Lakhasly

CRITICAL ANALYSIS O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock shows that all men are cowards boasters, drunkards who ill treat their wives.Ayling writes in " Two Words for Women ": In their outward vivacity and sheer enjoyment of life, the young women embody (in however restricted capacity) aesthetic values and spiritual qualities that offer, temporarily, resilience and resistance to the drabness and deadening routine of slum conditions. The sensitivity of the young women in O'Casey's plays is shown most clearly in their dress sense. (93) Mary here is like Ibsen's Nora who has also the sensitivity of the dress sense. On criticizing Mary, O'Casey wants to emphasize the view that the workers need more culture and education. Although Mary reads books, yet she neither stands up to a better chance nor chooses the right person for herself. Mary's reading is a double-edged weapon. So, when her father is told about her pregnancy, her good for nothing father states: ... Her' her readin'! That's more o' th' blasted nonsense that has the house fallin' on top of us! What did th' likes of her, born in a tenement house, want with readin'? Her readin's afther bringin' her to a nice pass - oh, it's madnin', madnin', madnin'! (Juno. 92) For Jack, Mary is a worker of the tenement and is half- educated. Such education is usually misleading. This that Mary has been led astray by her reading. means Mary is a reader of Ibsen, and she tries to liberate herself like Ibsen's heroines. She tries to be strong, but she can not understand the meaning of freedom properly. However, one can not put the whole blame on Mary. The appalling condition of her society makes her behaviour unbalanced in certain situations. Kosok writes in O'Casey The Dramatist: Mary's character shows the tension between the repressive conditions of her surroundings and her own weak attempts at intellectual and social emancipation. She tries to keep all traces of dialect out of her pronunciation and vocabulary, she reads Ibsen and learns Gaelic, but she does not succeed in liberating herself from the world of the slums. Her weaknesses, her delusion by Bentham and her continuous irritation in her relationship with her family, can be explained as arising from this conflict. (45-46) This expresses, as Smith says, O'Casey's contention that neither Ibsen nor labour movements are "for chiselurs".Captain Jack, on the other hand, is drawn from Shakespeare's Captain Jack Falstaff, lacking, as John P. Harrington writes , the girth of (Shakespeare's) Captain Jack Falstaff, but he has the same flamboyant humour and glories mendacity, the ingenious sense of self-indulgence and self-preservation" (506). His other title was given to him by Juno because she thought that he was as vain as the peacock. This shows that even the names of Juno and Jack express their striking contrast. The news of the legacy gives a flicker of hope to Juno's miserable family. Her children think that it will be a good chance to escape from the slums. Juno sees that it will be a relief from financial troubles. Moreover, Jack is overjoyed because the money of the legacy will free him from his wife's nagging. He tries to play the role of a rich man. Jack appears as a man of words in his reaction to the legacy. The promise of the money makes him reverse all his previous views concerning the church and the priests. At first, he attacks the clergy for dominating the lives of the people. However, a few days after the legacy, he praises the churchmen. Now, he forgets the crimes committed by the churchmen, and he tries to become their friend. In O'Casey's satire of the churchmen, he criticizes men as irresponsible creatures. Referring to this, Smith writes: "O'Casey's satiric portraits of inadequate men are much augmented by the ever-present fathers of the church - most of whom are also selfish, arbitrary, domineering, and essentially unaware of what their children really need" (177).In such a tapestry of sharp contrasts, as O'Riordian writes, " o'Casey makes his drunkard a comedian and his tragic heroine something of a shrew" (44). O'Casey embodies, as O'Connor says, in this loveless, marriage what V. S. Pritchett once called 'the ambition of every Dublin husband .. never to go home, and the basic Irish male fear of women and of sex (153). Moreover, O'Connor goes on to say: But woman has the courage: Juno, exalting - the mother above the useless, segregated male, is a triumphant assertion of woman's superiority over man . What makes Juno and the Paycock cumulatively moving, in spite of its volatility of feeling and its sudden, unexpected and comic changes of pace, is the way it asserts the primacy of a mother's emotions in counterpoint to the decline of the Boyle family's hopes and aspirations. (153) Thus, one finds Juno; exerting no efforts to support and keep the unity of her family, while her irresponsible husband is not ready to shoulder the burdens of his family. He, as Smith says, " is ridiculous and cowardly-essentially a selfish entity of many