Skip to main content

What is a summary of "Juno and the Paycock" by Sean O'Casey?

The play Juno and the Paycock, written by Sean O'Casey, tells the story of the Boyle family. The play takes place in a Dublin tenement in 1922, just after the Irish Civil War began. The Boyle family consists of father Jack, who spends his days drinking at the pub; mother Juno, the only working member of her family; daughter Mary, who is on strike; and son Johnny, who cannot work due to disability. One day, the family receives a large inheritance from one of Jack's relatives, and he promises to change his lifestyle.


Instead, Jack begins recklessly spending on credit, while the family fails to receive the inheritance. Mary also becomes pregnant with the child of Mr. Bentham, who delivered the news of the family's inheritance, and he suddenly disappears. Jack discovers that he will not receive his money because Bentham failed to draft the will correctly, and that his disappearance was the result of his fleeing the country in shame over the error. Around this time, Johnny, who was an informant for the army, is kidnapped by the IRA and a body matching his description is found by a country road. The play ends with Mary leaving to live with a relative, and Juno leaving to identify Johnny's body, with plans to leave her husband afterwards. Jack returns home from the pub, unaware that his son is dead and the rest of his family has left him, and drunkenly considers his final sixpence.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more