and watch life wash over us, allowing its tide to carry us where it may. I think happiness is about finding a balance between ensuring our own happiness and the happiness of others. We should not live life only to please ourselves, but we should remember our own desires and dreams because life does not just hand us happiness.