disguises, each one a false face ..Atkinson says: "Juno is the plain foundation of the play - the tired, bustling, tenacious mother of a heedless family, doing her duty loyally according to her standards decency" (79). In this way, Juno, as Ko sok says in O'Casey the Dramatist, is the central character of the play. Dramatically, she is the most important link between the different lines action. She has to bear the weight of all the catastrophes that befall the family (50). At last, Juno's stature becomes clearer when she decides to begin her life with her daughter. Kosok writes: She asserts herself against her husband who has been defeated by life and lives in fruitless memories of the past, as well as against her son who rebels against a purely materialistic attitude, and she cares for her self-confident daughter who would like to dissociate herself from the family, when she expects an illegitimate child and finds that no other refuge is left to her. (Irish Writers and the Theatre.83) She leaves her husband in order to help her daughter Mary in bringing up her child. Juno's departure here reminds us of Nora's departure in A Doll's House. However, Juno leaves her husband to help her daughter, while Nora leaves to realize herself. Thus, O'Casey is influenced by Ibsen in this conclusion. Referring to this, Ayling writes in his article "Two Words for Women": At the end of Juno, in making up her mind to leave Boyle in order to help her daughter and her illegitimate child face a new if arduous life, her attitude is positive as well as clear - sighted ..With Labour Mary, humanity is above everything" (Juno. 95). However, when he knows of Mary's pregnancy, he forgets all his lofty principles, and withdraws in silence. Charles Bentham is also a man of words. He is a bad example of a schoolteacher. From the very beginning, he misinterprets the will by his ignorance and passivity. Mary has been infatuated by his superficiality. However, he is a liar who can not estimate her love properly. He seduces her and leaves for England. In this way, he escapes from his moral responsibility. Mary is an elusive character. She tries to liberate herself, but she finds some difficulties in this. Therefore, she is neither strong nor weak. She stands between these two extremes. She behaves like the strong women in some situations, and she fails to act this role throughout the whole play. Mary's desire to participate in the Trade Union is a proof that she is like the strong women. Like Nora, Dina, Lona and Mrs. Linde, she has the ability to take decisions by herself, and she insists that "a principle's a principle" (Juno.50).I killin' meself workin', an' he sthruttin' about from mornin' till night like a paycock!" ( Juno and the Paycock. 51). This shows that Juno is a practical woman, while her husband is a wastrel man. Juno's practicality gives her the upper hand in her house. So, her husband always tries to avoid her. Unlike Nora who is weak before her husband, Juno is strong before Jack. Unaware of Juno's presence, Jack and Joxer speak about the nagging nature of Juno. Jack permits his friend to make some derogatory remarks about his wife. In this way, he is a good for nothing husband who can not appreciate his wife's role in shouldering the burden of the family. This reminds us of Ibsen's Torvald who, like Jack, fails to appreciate Nora's role in sacrificing for the family. Juno enters, and confronts both Jack and Joxer, then she begins to reproach her husband. As a weak husband, Jack replies "It ud be betther for a man to be dead, betther for a man to be dead" (Juno.It's, arguably, a declaration of sexist superiority.(O'Casey the Dramatist.52).56).55). 65).(128)

CRITICAL ANALYSIS O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock shows that all men are cowards boasters, drunkards who ill treat their wives. That prompts women to depend on themselves without the help of their men. O'Riordon writes: "The women in the play, Juno herself, her daughter Mary and Mrs. Tancred, a neighbour from the same tenement, are the ones who carry the eventual burden of reality, while the men override and outface it in a defusion of prevarication and talk"(44). In this way, Juno and the Paycock, as O'Riordon goes on to say, is a feminist work of inspiration in the same way that Ibsen's A Doll's House is, because it is devoid of male heroes (46). Once more, Juno's tragedy is her drunken husband; the " paycock" who lives in an imaginary world and neglects his task in life as a breadwinner of a whole family that consists of four members. Then, it is left for his wife to play his role. Like Minnie in The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno is in a striking contrast with her husband. In such a tapestry of sharp contrasts, as O'Riordian writes, " o'Casey makes his drunkard a comedian and his tragic heroine something of a shrew" (44). O'Casey embodies, as O'Connor says, in this loveless, marriage what V. S. Pritchett once called 'the ambition of every Dublin husband .. never to go home, and