Reading 'MACBETH' by W. Shakespeare, Part-I

Introduction:

   Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' remains one of his most popular plays, both for classroom study and performance, and with good reason. Here we have the playwright's shortest tragedy, but arguably his most intense, in terms both of its action and its portrayal of human relationships. The "butcher and his fiend-like queen" are among the most attractive villains in stage history, and the profound psychology with which Shakespeare imbues them is deliciously pleasurable for theater audience and student alike.

   Macbeth was a real king of eleventh-century Scotland, whose history Shakespeare had read in several sources, principally the Chronicles of Holinshed, to which he referred for many of his other historical dramas. In Holinshed's account, Banquo and Macbeth combine to kill King Duncan after winning his favor in a battle against the Danes. The original story is full of wonderful details that show the cunning of the Scots and Macbeth, who slaughtered an entire Danish army not by brute force, but by cunning: first mixing a sleeping potion and sending it, like the Trojan horse, as a gift to the enemy army. Once they were asleep, Macbeth was able to kill them easily. Presumably from this incident, Shakespeare derived his idea of having Lady Macbeth administer a sleeping potion to the guards of King Duncan's chamber.

   In Holinshed's account, however, although it’s found that Macbeth's wife is ambitious to become queen, Lady Macbeth does not feature as an accomplice. Instead, Banquo joins forces with Macbeth in killing Duncan. As we shall see later, this particular confederacy of murderers presented Shakespeare with a problem.

   The play is especially remembered for Shakespeare's deft study of evil inhereted in the core of human mind. The evil is brought out through the devastating ambition and 'hubris' or inordinate pride of Macbeth and his wife. The famous soliloquies of Macbeth reveal his ambitions, and also his inner conflicts. Lady Macbeth is portrayed as a strong, ambitious and 'manly' woman who often taunts her husband for his lack of courage in making his mind to kill Duncan. The prophecies of the witches also impart in Macbeth a disastrous ambition to become the king of Scotland (the witches has been seen by many as the expression of Macbeth's hidden ambition). Macbeth didn't hesitate to kill his near and dear ones ruthlessly in order to fulfill his dream. All such devilish deeds along with the witches' machinations and an obcession with kingship make Macbeth abnormal. Lady Macbeth too can not tolerate the pace of bloody events. She loses her mind and finally commits suicide. Macbeth dies in the hand of Macduff. His boldness and impression of personal invincibility mark him out for a tragic fall.

   The play opens with Macbeth and Banquo, two of the Scottish King Duncan’s generals returning from battle when they encounter three witches in the woods. The witches tell Macbeth of how he will become the Thane of Cawdor and then the King of Scotland. For Banquo, they prophesize that he will beget the line of Scottish Kings, though he will never become king himself. The two are sufficiently skeptical and continue their journey home.

   However, when the two come closer to the encampment, they are presented with a messenger from King Duncan who announces that Macbeth has been made the Thane of Cawdor, immediately putting the prophecy into perspective, making Macbeth wonder how he might become king. He invites Duncan to dine at his castle that evening and goes ahead to tell his wife of the day’s events.

   Unlike Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is very sure of her husband’s future, desiring the throne and telling him that they must murder Duncan to ensure his ascension. Immediately upon returning to his castle, Lady Macbeth is able to convince her husband to take initiative and murder Duncan that very night.

   The two plan to get Duncan’s chamberlains drunk enough that they will not remember the evening and blame them for the murder. When the body of Duncan is discovered in the morning, Macbeth quickly kills the “culprits” and assumes the kingship. All the while, Duncan’s sons flee the country, afraid for their own lives.

   Immediately, Macbeth’s misgivings and trust in the prophecies force his hand in the murder of Banquo and his son Fleance as well, afraid that his heirs will seize the throne. Successfully killing Banquo, the murderers fail to kill Fleance.

   The night of his murder, Banquo’s ghost appears to Macbeth and sends him into hysteria, scaring his guests and angering his wife. His very presence as the king of Scotland has angered the other nobles and further incites Macbeth’s misgivings and paranoia.

