Reading 'RIDERS TO THE SEA' (J. M. Synge)

Introduction:

    ‘Riders to the Sea’ is a one-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge. It was first performed on February 25, 1904 at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin by the Irish National Theater Society. The play is set in the Aran Islands, and like all of Synge's plays it is noted for capturing the poetic dialogue of rural Ireland. The plot is very simple, yet moving.  It presents the dark tragedy of a lower-class Irish family which is engaged in a helpless battle with the cruel sea. The play aims at bringing out the essential tragedy of human lot in general which is battered by the blows of an evil power or an ill-fate beyond control.

   There are only four major characters: Maurya, an elderly Irishwoman, her daughters Cathleen and Nora, and her son Bartley. The young priest is also important to introduce controversies about Maurya's sons, e.g. whether the clothes are from Michael's body, whether the young priest let Bartley go to sell his horse, etc.

   Maurya has lost her husband, father-in-law, and five sons to the sea. As the play begins Nora and Cathleen receive word that a body that may be their brother Michael has washed up on shore in Donegal, far to the north. The two sisters are seen to be discussing about the fact in the kitchen. They are unwilling to let their mother know the fact of Michael's death. Bartley is planning to sail to Connemara to sell a horse. Cathleen prepares a cake for him. Since Bartley is the last surviving son of Maurya, she tries to stop him from going to the sea. But he ignores Maurya's pleas to stay. As he leaves, he leaves gracefully. Maurya predicts that by nightfall she will have no living sons, and her daughters chide her for sending Bartley off with an ill-word. Maurya goes after Bartley to bless his voyage and to hand over the cake to Bartley. Nora and Cathleen check the clothing from the drowned corpse that confirms it as their brother. Maurya returns home claiming to have seen the ghost of Michael riding behind Bartley and begins lamenting the loss of the men in her family to the sea, after which some villagers bring in the corpse of Bartley, who has fallen off his horse into the sea and drowned.

   Maurya's speech in the final scene is famous in Irish drama:

   "They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me.... I'll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the other. I'll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won't care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening."

Question & Answers:

1. Consider ‘Riders to the Sea’ as a one-act play.

   One-act play is chiefly a twentieth century phenomena. J. M. Synge’s ‘Riders to the Sea’, like other one-act plays, conforms to the three unities held by Aristotle—the unity of time (the actions take place in a single day), the unity of place (the play is confined within one locale, the Aran Islands) and the unity of action (the play presents the helplessness of Maurya precisely in the face of a merciless fate which acts through its agent, the sea). Its predicaments are not only those of the Irish peasants, but also of all men subject to the tyrannical forces they can not control. Thus, although short in size, the play achieves a universal appeal.

2. Who are the riders to the sea and why are they called so?

   The male members of Maurya’s family who went to the sea for their livelihood are called the riders to the sea.

   One by one, all the male members of Maurya’s family—her father-in-law, her husband and her six sons—go to the sea for fishing or business, but no one ever returned alive because the hostile sea drowned them all. Nevertheless, they were bound to go to the sea for their livelihood. Such is the fate of all the lower-class people of the Aran Islands who are all fearless riders to the sea.

3. Do you consider Maurya a tragic character?

   Maurya is not a tragic character in the Aristotelian sense of the term—she does not fight with enemies or with ill-fate heroically. Rather, she stoically withstands the repeated shocks which come as the deaths of all her near ones—her father-in-law, her husband and her six sons. However, the tragic effect of the play ‘Riders to the Sea’ has been brought out through this grief-stricken mother battered by the blows of a hostile fate. Her condition is undoubtedly tragic.

4. What techniques have been adopted by Synge to create a supernatural atmosphere in ‘Riders to the Sea’?

   The gloomy atmosphere of mystery which intensifies the tragic effect of the play has been created by the awful use of omens and superstitions inherent among the Aran Islanders. Maurya’s words at the time of Bartley’s leaving the home that she’d never see him again seemed ominous to Maurya’s daughter Cathleen. Then, when Maurya went to the spring well to hand over the bread to Bartley she saw the ghost of her dead son Michael riding on a grey pony beside Bartley. She was very much frightened at the sight. And her premonition that Bartley too would be drowned in the sea proved to be true.

5. “What is the price of a thousand horses against a son when there’s one son only?”—Who is the speaker? What does he/she wish to mean with this utterance?

   Maurya, the central character of J. M. Synge’s play ‘Riders to the Sea’, is the speaker.

   With these words Maurya tries to prevent her only surviving son Bartley from sailing on the stormy sea. One by one, all the other five sons of Maurya have been drowned when they went to the sea for their livelihood. Bartley also wishes to sail across the sea with horses in order to sell them, but Maurya says that the value of even a thousand horses is nothing as compared to her son, especially when he is the only son surviving.

6. “He’s gone now, God spare us, and we’ll not see him again.”—Who is the speaker? Why does he/she make such premonition? Was the premonition correct?

   Maurya, the central character of J. M. Synge’s play ‘Riders to the Sea’, speaks this to her daughter Cathleen.

   Maurya laments over the fact that Bartley, her only surviving son, has gone to the sea despite her efforts to stop him. The line expresses her premonition that, like her other five sons, Bartley too will perish in the stormy sea.

   The premonition comes to be true as Bartley is drowned in the sea.

7. “In the big world the old people do be leaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things behind for them that do be old.”—Who is the speaker? What makes the speaker say so? What is the significance of the speech?

   Maurya, the central character of J. M. Synge’s play ‘Riders to the Sea’, is the speaker.

   One by one, Maurya’s five sons have perished in the hostile sea, and then, Bartley, her only surviving son also decides to go to the sea. She makes the premonition that Bartley too will be drowned in the sea. Maurya pathetically utters these words before going to the spring well in order to hand over a piece of bread to Bartley.

   While it is customary for old people to leave things behind for the young, in Maurya’s house the young men (that is, her sons) have perished in tender ages leaving behind things for the benefit of the old Maurya.

8. “I’ve seen the fearfulest thing any person has seen since the days of Bride Dara.”—What was the ‘fearfulest thing’? Who was Bride Dara and what had she seen?

   When Maurya went to hand over the cake to Bartley who departed for the sea, she saw his dead son Michael riding a gray pony behind Bartley. This sight frightened her because it is ominous to have the vision of a dead man moving.

   Bride Dara is a character in Irish folklore. She saw an evil-looking man carrying a dead child in his lap. The sight frightened her very much.

9. “They’re all gone now, and there isn’t anything more the sea can do to me.”—About whom is the speaker speaking? Why does the speaker say so?

   In this line from J. M. Synge’s ‘Riders to the Sea’, Maurya pathetically counts the death of all the male members of her family who are all perished in the hostile sea.

   One by one, Maurya’s father-in-law, her husband and her five sons went to the sea in order to earn their livelihood, but they never returned alive. When the news of her last surviving son Bartley’s death comes to her, the overwhelming grief baffles her, and she stoically resigns to the sad fate. She says that the sea can do no harm to her any more.

10. “No man at all can be living for ever, and he must be satisfied.”—What has satisfied the speaker? What attitude of the speaker is reflected here?

   Maurya in Synge’s play ‘Riders to the Sea’ feels satisfied with the thought that God is kind enough to provide a clean burial to her son Michael in far north after he was perished in the sea. She also fells at ease with the thought that, like Michael, her last son Bartley too will be buried decently.

   In this line we find Maurya’s stoic resignation to the sad fate. She withstands the repeated shocks which come as the deaths of all her near ones—her father-in-law, her husband and her six sons. Such overwhelming griefs have infused a strong sense of endurance in her.