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DRAMA MODEL ANALYSIS

MODEL QUESTION

Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge.

Write an essay in which you conduct a close reading of this dialogue

between Shawn and Pegeen, discussing what it reveals about their
individual characters. In particular, consider notable language features
that are present in the passage through an analysis of the
conversational aspects of their dialogue.

You should provide quotations from the passage to substantiate your

essay’s argument.

SHAWN — [scandalized] If we are, we're as good this place as

another, maybe, and as good these times as we were for ever.
PEGEEN — [with scorn] As good, is it? Where now will you meet the
like of Daneen Sullivan knocked the eye from a peeler, or Marcus Quin, God
rest him, got six months for maiming ewes, and he a great warrant to tell
stories of holy Ireland till he'd have the old women shedding down tears about
their feet. Where will you find the like of them, I'm saying?
SHAWN — [timidly] If you don't it's a good job, maybe; for [with
peculiar emphasis on the words] Father Reilly has small conceit to have that
kind walking around and talking to the girls.
PEGEEN — [impatiently, throwing water from basin out of the door]
Stop tormenting me with Father Reilly [imitating his voice] when I'm asking
only what way I'll pass these twelve hours of dark, and not take my death with
the fear [looking out of door].
SHAWN — [timidly] Would I fetch you the widow Quin, maybe?
PEGEEN — Is it the like of that murderer? You'll not, surely.
SHAWN — [going to her, soothingly] Then I'm thinking himself will stop
along with you when he sees you taking on, for it'll be a long night-time with
great darkness, and I'm after feeling a kind of fellow above in the furzy ditch,
groaning wicked like a maddening dog, the way it's good cause you have,
maybe, to be fearing now.
PEGEEN — [turning on him sharply] What's that? Is it a man you
seen?
SHAWN — [retreating] I couldn't see him at all; but I heard him
groaning out, and breaking his heart. It should have been a young man from
his words speaking.
PEGEEN — [going after him]. And you never went near to see was he
hurted or what ailed him at all?
SHAWN — I did not, Pegeen Mike. It was a dark, lonesome place to be
hearing the like of him.
PEGEEN — Well, you're a daring fellow, and if they find his corpse
stretched above in the dews of dawn, what'll you say then to the peelers, or
the Justice of the Peace?
SHAWN — [thunderstruck] I wasn't thinking of that. For the love of
God, Pegeen Mike, don't let on I was speaking of him. Don't tell your father
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and the men is coming above; for if they heard that story, they'd have great
blabbing this night at the wake.
PEGEEN — I'll maybe tell them, and I'll maybe not.

[The Playboy of the Western World – Act I].

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MODEL ESSAY & EXPLANATION

The purpose of this essay serves to provide you with a model analysis for how
you might approach a question such as the above when analysing a drama
text. If you have a question about or comment on this model analysis, please
post it in the ‘Drama Model Analysis – Discussion’ topic in the ‘Study Unit 5’
forum under ‘Discussions’ on this site [*Note: I am very briefly introducing the
model analysis here, but—as I am writing this analysis in an ‘explanation’
style—this is not an example of how you should write your essay introduction.
Please refer to Tutorial Letter 301 and/or essay-writing discussion topics that I
posted in the assignment forums for full guidance on and examples of how
your essay introduction should read].

Before we consider the notable language features that are present in the
dialogue, we need to identify and state the ‘what’ of the text. As per Study Unit
1 in the Study Guide, this is crucial in the analysis of any text one may be
presented with. [*Note: It may be somewhat difficult to discern exactly what
the given extract from The Playboy of the Western World is about without
reading or seeing it performed as part of the play as a whole, but we can
nonetheless comment to an extent on the ‘what’ of the given extract. This is
how you should consider any given extract—not within context of the novel or
play as a whole, but as a text in and for itself. You need not know exactly what
occurred before or after a given extract, or indeed even what exactly the
characters in the extract are talking about, to perform an analysis of the
features of the text].
What does the extract from The Playboy of the Western World seem to
be about? To my interpretation of the text, Shawn and Pegeen are talking—or
more the like arguing—about the state of their town or community. Shawn is
asserting that theirs is a relatively good community, or at least as good as it
has ever been, whilst Pegeen is listing reasons to counter his statement and
assert that it is no good at all. Pegeen has been left alone for the night to tend
to the local shebeen by her father, the owner of the shebeen, and after listing
her reasons why their neighbourhood is neither good nor safe, states her
“fear” at tending the shebeen alone in “twelve hours of dark”. Interestingly, we
may note that, though she states this fear, she does not appear to be
particularly fearful. [*Note: You would not have been expected to know that
Pegeen has been left alone for the night to tend to her father’s shebeen, since
this was stated prior to the given extract and is not mentioned in the extract
itself, but you should note the last point I made—i.e. that she mentions “fear”,
yet does not seem to be considerably fearful].
After this statement by Pegeen, the subject is abruptly changed as
Shawn unwittingly piques Pegeen’s interest when he mentions he heard an
apparently injured or unwell young man groaning in a ditch in the dark earlier
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that evening. With this, the mood of the extract goes from being relatively light
and humorous to being mysterious, intriguing and somewhat forbidding. Who
is the young man in the ditch? What happened to him? What has become of
him?

