Weaving the Ancient Greek Myths into Irish Identity: John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and Tom Paulin's The Riot Act

Abstract

Myths have always preserved their importance for their powerful representation of the socio-cultural development of a nation as they transmit the collective experience of the heroism of the past to ascertain the continuation of the nation's integrity. However, England's intrusion into and manipulation of Ireland and Irish culture resulted not only in the cultivation of myths but also created a space to investigate what the Irish society lacked and what it needed to reclaim its nationalist voice via the reconstruction of them. Therefore, the major aim of this thesis is to analyse the use of certain reconstructed ancient Greek myths in the selected plays of different playwrights from different eras from the twentieth century to observe the reconstruction of these powerful stories: The Playboy of the Western World (1907) by John Millington Synge (1871-1909) and The Riot Act (1984) by Tom Paulin (1949-). The thesis focuses on how the reconstruction of myths plays a crucial role in the reclamation of Irish identity through the gradual reawakening of Irish socio-political culture. Although being long-usurped, dormant, and underappreciated, Ireland and the Irish culture are indebted their reclamation to two essential events: firstly to the movement of the Irish Renaissance, or Irish Literary Revival, with the establishment of the Abbey Theatre in 1904, which remarks the emancipation and revival of social and political contexts of Ireland and Irish culture; secondly, to the Northern Irish Troubles of the 1960s during which the civil instability shaped Ireland's political stance. In this context, how and why these playwrights reconstructed and re-functionalised the myths of Oedipus, and Antigone and Creon, will be discussed concerning the socio-political structure of Ireland and Irish culture. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (1907) is examined as the play that subverts the myth of Oedipus to connote the urgency of reclaiming Ireland and Irish culture and being free from the oppression of imperialist England through self-actualisation. Paulin's The Riot Act (1984) demonstrates the Northern Irish Troubles of the 1960s; the play presents politics of resistance, deprecation of the oppressed groups, and a rebuttal to the unionist policies of the time through the conflict between Antigone and Creon via translocating the ancient myth to the tumultuous times of Northern Ireland. Hence, this thesis aims to demonstrate that the playwrights reconstructed certain ancient Greek myths for the Irish contexts to raise awareness for the long-lost autonomy of Irishness, which was caused by England's cultural manipulation, and to link the misrepresented Irish identity and culture to the long-established and well-respected Antiquity, which primarily used the theatre to educate the society in the light of social concerns, to remind and emphasise the true essence and value of Ireland.