line represents. First, Christy has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity among the inhabitants of his adopted village and has found within himself a previously unsuspected skill at sports games. In fact, he wins every local sports contest. It is because of this the villagers give him the title Playboy of the Western World: he is the boy best at all sports play. This is illustrated by the Widow's remarked to Mahon while she is trying to keep him away from Christy:

WIDOW QUIN — [with the shade of a smile.] — They're cheering a young lad, the champion Playboy of the Western World. [More cheering.]

The irony lies on one hand in the fact he was beaten at sports and beaten by sports players in his younger days. It lies, on the other hand, in the fact that the villagers idolize him--and allow him the opportunity to claim his elevated title--after he attempts to kill his father and thinks he has indeed killed his father.

Synge is illustrating the irony and foibles of human consciousness that embraces behavior, ideas and people based on illusion--then let them go just as suddenly when illusion meets reality:

PEGEEN — [glaring at Christy.] — And it's lies you told, letting on you had him slitted, and you nothing at all.

Concerning J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, the "Western" part of the title refers to the West of Ireland.  The play stems from a story or stories Synge heard while on the Aran Isles, west of the coast of Ireland.  The play features the peasant population of such a place.

More importantly, you should know that "Playboy" does not carry the same denotation or connotations the word carries for us today.

The playboy is what Christy becomes.  When entering the stage for the first time, he is much like everyone else in the play.  But the play is partially about myth making, and Christy soon gains the status of myth.  The story of his rebellion against his father and supposed killing of his father, gains importance every time he tells it, and reaches the point of myth.  Christy gains self-confidence, which is only enhanced by the domination he displays at the games. 

Seen from a distance, Christy becomes the playboy of the Western world, an almost mythological and, by the way, Christlike figure, who carries the hopes of the peasants on his shoulders, so to speak.  "Playboy," I believe, refers to his daring deed and athletic prowess, rather than his "clubbing" and financial situation, etc., that the term suggests to us today.  Christy is a hero. 

Of course, seen up close, when Christy kills his father in "their own back yard," the bloody deed loses its romance and illusion, and Christy loses his status among the community, although the self-confidence he gains seems to remain.  

The title refers to the line at the end of the play spoken by Pegeen, "I've lost the only playboy of the Western World!" She says this after Christy reconciles with his father and decides to travel with him. Since Christy has decided to better himself and no longer is interested in Pegeen, she is morning the loss of his novelty, as he is a "playboy" no more.

It should be noted that in the time and place of the story, the term "playboy" does not imply the modern association with the word. When the characters of the play refer to a Christy as a "playboy," they are calling him out for being a trickster and lying about the murder of his father. The term can be slightly endearing, as Christy's talent for talking himself up and storytelling can be praised.

At the end of the play, Pegeen bemoans the loss of her paramour by saying "I've lost him surely! I've lost the only playboy of the Western World!" In saying this she seems to believe her situation is unique and she is the only woman who has ever suffered such a loss. Since she lives in a remote and rural area this may make sense for her. But the irony of the title is that such a situation is very common, indeed universal. These characters, their feelings, thoughts and suffering are part of the universal human experience, and to set any of them apart as unique is commentary upon the potency of such emotions as felt by individuals, and upon the role of drama and literature in expressing these universal emotions in new and memorable ways.

The playwright uses this title to speak to the mythos that is created around Christy as he interacts and forms relationships with the peasant population of the island to the west of Ireland. Christy excels at playing the sports of the island and is also seen as a sort of mythical hero amongst the locals. Christy gains this status through his championing of sport games and of his story of rebellion against his father.

Christy's importance among the locals of the island is rooted in his status within a mythological context. Christy is viewed through an almost fantastical lens by the peasants, and this lens supports his status as a "playboy". The "western world" in this play refers to the islands directly west of the main island of Ireland, where the people are considered to be more in touch with their roots and less affected by christian colonization.

The best way of answering this question is to think about the themes of this excellent play and to consider if any of them are still relevant to today's society given the fact that society has changed to such a great extent in the intervening years. This will help us to establish whether this play does have themes that are universal and whether it has a message that applies to us today.

Unfortunately, if we take this approach and examine the theme of social conformity, we can actually see how little the world and the people in it have changed over the years. The vast majority of the characters in this play act according to the norms and customs of society and show a complete inability to make decisions for themselves. Pegeen, when she challenges male authority, is one of the few characters that are able to think outside the restrictive box of society and its strict customs. Shawn Keogh is of course the perfect example of unthinking obedience to the dictates of society. He will not marry Pegeen until he has permission to do so from the Vatican.

We can see this unthinking adherence again in the way that the villagers act towards Christy. At first he is feted as a hero because of his rebellion and his brave deeds, and men come to hear his story and women bear him gifts. Yet when the reality of his background is made known, again the villagers show their inability to think outside of society as they demand he is punished for his crimes as society dictates. People are shown in this play to be little more than robots in the hands of the society and culture of which they are a part. In the same way, we could still argue that this is very true for many humans and societies today and can be evidenced in our reluctance to embrace change, even when it can be for the better.

