Truth and Illusion
The play dramatizes the conflict between the worlds of fantasy and reality. In a sense, Boyle's entire
life is a lie: he invents entire years of his life as a seafaring captain and acquires fictitious pains in his
legs any time he is asked to work. When he thinks he will receive a legacy, he imagines himself an
investor in the stock exchange; he also imagines himself scholarly and sophisticated, quoting titles of
books he has never read. Boyle cannot cope when confronted with reality. He refuses to face the
truth of Bentham's disappearance and the worthlessness of the legacy, and he cannot cope when he
loses his possessions. Instead he escapes into fantasy once again through drink, which we see in the
last scene: "Commandant Kelly died... in them... arms.... Tell me Volunteer Butties... says he... that...
I died for... Irelan'!" (72-3)
Mary, too, lives a fantasy life of sorts. She believes strongly in her principles and is on strike to
support a co-worker, despite the fact that the family can hardly afford to forego her salary. She tries
to escape the poverty of her existence through books and learning. Bentham offers a tangible
opportunity to escape slum life, but she is blinded by her fantasies and does not realize his
selfishness until reality strikes and she discovers he has abandoned her, pregnant and penniless.
Only Juno seems to have a firm grasp on reality. She chastises Boyle for his invented stories and
reminds Mary that a principle won't pay the bills. Her pragmatism allows her to respond
appropriately to Mary's pregnancy and come up with a solution that makes her plight bearable.
The play suggests that nationalism and religion are both romantic illusions which permit and even
encourage an escape from the harsh reality of poverty, just as alcohol does.
In 1916, there was a great uprising and many people were killed. O‟Casey felt sorry for them.
O‟Casey was basically a pacifist (peaceful). He looks for independence but not at the cost of peace
and life. This approach is also like that of W. B. Yeats. Both feel sorry for human causalities. To both,
war is an evil, fought under any pretext, (excuse). Reality is more important than ideology. Man is
more important than patriotism and religious fanaticism. O‟Casey is down to earth a realist. He is
similar to Shaw and is strongly anti-war writer. He is an anti-war, anticlass, anti-patriotism, antifanaticism, anti-trade unionism, anti-dogmatism, antiideology and anti-false aristocracy. He is a
feministic writer
Captain Boyle‟s inflation of his fantasies with invention, exaggeration, rhetoric and bombastic and
Juno‟ facility in knocking him down etc all are comic.
these are tragic if examined in full e.g. heroes become cowards, nationalism becomes jingoism,
labour, humanitarianism becomes inhumanity.
They together boast of nationalism but they never bother about their homes.
Men in O‟Casey world are impotent and dreamers. They are not realist rather escapist and scared
while women are very much realistic and disillusioned. Johnny and Mr. Boyle think that one day
Ireland must be free and the days of prosperity will come but women characters, now in the worst
circumstance caused by war, suffers most of all in the time of calamity. They have to see … their
husband … and sons killed and slaughtered and their lovers burned down. When Robbie Tancred is
murdered, it is Mrs. Tancred who suffers behind him. The words of Mrs. Tancred‟s lamentation on
the death of her son always hurts Juno and she already prays for the life of Johnny. “Blessed Virgin,
… … Sacred Heart o‟ Jesus, take away our hearts o‟ stone, an‟ give us hearts of flesh!” Juno has to
suffer on different grounds. She has a husband who keeps on strutting about from morning till night
whereas she has to carry the burden to her whole family. Her son Johnny has lost an arm and has a
hip shattered in the war. The daughter, who has turned rebel and is on strike, ultimately gives birth
to a child by a schoolteacher, her fiancée. Amid the hell of circumstances Juno has to bear the
sufferings of existence, but unlike Captain Boyle, she does not romanticize her son‟s exploitation
when Johnny drags on his sacrifice for Ireland by saying that he would sacrifice his other arm too
because “a principle‟s a principle”. Juno speaks bitterly: “Ah, you lost your best principle, my boy,
when you lost your arm:” Thus O‟Casey very beautifully portrays the high status of woman that
woman are more realist in their approach to life in general and to war in particular. Here we see,
though Juno is an uneducated woman, yet she holds her dignity and shatters the web of idealism
attached to war and trade unionism. When Mary emphasizes that “a principle‟s a principle” and
tries to justify her call on strike, Juno remarks very realistically: “When the employers sacrifice wan
victim, the Trades Unions go wan betther be sacrificin‟ a hundred.” In the country like Ireland which
is poverty stricken and war ridden one cannot afford any idealism. Rather the poor have to have the
practical approach and must work hard in order to survive and break down the barriers of slavery.