the basic Irish male fear of women and of sex (153). Moreover, O'Connor goes on to say: But woman has the courage: Juno, exalting - the mother above the useless, segregated male, is a triumphant assertion of woman's superiority over man . What makes Juno and the Paycock cumulatively moving, in spite of its volatility of feeling and its sudden, unexpected and comic changes of pace, is the way it asserts the primacy of a mother's emotions in counterpoint to the decline of the Boyle family's hopes and aspirations. (153) Thus, one finds Juno; exerting no efforts to support and keep the unity of her family, while her irresponsible husband is not ready to shoulder the burdens of his family. He, as Smith says, " is ridiculous and cowardly-essentially a selfish entity of many disguises, each one a false face .. Captain Boyle lies to his Juno, denies responsibility for his children, and is primarily concerned with personal satisfaction and immediate pleasures " (33). He stays most of his time boasting and drinking with his friend Joxer Daly. So he is good for nothing husband. The contrast between Juno and Jack is clear throughout the whole play. In act one, one finds Juno returning from a shopping errand, while her husband is still out. She presumes that he is actually strutting about the town like a peacock with his Joxer Daly. She is in a hurry to go to work, but she does not want to leave before her husband comes in for his breakfast. This indicates how Juno is a good wife who is considerate of her husband. However, Juno is grumbling from Jack's recklessness. She is sure that Jack will never do anything worthwhile as long as he accompanies Joxer. And if he hears about a job, he will escape. So when Jerry Devine comes with the news of a new job for him, she says: " He'll miss that job, There'll never be any good got out o' him so long as he goes with that shouldher - shruggin' Joxer . I killin' meself workin', an' he sthruttin' about from mornin' till night like a paycock!" ( Juno and the Paycock. 51). This shows that Juno is a practical woman, while her husband is a wastrel man. Juno's practicality gives her the upper hand in her house. So, her husband always tries to avoid her. Unlike Nora who is weak before her husband, Juno is strong before Jack. Unaware of Juno's presence, Jack and Joxer speak about the nagging nature of Juno. Jack permits his friend to make some derogatory remarks about his wife. In this way, he is a good for nothing husband who can not appreciate his wife's role in shouldering the burden of the family. This reminds us of Ibsen's Torvald who, like Jack, fails to appreciate Nora's role in sacrificing for the family. Juno enters, and confronts both Jack and Joxer, then she begins to reproach her husband. As a weak husband, Jack replies "It ud be betther for a man to be dead, betther for a man to be dead" (Juno. 56). Moreover, he is a liar husband. He swears to h is wife that he is not in any snug and he does not drink for the past three weeks. Unfortunately for Jack, Jerry Devine, who goes to search for him in all the snugs, comes in and exposes him "... I've been searchin' for you everywhere. The foreman in Foley's told me you hadn't left the sung with Joxer ten minutes before I went in" (Juno. 55). In this way, Jack is a drunken, good for nothing and liar husband. The contrast between Juno and Jack Boyle appears even in their names. Juno is named after Juno, the Roman Goddess, because of the similarity in their heroic nature. Juno, as Lily Huang writes, is the name of " a Roman Goddess; the protector of suppliants and the jealous wife of Jupiter. However, Juno Boyle is a Dublin housewife, an earthly human figure, who struggles for hard life" (1-2). Therefore Juno is a heroic mother who bears the burdens of her family. When Charles Bentham admits that her name reminds him of Homer's glorious Gods and Goddess, her husband begins to explain how she gets the name ". Yis, doesn't it? You see, Juno was born an' christened in June; I met her in June; we were married in June, an' Johnny was born in June, so wan day I says to her, You should ha' been called Juno', an' the name stuck to her ever since" (Juno. 65). Heinz Kosok writes about this: Her husband's explanation is striking for its banality ... Yet this serves mainly to typify his superficiality and lack of understanding, for Juno - even if the Boyles do not realize this - bears the name of that goddess who, with her train of peacocks, functioned as the guardian of the hearth and the protectress of matrimony. (O'Casey the Dramatist.52). Captain Jack, on the other hand, is drawn from Shakespeare's Captain Jack Falstaff, lacking, as John P. Harrington writes , the girth of (Shakespeare's) Captain Jack Falstaff, but he has the same flamboyant humour and glories mendacity, the ingenious sense of self-indulgence and self-preservation" (506). His other title was given to him by Juno because she thought that he was as vain as the peacock. This shows that even the names of Juno and Jack express their striking