   To ease his fears, he visits the witches again and they offer to him more prophecies. He must beware of Macduff, a chief opponent to Macbeth taking the throne. He cannot be harmed by any man born of woman and he is safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Castle. He returns home and finds that Macduff has fled to England to join Malcom. In fear, Macbeth seizes Macduff’s castle and orders the murder of his wife and children, inciting Macduff to further rage. With Malcom, the two raise an army and ride to Scotland to take on Macbeth with the support of the Scottish nobles who fear Macbeth’s tyranny and murderous ways.

   While Macbeth awaits his opponents, Lady Macbeth is in the process of going mad, unable to wash the blood from her hands. The news of her suicide reaches Macbeth directly before the arrival of the English forces and sends him into an even deeper despair. He awaits confidently as the prophecy foretold his invulnerability. However, Macduff’s forces arrive under the cover of boughs cut from Birnam wood. When Macbeth is finally confronted by Macduff after his forces have been overwhelmed, Macduff announces that he was “ripped from his mother’s womb” not born and ultimately defeats and beheads Macbeth, handing the crown back to Malcolm, the rightful heir.

N.B. - Read the popular No Fear Shakespeare edition of 'Macbeth' which puts Shakespeare's language side-by-side with a facing-page translation into modern English. Click here!

Reading 'ARMS AND THE MAN' (G. B. Shaw), Part-II

Questions & Answers:

1. What are the two main themes of ‘Arms and the Man’?

Shaw’s play ‘Arms and the Man’ takes as its main themes war and marriage both of which are two major institutions of civilization from its early dawn. Shaw believes that in modern world while war is evil and stupid, marriage desirable and good. But both of them are wrapped in romantic illusions which cause disastrous wars and unhappy marriages. This play of Shaw in an attempt to expose the false romantic notions associated with war and love, and to bring out reality.

2. What is the ‘romantic view of war’ and how is it revealed in ‘Arms and the Man’?

Bernard Shaw, being a stern realist, exposes the romantic illusions associated with war in his play ‘Arms and the Man’. According to him, the romantic view of war is that men fight because they are heroes, and that the soldier who takes biggest risks wins the greatest glory. 

Raina Petkoff, the romantic girl, takes pride in the thought of marrying the ornamental soldier, Major Sergius who valorously leads a cavalry charge towards victory. Raina rejoices at the news of his victory, without knowing the real situation, and adoring his portrait murmurs, “My hero! My hero!” This is a romantic girl’s romantic view of war.

3. “It is not the weapon of a gentleman.” –Who says this and why?

The quoted line from Shaw’s play ‘Arms and the Man’ is said by Raina Petkoff to the fugitive soldier, Bluntschli. 

Bluntschli, who takes shelter in Raina’s chamber, takes the aid of Raina’s cloak to escape from the hands of pursuing Bulgarian soldiers because he knows that she would not allow them to enter into her chamber while she is in her night-dress. This cowardly behaviour of a soldier makes Raina surprised, and so, she utters these words. 

4. What does Raina want to convey by expressing her fondness of reading Byron and Pushkin? 

Raina is a young lady who looks at life and society through the prism of romanticism. Raina is exalted at the news of her fiancé, Major Sergius’ victory in the Bulgaria-Serbia war. She tells her mother, Catherine, that Sergius and his ideas have been coloured. Raina says this because she is profoundly influenced by the works of Byron and Pushkin whose poems are vibrant with adventures and romanticism.

5. “And there was Don Quixote flourishing like a dream thinking that he’d done the cleverest thing ever known.” –Who is Don Quixote? Who is compared to him and why?

Don Quixote is the hero of the sixteenth-century Spanish novel, ‘The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha’ by Miguel de Cervantes. He is a romantic adventurer, and he is so overcome by romantic illusions that he attacks the sails of windmills considering them to be evil spirits. 

In Shaw’s play ‘Arms and the Man’ Major Sergius of Bulgarian army is compared to Don Quixote. Bluntschli, the man with a rational view of life, draws this comparison because Sergius, the romantic hero, led a Cavalry Charge against a battery of machine guns which were without ammunition, and hence, as innocuous as windmills. 

6. “From Raina, to her Chocolate Cream Soldier a souvenir!” –Who is Chocolate Cream Soldier? Why is he so called?

