Perkins is a professor of English and American literature and film. In this essay, Perkins examines the theme of mythmaking in the play. 

Soon after Synge met William Butler Yeats in Paris, Yeats advised Synge to spend time living on the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, to "live there as if you were one of the people themselves" and to "express a life that has never found expression." Synge heeded Yeats's advice, spending a good amount of time living on the islands and recording his observations of the inhabitants' behavior and personalities. His observations, eventually collected in a series of essays, became translated into the central themes, settings, and characters in his plays, which would be heralded for their lyrical yet realistic portraits of the Irish spirit. Daniel Corkery, in his Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature, considered Synge's Aran materials "descriptive of the consciousness...