contrast. The news of the legacy gives a flicker of hope to Juno's miserable family. Her children think that it will be a good chance to escape from the slums. Juno sees that it will be a relief from financial troubles. Moreover, Jack is overjoyed because the money of the legacy will free him from his wife's nagging. He tries to play the role of a rich man. Jack appears as a man of words in his reaction to the legacy. The promise of the money makes him reverse all his previous views concerning the church and the priests. At first, he attacks the clergy for dominating the lives of the people. However, a few days after the legacy, he praises the churchmen. Now, he forgets the crimes committed by the churchmen, and he tries to become their friend. In O'Casey's satire of the churchmen, he criticizes men as irresponsible creatures. Referring to this, Smith writes: "O'Casey's satiric portraits of inadequate men are much augmented by the ever-present fathers of the church - most of whom are also selfish, arbitrary, domineering, and essentially unaware of what their children really need" (177). Eventually, the tragic events start to befall the family, and the contrast becomes clearer in Juno and Jack's reactions to these events: the legacy becomes a washout, the debaters demand their loans, Mary's pregnancy, Bentham's sudden departure, and finally Johnny has been killed for betraying a friend. Captain Jack can not face the plights, which inflict the family. Referring to this, Carol Kleiman writes: We laugh at Boyle and Joxer because, while they would enlarge the scope of their sufferings, flinging them against the grander background of Ireland's greater anguish, they are actually not even aware of the true dimensions of the " chassis" that has invaded their lives. Boyle does not know his son is dead, nor does he realize that Juno and Mary have left him. On the contrary, all that Boyle and his "butty" Joxer understand is that the money, with the comforts it provided, is gone, and so the last "tanner" flung into the centre of the stage becomes the actual focus of the grief. (89) So, it is left for Juno to confront these shocks. The circumstances, as Atkinson says , are poignant. Her lazy husband does not want to bear the responsibility of his family. Mary has been ruined by a snob who has deserted her. Moreover, Johnny has just been murdered by the insurgents. Everything has collapsed around Juno. However, Juno decides to rise above her misfortune when she decides to bear the responsibility of her family. Atkinson says: "Juno is the plain foundation of the play - the tired, bustling, tenacious mother of a heedless family, doing her duty loyally according to her standards decency" (79). In this way, Juno, as Ko sok says in O'Casey the Dramatist, is the central character of the play. Dramatically, she is the most important link between the different lines action. She has to bear the weight of all the catastrophes that befall the family (50). At last, Juno's stature becomes clearer when she decides to begin her life with her daughter. Kosok writes: She asserts herself against her husband who has been defeated by life and lives in fruitless memories of the past, as well as against her son who rebels against a purely materialistic attitude, and she cares for her self-confident daughter who would like to dissociate herself from the family, when she expects an illegitimate child and finds that no other refuge is left to her. (Irish Writers and the Theatre.83) She leaves her husband in order to help her daughter Mary in bringing up her child. Juno's departure here reminds us of Nora's departure in A Doll's House. However, Juno leaves her husband to help her daughter, while Nora leaves to realize herself. Thus, O'Casey is influenced by Ibsen in this conclusion. Referring to this, Ayling writes in his article "Two Words for Women": At the end of Juno, in making up her mind to leave Boyle in order to help her daughter and her illegitimate child face a new if arduous life, her attitude is positive as well as clear - sighted .. In Juno and the Paycock the move is towards a society of women ( though there's no evidence that this was the playwright's 'message'), with Juno and Mary staying with Juno's sister until the baby is born . The Ibsen-like .. conclusion here looks forward to later plays like Cock -a- Doodle Dandy, where the young people (men as well as women) are forced to leave at the end of the play in order to make their own way in freedom. (99) Juno and the Paycock is an extension of Ibsen's A Doll's House. Juno is like Ibsen's strong characters (e.g. Mrs. Linde, Lona, Dina .. etc), or like Ibsen's weak characters after proving their identity (e.g. Nora Helmer, Mrs. Bernick, etc). Nora, for instance, leaves her husband to realize ... her identity. After a period of time, Nora succeeds in liberating herself, and she becomes a strong character. Nora comes back to her house as a strong character. That is to say, she returns as o'Casey's Juno. Torvald, as a result of losing the authority in