Despite its very specific localized mise-en-scene in rural, agricultural western Ireland, and despite its age (1911), this play still speaks to at least three universal and contemporary themes: the sexual attraction of other-ness, strangeness, newness into a well-known, comfortable setting; the natural desire of one generation to oppose the hegemony of another; and the optimism of the Prodigal Son motif.  Christie Mahon’s appeal to the villagers is his foreignness, the mystery he brings with him just because he has had a different upbringing from the girls, Pegeen Mike and the Widow Quin; the exposition of the play, the purported killing of his “da”, provides the dramatic turning to comedy when his father shows up, and serves to remind us all that generations must move away from parental influences; and the eventual reconciliation of father and son, all hold relevance to today (and remember that that entire play has a symbolic Christian value, built on the clue in his name: “Christie Mahon.”  Without reducing the play to a metaphor, we can discern the value of its story to contemporary society.

I don't think the playboy, Christy Mahon, in Synge's Playboy of the Western World does appeal to "us."  At least not by the conclusion of the play.  But I also don't think that is the issue you're really concerned with.  At issue isn't whether Christy appeals to our contemporary audience, or even Synge's contemporary audience.  The issue is:  why does Christy appeal to the other characters in the play?  Christy gains notoriety because it is thought that he killed his father.  As the Widow Quin says, referring to Christy being left alone with Pegeen:  "There's great temptation in a man did slay his da, and we'd best be going, young fellow;..."  The characters in the play treat Christy like a hero because he has committed this violent act.  These characters, by implication, represent Irish society.  Thus, Synge's contemporary audiences resented the play, because it suggests they were as oriented to violence as the play's characters.  You should be asking why the playboy appeals to the other characters in the play, rather than why he appeals to "us."

One way of approaching this is by considering the modern cult of celebrity and fame. Although the setting is a small rural community, when Christy arrives in it he becomes a figure of intense interest and attraction for the locals. He in turn is seduced by his 'fame' and learns how to exploit it through his stories and language. Of course it is all based on perception rather than reality and in the community's desperate desire to believe in the narrative of this special one who has arrived among them. There is even a fan base among the women characters and competition for Christy's attention, so it's not stretching things, in my opinion, to see a very modern parable in the play because reality, as usual, comes crashing through in the end.

One level on which this text displays relevance to our contemporary social situation (or, to put it more accurately, a way in which we can discover relevance for our times within this play) is to consider the issue of toxic masculinity. This concept refers to the ways in which gender norms become socialized in ways that can become detrimental to positive role modeling or balance in relationships. The valorization of masculine strength and confidence (positive traits) can easily lead to overvaluing their negative extremes such as brutality, aggression, and violence. Similarly, the cultural idea that men are "protectors" of women can be interpreted to mean that men should control women's lives, resulting in extreme groups such as the Promise Keepers. Placing too much emphasis on these negative traits (partly due, perhaps, to a rejection of more recent ideas that men should be more sensitive and nurturing, and women should be more confident and entrepreneurial) expressed by men results in toxic masculinity.

In Synge's play, the villagers admire Christy's manly qualities and are ready to praise him when they think he has murdered his father. The fact that women in the village (like Pegeen and the Widow Quinn) find him attractive indicates they think his capacity for aggression and violence are some desirable. This is an example of how toxic masculinity can be seen in the world of this Irish play, creating a possibility to discuss the play's social norms as they relate to our contemporary American ones.

The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge describes the rise and fall of the reputation of Christy, the "playboy" of the title. He is initially admired because he claims to have killed his father, and that admiration is reinforced by his confidence and sporting prowess, both of which impress the villagers, both men and women. He eventually falls into disrepute when it is discovered that he did not kill his father.

In a sense the relevance of the play lies in its critique of the villagers admiration of rebelliousness, sporting process, and violence. These are really not good values, and far less important than moral character. Many contemporary subcultures, such as that of US high schools and hiphop, like the villagers of the Aran Islands, often accord high status to the appearance of "toughness" without actually considering whether this is an admirable characteristic. An example of how the playwright shows us that we should not be led to admire Christy is when he has Christy say:

"... it's great luck and company I've won me in the end of time — two fine women fighting for the likes of me — till I'm thinking this night wasn't I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in the years gone by."

The center of the story is the community reaction -- how the small community seeks and (putatively) finds a hero, and how atificial their criteria for heroism are -- the love story is the "encasement" of Synge's real concern, which is how Ireland (the Western world) is conceived by outsiders, and how mistakenly the public image of Ireland represents its real strengths -- mysticism based on Celtic history, and the devotion to Ireland's past.  Synge was not interested in a "small" story; he was, in his whole canon, seeking a dramatic justification of his love of his country, constantly under attack during Synge's lifetime.  The lasting value of the play lies in his success at making this statement.  Worjs of dramatic art are worth analyzing when the student seeks the deeper meanings of the simple actions. 