Bluntschli, the deserter hero of Shaw’s play ‘Arms and the Man’ is nicknamed as ‘Chocolate Cream Soldier’ by Raina Petkoff.

Pursued by enemy Bulgarian soldiers Bluntschli entered into the Bed-chamber of Raina at midnight. When Raina was afraid of his gun, he said that it is not loaded because he used to take chocolates to the battle-field instead of cartridges. Although Raina scoffed at his cowardice, her maternal instinct saved his life from the pursuers and gave him some chocolates to eat. Raina thought that Bluntschli was not a real soldier, but a mere Chocolate Cream Soldier who needed to be nurtured as a child.

7. Discuss the source of the title of the play ‘Arms and the Man’?

Barnard Shaw borrowed the title of his play ‘Arms and the Man’ from Dryden’s translation of the opening words of Virgil’s famous epic, ‘The Aeneid’: “Arms and the Man I sing” (‘Arma Viramque Cano’). Virgil celebrated the glory of war and the valour of the warriors in his epic, but Shaw caricatures war in his play. He explores that after the lapse of about three hundred years from the time of Virgil, in a world dominated by machines soldiers have no room to show their heroism.

8. Relate the difference between Nicola and Louka.

Nicola and Louka are both servants in the house of Petkoff in the play ‘Arms and the Man’, but they are poles apart from each other. While Nicola is loyal, faithful, humble and practical, Louca is witty, ambitious, proud and dishonest. Louka has no loyalty to her employers for she discloses Raina’s secret to Sergius, and flirts with him. She often rebukes Nicola saying that he has the heart of a servant. 

9. Point out the difference between Bluntschli and Sergius.

Bernard Shaw in his play ‘Arms and the Man’ sets the mercenary soldier Bluntschli against the romantic soldier Sergius. While Bluntschli is practical, straightforward and frank, Sergius is artificial, dubious and mechanical. Bluntschli flees the battlefield because he had no ammunition, but Sergius, engulfed in romantic illusions, leads the Cavalry Charge against a battery of machine guns to show his courage. Again, Sergius shows ‘higher love’ to Raina free from carnal desires, but flirts with the maid-servant Louka secretly. But Bluntschli expresses his love for Raina only when Sergius withdraws himself as her suitor and he is told that Raina is a mature lady of 23. Bluntschli’s superiority to Sergius in intelligence is shown when he solves the problem of the regiments while Sergius remains perplexed. 

10. Relate Shaw’s attitude towards love as depicted in ‘Arms and the Man’.

Shaw believed that “love is not a romance but a reality”. In ‘Arms and the Man’ he tries to establish the fact. Sergius and Raina talk about ‘higher love’ free from carnal desires, but Sergius’ airy romance for Raina vanishes when he flirts with Louka because of the latter’s rationality. Reality also prevails over the romantic disposition of Raina when she meets the highly practical, Bluntschli.

11. What, according to Bluntschli, is the difference between an old and a new soldier?

Bluntschli is a highly practical man who opines that old and new soldiers can be recognized from the contents of their pistols. New soldiers are enthusiastic and hence, they carry cartridges along with their pistols, but the old soldiers carry food and chocolates because from their experience they learn the importance of food in the battlefield. 

12. How does Raina define ‘higher love’? How does Sergius reciprocate?

Raina is a romantic girl with a romantic view of life who defines ‘higher love’ as a condition of the mind of a person when he or she could do nothing base or even think so. According to her, Sergius and she have established the ‘higher love’.

Sergius reciprocates this ‘higher love’ by saying that Raina has inspired him in everything. He has gone through the war “like a knight in a tournament with his lady looking down at him”. But in reality he soon gets tired of this airy romance and starts flirting with the maid-servant, Louka.

13. What was the effect of Sergius’ winning the battle and the Russian officers’ losing the same?

Sergius won the battle in a wrong way. He led the Cavalry Charge against the battery of machine guns to show his heroism. Therefore, he was not promoted and the disillusioned Sergius resigned. The Russian generals, on the other hand, had their all regiment routed but since they followed the correct principle of scientific warfare they were promoted. 