his house, becomes Mr. Boyle. He leaves the burden of the family to Nora (now called Juno). Thus the move in both Ibsen's A Doll's House and Juno and the Paycock is towards a society of women because the two plays are devoid of male heroes. The second woman in Juno is Juno's daughter, Mary. Mary's first lover is Jerry Devine. He is a labour leader who has high dreams to become a union secretary. In order to win Nora's affection, he helps her father to get a job. In spite of being a labourer too, Mary refuses Jerry's love, and waits for a better chance because of the sordid nature of the tenement life. That is to say, she wants to escape into a higher social class. On meeting Bentham; Mary finds the better chance she looks for. Bentham is a schoolteacher who brings to Mary's family the of the legacy. Unfortunately, Mary is news seduced by the very man she has profoundly loved, and he escapes to England. Thus Bentham is a man of words, not of action. He is like Ibsen's Mr. Rorlund in The Pillars of Society. Both Rorlund and Bentham love Dina and Mary, and both of them have beautiful words about goodness, which conceal their moral cowardice. However, Dina is not like Mary. She forsakes Rorlund as long as he is a man of words, and falls in love with John, the man who can estimate her as a person, while Mary is seduced by Bentham, and as a result becomes pregnant. It becomes clear that Mary lacks her mother's strength. Hearing of the departure of Bentham, Jerry returns to Mary. On hearing the news of her pregnancy, he forsakes her immediately. This expresses that women are the victims of men's cowardice. Mary's two lovers have much in common with other O'Casey's men. Through them O'Casey expresses the vain idealism and the lack of responsibility on the part of the Irish men. Also he shows the difference between those who speak much and do little. Both of them are good examples of ineffectual braggarts. Jerry Devine preaches socialism and utters glittering slogans about labour and humanity. As a man of words, he tries to win Mary after Bentham's flight to England". Jerry says: "... Mary, I am pleading for your love. With Labour Mary, humanity is above everything" (Juno. 95). However, when he knows of Mary's pregnancy, he forgets all his lofty principles, and withdraws in silence. Charles Bentham is also a man of words. He is a bad example of a schoolteacher. From the very beginning, he misinterprets the will by his ignorance and passivity. Mary has been infatuated by his superficiality. However, he is a liar who can not estimate her love properly. He seduces her and leaves for England. In this way, he escapes from his moral responsibility. Mary is an elusive character. She tries to liberate herself, but she finds some difficulties in this. Therefore, she is neither strong nor weak. She stands between these two extremes. She behaves like the strong women in some situations, and she fails to act this role throughout the whole play. Mary's desire to participate in the Trade Union is a proof that she is like the strong women. Like Nora, Dina, Lona and Mrs. Linde, she has the ability to take decisions by herself, and she insists that "a principle's a principle" (Juno.50). Moreover, like Ibsen's strong characters, she is a labourer who can earn her living. However, Mary's weak nature appears once and again in Juno. Her weakness appears in her reaction to Bentham. She has been infatuated by his superficiality. Mary's weakness comes to the fore when she doubts the existence of God because her baby will be fatherless. Furthermore, Mary's frivolity appears when she is on a strike. She is busy about which ribbon to wear with her hat. Her mother does not understand these activities. For her, since Mary is on strike, she should not be wearing ribbons or even silk stockings. But this is the nature of women. Ayling writes in " Two Words for Women ": In their outward vivacity and sheer enjoyment of life, the young women embody (in however restricted capacity) aesthetic values and spiritual qualities that offer, temporarily, resilience and resistance to the drabness and deadening routine of slum conditions. The sensitivity of the young women in O'Casey's plays is shown most clearly in their dress sense. (93) Mary here is like Ibsen's Nora who has also the sensitivity of the dress sense. On criticizing Mary, O'Casey wants to emphasize the view that the workers need more culture and education. Although Mary reads books, yet she neither stands up to a better chance nor chooses the right person for herself. Mary's reading is a double-edged weapon. So, when her father is told about her pregnancy, her good for nothing father states: ... Her' her readin'! That's more o' th' blasted nonsense that has the house fallin' on top of us! What did th' likes of her, born in a tenement house, want with readin'? Her readin's afther bringin' her to a nice pass - oh, it's madnin', madnin', madnin'! (Juno. 92) For Jack, Mary is a worker of the tenement and is half- educated. Such education is usually misleading. This