The use of Irish Stereotype
The use of Irish StereotypeSean O’Casey’s plays mark the culmination of the European dramatic movement toward realism. O’Casey, along with his contemporaries William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge, felt dramas of the time were too intellectualized (Hogan 45). With Juno and the Paycock, O’Casey tried to add local Irish color and preconceptions of the Irish to make his drama individualistic and realistic while ignoring formal dramatic technique (Ayling 89). He dispensed with an elaborate plot and was content to show Irish characters in action.
The story starts out as the main characters’s wife, Juno Boyle, is waiting for her husband, Captain Boyle, to come home from his morning visit to the pub. Mary Boyle, their daughter, and Juno discuss the newspaper account of the murder of Robbie Tancred, a fanatic Iris Republican. Jonny Boyle, Mary’s brother, who has been shot in the hip and had lost an arm fighting against the Free State, left the living roomafter complaining that the two women for their morbid insensitivity. Juno scolded Mary for participating in the Trades Union Strike, especially at a time when the family was in debt for food but Mary defended her activities, and her brother’s as well, as matters of principle.
When Jerry Devine, a tenant of the same house, rushed in with a message from Father Farrell, who had found a job for Boyle, Juno sent Jerry to look for her husband at his favorite bar. Soon afterward she heard her husband and his best friend, Joxer Daly, singing on the stairs. She hid behind the bed curtains so as to catch them talking about her. Disclosing herself, she frightened Joxer away and reprimanded her husband for his laziness. Jerry returned and delivered his message to Boyle, who immediately developed a case of stabbing pain in his legs. Jun, not deceived, ordered him to change into his work clothes. She then left for her own job.
Jerry accused Mary of being unfriendly and once again proposed to her. Although Jerry offered her love and security, Mary refused him and both left in a huff.
Ignoring his wife’s instructions to apply for the job, Boyle was rejoined by Joxer. Absorbed in their talk, they refused to acknowledge a loud knocking at the street door. The knocking seemed to annoy Jonny very much. Their ramblings on family life, the clergy, literature, and the sea was interrupted by Juno and Mary, who had returned with Charlie Bentham, a schoolteacher and amateur lawyer, to announce that a cousin had bequeathed a large sum of money to Boyle. Boyle declared that he was through with Joxer and the like, whereupon Joxer, who had been hiding ouside the window, reappered, expressed his indignation and left.
Two days later the two cronies had been reconciled, Joxer having served as Boyle’s agent for loans based on expectations of the inheritance. The entrance of Juno and Mary with a new gramophone was followed by that of Bentham, now Mary’s fiance. Over family tea, Bentham explained his belief in theosophy and ghosts. Johnny was visibly upset by this conversation and left the room but quickly returned, twitching and trembling. He was convinced that he had seen the ghost of Robbie Tancred kneeling before the statue of the Virgin.
The arrival of Joxer with Mrs. Madigan, a neighbor, smothed over the incident. A party featuing whiskey and song ensued. The party was interrupted by Mrs. Tancred and some neighbors, on their way to Robbie Tancred’s funeral. Soon thereafter the merriment was again interrupted by the funeral procession in the street. A young man, an Irregular Mobilizer, came looking for Jonny, whom he reproached for not attending the funeral. He ordered Jonny to appear at a meeting called for the purpose of inquiring into Tancred’s death.
Two months later, Juno insisted on taking Mary to the doctor, for the young woman seemed to be pining away for Bentham, who had disappeared.
After the women left, Joxer and Nugent, a tailor, slipped into the apartment. Having learned that Boyle would not receive the inheritance, Nugent had come to get the suit which he had sold to Boyle on credit. Apparently there was a discrepency on thw will which left practically all of Ireland open to lay claim on the inheritance, it was thought that Bentham had taken the money and changed the will to fit his purpose. Nugent took the suit as Mrs. Madigan came to take her three pounds she lent Boyle. Of course he didn’t have it so she took the gramaphone in trade.
News of Boyle’s misadventure spread rapidly. Two men arrived to remove the new, but unpaid for furniture. Mrs. Boyle ran out to find her husband. Mary returned home to find Jerry Devine waiting. Again he proposed. Although he was willing to forget that Mary had jilted him for Bentham, he recoiled at her admission that she was pregnant.
Left alone with the two moving men, Johnny imagined that he felt a bullet wound in his chest. At that moment two Irish Irregulars entered the apartment and accused Johnny of informing on Robbie Tancred to the gang that had murdered him. Ignoring Johnny’s protestations of innocence and loyalty, the men dragged him out. A little later, Mrs. Madigan notified Mary and Juno that the police were waiting below, requesting that Juno identify a body. Juno and Mary left, vowing never to return to the worthless Boyle.
Soon Boyle and Joxer stumbled into the abandoned apartment, both very drunk and unaware of Johnny’s death or Juno and Mary’s desertion. Joxer stretched out on the bed and Boyle slumped on the floor. With thick tongues they stammered out their patriotic devotion to Ireland and Boyle deplored the miserable state of the world. Then the play ended.
Sean O’Casey uses the stereotypes of the Irish people to convey his ideas of Ireland’s problems. Boyle embodies the Irish male stereotype. He has a huge capacity for drinking and has opinions on every political, social and religious subject. Although his opinions are trite, they are not stupid. He complains of the moral state of the world but refuses to be involved in the problems of others. When offered honest work, he suddenly has a mysterious pain in his legs. His character almost resembles a cartoon. The characterization of Juno and the Paycock is based on the contrast between masculine and feminie personages. The men are all deluded, self-centered and hypocritical. The women emerge as superior because of their capacity for love and wisdom (Armstrong 408).
We find in the play that it is Boyle who nicknames his wife “Juno” because of certain events connecting her with the month of June. Ironically, the Roman goddess Juno presides over justice and loyalty in the family and safeguards women, marriage and childbirth. This is typically the Irish female stereotype and Juno Boyle fulfills it by the end of the play. The goddess Juno’s chariot was said to be plled by peacocks (paycocks), but in the play, Boyle seems to hold Juno back rather han pull her forward (Armstrong 408).
The men are a damning influence and the women are a redeeming one. The women still have lessons to be learned. The women can grow because they react to concrete needs and sorrows of the family. The men live in a dreamy, drunken world and are concerned with topics that they refuse to take any part in. At the play’s beginning, Mary lectures her mother about the need for principles, but by the end of the play, having been impregnated and deserted by Charlie Bentham and rejected by Jerry Devine, she has come to understand and accept human weakness without bitterness. As she says to Jerry, “I don’t blame you… your humanity is as narrow as the humanity of the others.”
Whether or not the strength of Juno is enough to overcome the weaknesses and evils of the men is not made clearin the play. In the end it depends upon whether or not it is possible to give a positive response to Juno’s final prayer, “Sacred Heart O’Jesus, take away our hearts o’stone, and give us hearts o’flesh! Take away this murdherin’ hate and give us Thine own eternal love!”.