The Playboy of the Western World gains its title from the scene in which Christy can't be beaten in play at any of the village sports, hence he becomes the "playboy." The phrase "of the Western World" leads the way into Synge's theme of Irish mythmaking, then still especially noticeable in unsophisticated peasant groups. With the inclusion of this phrase, the myth of the playboy encompasses the whole world. Mythmaking deviates from reality, as is made clear by the stretch of the title: Irish village game championship can't possibly trump an entire world of athletes. Synge isn't discussing a universal theme but rather exposing a particularly Irish theme, that of mythmaking.

The play opened in January of 1907 at Yeats's Irish Literary Theatre to outraged indignation and riots but over the course of the twentieth century has gained ever greater currency among critics. Had Yeats not held a public debate on the concept of artistic freedom, The Playboy may have died an ignoble death. As it happens, though, the play has by later critics been called "the most rich and copious store of character since Shakespeare’’ (P.P. Howe) and a play "riotous with the quick rush of life, a tempest of the passions" (Charles A. Bennett). 

These seem to be the reasons that The Playboy of the Western World has current appeal. Whereas original audiences cared about morality and decorous representations of peoples and countries, the increasing and ever increasing reach for realism, ethnic diversity and authentic representations has brought The Playboy into vogue because it was the avant garde and the precursor of what is presently valued and sought after: unveiled realism. Incidentally, one might argue that this unveiled realism, which is the idol of the present milieu, has been carried so far that "realism" is now a fancy in that it is a reality beyond reality and that it carries such clout that it is creating new reality (of questionable benefit) in its wake, which is a divergent reality from the realism that Synge depicted after living with, studying and capturing in three acts the cultural and psychological realities on the Aran Islands, from which he derived The Playboy of the Western World.

Just a short note to add to the excellent answer above: Synge's Playboy of the Western World is hilarious.  Synge originally labeled the work a farce in its early stages, and though he eventually dropped the label from the title, the play is still very much a comedy/farce. 

Christie Mahon kills his dad, becomes a hero because he kills his dad, then shrinks when his dad shows up still alive.  Though there are many sides to the play, as Synge himself said, humor is a big part of why people like it.

In 'The Playboy of the Western World' by J.M. Synge, the author presents a colourful tale that is honest and realistic. Although many Irish audiences were offended by the stark offerings in the play, finding them sometiomes crude and overdone, other audiences found the honesty refreshing because they felt it was truly representative of their lot in life and their issues and concerns. Because J. M. Synge presented this honest realistic portrayal of everyday Irish lives in poetic style, many audiences were able to relate to the material in both a traditional and modern form. The hard living in the Aran Islands was interesting material for most audiences and they responded to its connection with Nature.

First, Christy Mahon in Synge's The Playboy of the Western World hasn't always appealed to audiences.  The play caused riots when it was originally produced because it was thought to be too vulgar, violent, and negative toward the Irish people. 

Since other audiences/readers are further removed from the play's subjects, they may be attracted to Christy.  Several reasons for this exist.

First, other characters in the play like him.  This can be contagious.

Second, he bucks tradition.  He doesn't follow stuffy protocols and traditions.

Third, he is a bit offbeat.  He's an antihero.  He moves from timidity to fame.  He's a bit of an underdog.

At the same time, your premise may be faulty.  The power of the play is probably achieved by the reader's not being drawn to Christy.  That's the point.  He is no hero.  He gains fame by killing his dad, and then is made into a hero for his athletic prowess--he dominates in a little village.  Not exactly Super Bowl stuff. 

The power of the play is in the fact that the audience is bewildered by Christy's success.  The other characters make him into a hero, when he actually does nothing heroic.  The play, in part, is about myth making.  Myth making is exposed, and the Irish villagers are exposed to be obsessed with violence, not too bright, and fickle. 

Despite its age now, The Playboy’s central themes are still applicable to our society:

Each generation must separate from the earlier one; reputation is fleeting, and often built on false information; the value of love supersedes the rational explanations for it.  These social and emotional explorations are timeless and universal.  What gives Playboy such lasting relevance is its setting in a closed society, where strangers are absorbed reluctantly and clumsily.  The playboy’s final redemption, when his father appears alive and well, can be seen as symbolic of our modern relation to the not only the religious “father” but to the guilt our young generation feels from abandoning the morals and ideals of their parents’ generation.

Well i think that the words have different meanings from different times. When the villagers call Christy, "the playboy of the western world" they were championing him for his bravery in killing his father. In today's world, that wouldn't fit our current definintion of a playboy. What Christy becomes, in the middle of the play, however, does pretty much fit our definintion. He has ladies after him, he devotes all of his time to leisure and pleasure, which is the very definition of a playboy. THis of course changes towards the end of the play.