We see only Juno is conscious of this fact, when she ask Mary, what will the shopkeeper say when
she says to him “a principle‟s a principle”. Juno is very conscious of the fact that the miseries of the
Irish people are not because of their stars but they are because of their carelessness, misdeeds,
romanticism and idealism. That‟s why she asks Mary: “Ah, what can God do agen the‟ stupidity o‟
men!” In the play we see that Mary‟s suffering are also caused by men. She rejects Jerry Devin
because she realizes the fact that Jerry is not a type of man who will stand by her through thick and
thin. She realizes Charley Banthem but he deceives her and leaves her desolate and pregnant.
Boyle‟s so called questions of honour awaken only on this movement and he frightens Juno of
dangerous consequences if Mary does not leave the house. But in all these circumstances it is only
Juno who stands besides her. This shows O‟Casey feminine independence. All these leads us to
conclude that women in “Juno and the Pacycock” are realist and wiser than men. They have the
awareness of life which men lack. This assumption of O‟Casey is not based on lie or any idealism. In
fact O‟Casey wants to stress and evoke women to follow their instinctive feminine good sense and
to play their part in the domain of modern life.
Being a realist, she has a firm belief in the idea that the fault does not lie with the stars but with the
people themselves. She says: “Ah, what can God do agen the‟ stupidity o‟ men!”
Thus, we see O‟Casey very beautifully depicts man‟s inhumanity towards man. O‟Casey is at heart a
humanist and a pacifist. He considers life mere inevitable and all idealism is subservient to it. He
condemns all principles and gives one and the only principle to live all the days of life peacefully.
Juno‟s daughter Mary is deeply concerned about appearances. She is a shallow character who
seems to judge people and things from the outside. When we meet her at the beginning of the play,
we learn she is on strike because of the dismissal of a young girl called Jenny Claffey. Yet we are told
from Juno how Mary never had a good word to say about Jenny Claffey in her whole life.
Juno who is the only character rooted in the harsh practical everyday world of necessity realizes that
money, hard work, and responsible social commitment are stronger and more realistic values in this
world than principles and ideals.
Reality and Fantasy The play dramatizes the conflict between the dream world and the world of
reality and shows what happens when a character is stripped of his illusions and forced to face
reality. Boyle the „poseur‟ or Paycock struts throughout the world of the play on a false and
imaginary sense of his own self- importance. His whole life and career consist in fabricating dreams
of his gallant years as a captain fighting heroic feats and sailing the oceans of the world. The news of
the legacy provides another outlet to Boyle‟s habitual evasion of reality, he sees himself as a
potential investor on the Stock Exchange. His whole life is a lie. His pains, which are invented for the
sake of shirking and avoiding work, become real to him. His refuses to face up to the truth and
reality about Bentham and the deception surrounding the news of the will. When reality invades at
the conclusion of the play in the form of Mary‟s pregnancy and the actual removal of his material
possessions, Boyle is unable to cope. His final entrance dramatized in a drunken fragmentary
soliloquy is tragic. His habitual escape into fantasy is pathetically expressed through his drunken
pose – „ Commandant Kelly died….in them arms…..Tell me Volunteer Bullies says he that I died for
Ireland‟. Mary who represents the younger generation also falls victim to illusion. On her first
appearance in the play, she is shown to be on strike for a principle. The oppressive and stifling
atmosphere generated by the tenement life forces her to seek escape through Bentham. For her he
represents another way of life and values outside the restricting and debilitating atmosphere within
the two-roomed tenement. She falls victim to the subtle deception of Bentham‟ middle-class
gentility. She is blinded by external appearances and ends up a tragic victim of Bentham‟s hypocrisy
and selfishness At the conclusion of the play, she is forced to return to the reality of the slum life
with Juno in spite of all her attempts to escape through learning and books.