that Mary has been led astray by her reading. means Mary is a reader of Ibsen, and she tries to liberate herself like Ibsen's heroines. She tries to be strong, but she can not understand the meaning of freedom properly. However, one can not put the whole blame on Mary. The appalling condition of her society makes her behaviour unbalanced in certain situations. Kosok writes in O'Casey The Dramatist: Mary's character shows the tension between the repressive conditions of her surroundings and her own weak attempts at intellectual and social emancipation. She tries to keep all traces of dialect out of her pronunciation and vocabulary, she reads Ibsen and learns Gaelic, but she does not succeed in liberating herself from the world of the slums. Her weaknesses, her delusion by Bentham and her continuous irritation in her relationship with her family, can be explained as arising from this conflict. (45-46) This expresses, as Smith says, O'Casey's contention that neither Ibsen nor labour movements are "for chiselurs". Mary is an immature idealist and she falls far short of being an O'Caseyean realist. (35) Finally, it is Juno who stands by her and takes care of her coming baby. David Finkle writes: " Throughout the histrionic thunder and lightning, Juno is staunch, while the men starting with Jack and including the vanished Bentham and Jerry Devine, who can't deal with Mary's pregnancy - are broken and useless" (5). There is no doubt that Mary can start a new life, for she is a worker. Thus the Irish women can rescue themselves by themselves without any help form their ineffectual men. This is a declaration of sexist superiority. Ayling writes in "Two Words for Women": Take but one of several loaded moments in these dramas, a line spoken by Mrs. Boyle towards the end of Juno: talking to her pregnant unmarried daughter, who has just lamented that the child will have no father, Juno replies crisply with words that could have the force of a clarion call ... "It'll have what's far betther - it'll have two mothers", meaning herself as well as Mary, of course. This is a declaration of independence, certainly, for her decision to support Mary is taken in conjunction with the resolve that they shall both leave home and her husband, to devote themselves to a new life. It's, arguably, a declaration of sexist superiority. (101) In this way, Mary will become one of the new women. Robert Hogan says: That unadulterated literary influence would explain, for instance, a character like Mary Boyle. Mary is the last of the new woman, and not the first of the liberated. Her old sisters are Nora Helmer . : and the only strange part of the business is that Mary was born a quarter of a century after her sisters. (87) In Juno and the Paycock, Johnny in the son of Juno and Jack Boyle. From the very early of the play, Johnny is depicted as a suffering man. He suffers from a hit in the hip that has inflicted him by a bullet during the Easter Rising. Furthermore, his arm is shattered by a bomb when he fights against the Free Staters. Referring to this, C. Desmond Greaves says: "Johnny Boyle has fought as a boy in 1916 and during the Anglo-Irish war has lost an arm" (112). In his participation in the Easter Rising and the war between the Republicans and the Free Staters, Johnny was the master of his decision. The injuries that have inflicted him are the result of his rash decision to take part in these wars in spite of his mother's refusal. Unlike Ibsen's heroes who suffer because of their fathers' sins, Johnny is responsible for his injuries. O'Casey depicts in the character of Johnny the Civil War in the Irish society. Johnny is, as David Finkle writes, " a hobbling emblem of the crippled nation" (5). He provides the link between the Boyle tragedy and the Civil War. The Civil War was between the Free Staters and the Republicans. It took place after the signing of the treaty between England and Southern Ireland. Referring to the background of Juno and the Paycock, John O'Riordan says: "The play Juno and the Paycock concerns itself with the time of the calamitous Civil War in Ireland within the Treaty made by one of them with England" (39). During this Civil War, Johnny is a Republican who has betrayed his former Irish Republican comrade to the Free Staters and thereby caused his death. The reason of Johnny's crime is not clear throughout the play. Discussing this point, Heinz Kosok writes in O'Casey the Dramatist: It is even more difficult to understand his reason of betrayal. The only hint of an explanation is contained in his words: "t's not because he was a commandant of the battalion that I was quarther-masther of, that we were friends" ... But it is left open whether military ambition, jealousy of his successful comrade or the hope of being promoted more quickly after Robbie's death, could really be the motives for his deed. (42) After committing his crime, Johnny is tortured by the idea of sin and retribution. This idea tortures him with apparitions of betraying his crime itself. From the very