With the ‘what’ of the text stated, we proceed as instructed with our analysis
of the notable language features present in the text. Firstly, we would need to
make brief note of dialect employed in the text before considering the idiolect
of Shawn and Pegeen respectively. The play is set in Ireland, but again you
would not have been expected to know this, as it is not mentioned in the given
passage. It would suffice for you to say that the characters seem to employ a
specific regional or national dialect, which is exemplified through the use of
the word “peelers” to refer to the police. If you are unable to glean from the
context of Pegeen’s statement that “peelers” refers to the police, it is perfectly
fine, as long as you make note of the fact that the word is clearly colloquial.
From the way in which the characters speak, and the setting, you might have
also inferred that the characters appear to be from a working class. This is not
explicit from the given text though and is not easily supportable with
quotations, thus it would not be necessary for you to note this. I am merely
pointing this out to exemplify the wide spectrum of information we may be
able to glean about the characters performing a dialogue before we have
even begun to consider individual personalities. [*Note: Whilst dialect refers
to the way in which individuals from a particular region or area may speak,
idiolect refers to the specific, unique way in which an individual speaks. When
analysing a dramatic dialogue, we can thus tell quite a bit about a character
through their idiolect. Of course, we should not only look at how a character
speaks, but also at what they say—that is, the content of their speeches. In
essence, a complete analysis of dialogue requires as to look at the what AND
the how, as both may reveal the character’s personality traits. It would not be
sufficient to analyse one and disregard the other. Furthermore, considering
the content of a character’s speech or speeches not only allows as to
understand that character’s attitudes, moral values, personality et cetera, but
also that of a character to whom or about whom they may be speaking. Such
characterisation would be subjective of course, since one character cannot be
trusted to be wholly or even at all accurate or fair in their description of
another character, but it is nonetheless a form of characterisation. Lastly,
interaction/s between two or more characters may not only highlight individual
character traits that may have gone ‘unnoticed’ otherwise but may also
showcase the relationship between the characters in question].
If we consider Shawn’s idiolect, we can make at least a cursory
inference about a number of his personality traits. The stage directions are
significantly helpful in aiding us in this purpose. The word “timidly” jumps out
at us, bolstered by the words “retreating” and “soothingly”. At this, before we
have even considered his actual speeches, we can infer that Shawn is either
quite diffident around Pegeen or is a rather meek individual in general. If we
are to further consider his idiolect as well as the content of his speeches, we
are able to support an assertion of the latter. For the most part, Shawn’s
speeches are longer and in stark contrast to Pegeen’s more abrupt
utterances; he seems to find it more necessary to explain himself and
elaborate on his views than she does. If we look at the content of his
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speeches, he firstly seems to be rather an optimist about the state of their

