What can Playboy of the Western World teach us about our big question on identity?
- The idea of SELF is influnenced by place, people, and circumstance! Christy does not realize his penchant for storytelling or his capability to be a compelling and worthy man in his own right until he is in a new enviornment with new people, under the right circumstances. Under a new moon with a fresh start apart from his old past, Christy is able to showcase his artistic and sensitive sides in an atmosphere that has less scorn. Because people are passionate about him and interested in him, they allow Christy to be passionate and interested in his own qualities.
- Identity is easily changed, based on perception. Pegeen's love for Christy waxes and wans due to the way he is percieved; he shifts, in her eyes, from a celebrity of sorts to the man who loves her to a common farmer to a playboy!
- This changing concept of identity must stop and remain constant for the INDIVIDUAL to create a joyful state of being. When Christy finally realizes his own potential to be a storyteller and embraces the idea of roaming and seeing the world, he steps into his own identity and finds happiness, apart from the wills and whims of others' who's opinions had once mattered so much. Conversely, Pegeen succumbs to the pressures of her society, burns Christy's leg, and ultimately loses his love, denying her chance for a life of imagination and love beyond her small town. She does not reach the state of the identity she has always dreamed about, and instead remains trapped and stagnant.
