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The form of a text is the type of text you are reading or watching.

The form of Juno and the Paycock is a dramatic play which means the text that we study is the script used by actors and directors to stage and perform the play in front of an audience.

Juno and the Paycock is a tragicomedy. The dialogue - especially that between Jack Boyle and Joxer - can be funny. But themes such as poverty and war make it very serious watching.

The play ends with the death of Johnny Boyle and the breakup of the family as Juno decides she has had enough and leaves with her pregnant daughter.

So despite frequent comic episodes, much of the tragedy in the play lies in the fact that it is the study of the futility of war and the effects it has on poor families and individuals.

Juno and the Paycock is the second in a trilogy of plays, coming after the success of The Plough and the Stars and finishing with The Shadow of a Gunman.

While three separate stories, the plays are all written out of O'Casey's disillusionment with the Irish nationalist cause and his anger at the detrimental effect it had on the working classes.

Although O'Casey was born into a Protestant family in Dublin, he was a speaker of the Irish language and sympathised with the Irish nationalist cause.

However, he was also an active trade unionist and gradually became very sceptical of the motives of Irish nationalism.

Juno and the Paycock was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in March 1924, only two years after it was set. It is important to remember that the audience then - so close to the Irish Civil War - would have reacted very differently from how an audience today might react.