community, stating that it is as “good … as another”, but then he is not
particularly strong in support of his views--he timidly and half-heartedly
responds to Pegeen’s counter-statements. As far as content is concerned,
Shawn’s character is secondly revealed by his reaction to the groaning young
man in the ditch and his alarm at the possibility that Pegeen’s father and the
other menfolk may hear of his reaction. Shawn all but confesses that he was
too fearful to check if the young man was alright, as the place where the man
laid is a “dark, lonesome place”, and he is inferred to be a coward by Pegeen,
who sarcastically states that he is a “daring fellow”. Add to that his being
“thunderstruck” and alarmed at the idea of being brought to account for
ignoring the young man in his hour of need should the latter be found dead,
as well as his insistence that Pegeen not tell her father or “the men” of the
matter, and we are left with an understanding of Shawn as a decidedly timid
and faint-hearted character.
Considering Pegeen’s idiolect as well as the content of her utterances,
we can argue that her character is quite opposite to Shawn’s. This is an
example of antithesis through characterisation. How may we support this
statement about Pegeen’s character? Firstly, if we look at her stage
directions, the words “impatiently”, “scorn” and “sharply” are utilised, at the
outset indicating Pegeen to be impatient and somewhat quick-tempered. As
mentioned, with the exception of her tirade about certain members of their
community, her utterances are short, abrupt and to-the-point. This further
supports our argument that she is impatient and perhaps somewhat irritable
overall. She is also rather resolute in her opinions, putting forth damning
examples to counter Shawn’s assertion of the ‘goodness’ of their community
and decidedly dismissing his reference to the priest. As also previously
mentioned, she does not seem greatly afflicted by the “fear” that she
mentions, instead rather seeming to want to complain about her twelve-hour
shift. She also derides Shawn for not going to see “what hurted or what ailed
[the young man] at all”. Finally, considering her generally dismissive attitude
towards Shawn, and his contrasting pussy-footing around her, we can with a
certain amount of certainty determine the power balance in the dialogue to be
firmly skewed in Pegeen’s favour.

Building on this, we should consider the specific aspects of conversational

analysis present in the text in order to support, expand or [hopefully not] refute
our above assertions about Shawn and Pegeen.
The most prominent turn-taking mechanism present in the text is the
utilisation of adjacency pairs in the form of questions and answers. Despite
Pegeen’s arguable dominance over Shawn, conversational turn-taking is
observed. She does not interrupt him, allowing him to complete his
elaborative statements, and they for the most part answer each other
directly—that is, the maxim of relevance is not flouted. There may be several
reasons why, despite her impatience, Pegeen nonetheless observes
conversational turn-taking. It might be that she it has been culturally
entrenched in her that interruption is rude and unacceptable and/or it might be
that she allows Shawn to finish his thoughts so that she can disprove and
oppose his statements more completely.
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We may briefly note that though both characters make use of

implicature, Pegeen’s employment thereof is arguably more significant. As
mentioned, Pegeen opposes Shawn’s statement that their community is
“good”, though we should consider that she does not do so directly. Instead,
she rhetorically asks “As good, is it?” before proceeding to list examples why
their community is certainly not good. We should note that she makes her
case quite effectively, without ever explicitly stating it. Shawn more subtly
employs implicature when he asks, “Would I fetch you the widow Quin,
maybe?” – implying that Pegeen would not much like to continue her tirade
against the community and in particular the late Mr. Quin in front of his widow.
This is arguably a small triumph for him, as it more or less seems to subdue
Pegeen until he mentions the young man in the ditch.
Further pertaining to cooperation in the dialogue, which we touched on
above, we should note the significance of Pegeen’s final response in the
given extract. Shawn implores Pegeen not to tell her father and the other men
about his hearing and ignoring the young man in the ditch, but she does not
answer directly or reassuringly. Instead, she arguably taunts him that she may
or may not tell them, thus conclusively asserting her position of power in the
exchange. On a final point, we should make brief mention of gender
stereotypes in the given extract. Stereotypically, as per the study guide,
females are ‘supposed’ to be more cooperative and less competitive in
conversation, whilst males are ‘supposed’ to be more domineering and
assertive. In essence, the given extract—with the power balance being as it is
between Shawn and Pegeen—irrefutably subverts this gender stereotype.

In closing, what has the given dialogue revealed to us about the individual
characters of Shawn and Pegeen? In short, Shaun appears to be timid,
submissive, mild-mannered and [depending on perspective] kind and
supportive of Pegeen. I state the latter two traits because, though I might have
otherwise simply asserted that he, rather ineffectively, sought to defend their
community and oppose Pegeen’s statements, the inclusion of the word
“soothingly” shows that he might care for her in some way. To summarise our
findings about Pegeen, from the text she appears to be impatient, quick-
tempered and assertive. She is not afraid to speak her mind and seems to be
strong-willed. Again, if you have a question about or comment on this model
analysis, please post it in the ‘Drama Model Analysis – Discussion’ topic in the
‘Study Unit 5’ forum.