early of the play , Jo hnny reacts so hysterically to any news concerning death in general and the death of Robbie Tancred, his friend, in particular. O'Riordan describes Johnny's hysteria when he writes: Pent up in fear and foreboding who suddenly screams out in a distraught outburst of agonized terror, as previsions of death convince him the reassuring light of the votive lamp in front of the statue of the Virgin has gone out and he imagines he sees the bullet-ridden corpse of young Robbie Tancred, his slain neighbour: "Oh, why did he look at me like that? .. it was not my fault that he was done in Mother o' God, keep him away from me!." (55) Evil recoils upon its doer sooner or later. That is to say, the consequences of Johnny's crime come to take revenge upon him. First, these consequences take the form of persecution mania. That is why Johnny is a sham whose actions spring out of fear and cowardice. Later, these consequences take the form of the Republicans who come to kill Johnny as a result of his betrayal of his republican friend . Johnny is shot because he has betrayed the son of a neighbour. In this way, he is shot to atone for a mistake he has committed in the past. Johnny, therefore, is different from Dr. Rank, Öswald and Hedvig who are the victims of mistakes they never participate in. Referring to the connection between Johnny's fate and his actions, O'Riordon writes: Along with Juno's worthless husband, wrecked by his own folly, is their crippled son - an arm missing and a shattered hip which he incurred in street fighting in successive Irish rebellions - a prey to constant nervous and ambitious idealism and heroism shrouded in the butt of a gun, and finally killed by his own weakness. (47) After Johnny's death, Juno realizes that she has not been sympathetic enough with Mrs. Tancred. Like Mrs. Tancred, she becomes a bereaved mother. So, she repents not having felt enough sorrow for the death of Mrs. Tancred's son. Now Juno comes to drink from the same cup, as she says .. May be I did not feel sorry enough for Mrs. Tancred when her poor son was found as Johnny's been found now - because he was a Diehard! Ah, why did n't I remember that then he was not a Diehard or a Stater, but only a poor dead son!" (Juno and the Paycock. 100). There is no doubt that this is what O'Casey wants to say when he deals with the civil war in this play. He wants to say that it is not important that the dead are Diehards or Staters, but the most important thing is the loss of the young people. Therefore, O'Casey is against the death of the young. Juno suffers more than any other character for the loss of her son. This makes her a pathetic character. Unlike Ibsen's pathetic sons, the mother, representing the old, is the one who suffers. Following Mrs. Tancred's prayer and lament, she says: ... Mother o' God, Mother o' God, have pity on us all! Blessed Virgin, where were you when me darlin' son was riddled with bullets, when me darlin' son was riddled with bullets? Sacred Heart o' Jesus, take away our hearts o' stone, and give us hearts o' flesh! Take away this murdherin' hate, an' give us Thine own eternal lov e! (Juno and the Paycock. 100) These lines offer, as Anthony Bradley writes in * Sean O'Casey the Playwright and the Stars", "the only permanent solution to the Irish problem .. a change of heart that would substitute human values for brutalizing political commitment" (1). Juno's pathos becomes clear when she is asked to go to identify her son's body. Juno faces the ordeal alone refusing to take her daughter with her. Thus, Juno becomes a symbol of all bereaved mothers. Referring to mothers as pathetic characters, John O'Riordan writes: " In Juno and the Paycock there is an Irish undercurrent which powerfully counter to O'Casey's surface anti- runs clericalism, the Catholic pathos for all womanhood illustrated by the grieving scenes of Mrs. Tancred and Juno" (61). In O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, son-parent relationship is one of its major themes. Like Ibsen's The Wild Duck, o'Casey demonstrates the clash between materialistic parents and idealistic sons. However, materialism here is mixed with realism and practicality. In this play, the parents are Mr. Jack Boyle and his wife Juno, but the sons are Johnny and Mary. They live in two rooms in a slum dwelling, overcrowded with poverty-stricken neighbours. Like the other slum-dwellers, they are leading a poor miserable life. The mother here is more active than the father in taking care of her family's affairs. Therefore, unlike Ibsen, the son-parent relationship here is concentrated on mother son relationship. Justifying this point, Declan Kiberd writes: The intensity of the mother - son relationship in Ireland implied something very suspicious and worrying about the Irish male, as husband and as father The space ... vacated by the incompetent or ineffectual father was eagerly seized and occupied by the all-powerful Irish mother, who became not just wife and mother, but surrogate father as well. (128)