14. What is Sergius’ opinion about soldiering and the secret of successful fighting?

Sergius had a romantic view about war who led his Cavalry Charge against a battery of machine guns. Although he won victory since the enemy had no ammunition Sergius was not promoted because he followed wrong method. He was so disgusted that he had sent his resignation, saying: “Soldiering…is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are strong”. 

15. Comment on the role of Raina’s photograph. 

Raina put her photograph in the pocket of her father’s coat as a souvenir and offered the coat to Bluntschli so that he can take his journey safely in disguise. When he returned the coat and the photograph was about to fall in the hand of her father, Raina skillfully takes it out by helping her father to put on the coat. She placed it before Bluntschli who cleverly covered it with paper before the eyes of Sergius. This hide and seek indicates Raina’s dawning love for Bluntschli.

16. Who is the Swiss officer who humbugged Petkoff and Sergius, and how?

The Swiss officer is Captain Bluntschli who fought for the Serbs against the Bulgarians and fled from the battlefield and took refuge in Raina’s bedroom. 

He humbugged Major Petkoff and Major Sergius (Raina’s father and her fiancé respectively) of Bulgarian army by a negotiation with the exchange of two hundred worn-out heroes for fifty able-bodied soldiers. Petkoff suffers from a sense of great defeat as he felt that the horses he received were “not even eatable”.

17. “What a man! Is he a man?” –What is the significance of the line?

Bernard Shaw’s play ‘Arms and the Man’ concludes with these words of Sergius which refer to Bluntschli. Bluntschli is the true mouthpiece of Shaw in whom he combines practical wit, unorthodoxy, humour and self-awareness. Shaw directs his crusade against romantic illusions associated with human life, especially with war and love, through the activities of Bluntschli. Sergius who is but a vain man is so surprises by the genius of Bluntschli that he utters such words. 

18. How does Shaw show the master-servant relationship in ‘Arms and the Man’?

Shaw is a dispassionate analyst who believed that servants are born into poor class and that they must work for the rich in order to survive, but they should not consider themselves inferior. In ‘Arms and the Man’ while Nicola accepts humble subjugation to his work with the hope that his master will help him in the future, Louka is intelligent, ambitious and haughty. Louka often asserts her human rights, does not hesitate even to disgrace her mistress for the sake of her own advantage. She scolds Nicola by saying that he has the heart of a servant. 

19. Why does Louka say that she is not ashamed of eavesdropping?

Louka, the maid-servant of the Petkoffs eavesdrops when a conversation was going on between Sergius, Raina and Bluntschli. She is caught red-handed by Sergius who drags her in and asks Bluntschli to judge her. Bluntschli refuses it to say that Sergius himself was once caught eavesdropping outside a tent when there was a mutiny brewing, and his life was at stake. Taking the opportunity Louka replied that her love for Sergius is at stake and hence, she is not ashamed of eavesdropping. 

20. How far is ‘Arms and the Man’ an anti-romantic comedy?

In ‘Arms and the Man’ Bernard Shaw directs his crusade against the romantic illusions associated with war and marriage. He demolishes the romantic notion that war is a romantic game fought by heroes, and that marriage is the union of a handsome man and a beautiful woman in lifelong companionship. While on the one hand he shows that in a world dominated by machines man has nothing to show his ‘heroism’ in war, on the other he shows how ‘higher love’ or worshipping one’s beloved soon becomes fatiguing. It is through the sudden arrival of Bluntschli into the life of Raina, the romantic girl, whose romantic world is shattered by the rationalist Bluntschli, that Shaw establishes his notion. The play may well be said to be an anti-romantic comedy. 

Reading 'ARMS AND THE MAN' (G. B. Shaw), Part-I

Introduction:

One of Shaw's aims in this play is to debunk the romantic heroics of war; he wanted to present a realistic account of war and to remove all pretensions of nobility from war. It is not, however, an anti-war play; instead, it is a satire on those attitudes which would glorify war. To create this satire, Shaw chose as his title the opening lines of Virgil's Aeneid, the Roman epic which glorifies war and the heroic feats of man in war, and which begins, "Of arms and the man I sing. . . ."

When the play opens, we hear about the glorious exploits which were performed by Major Sergius Saranoff during his daring and magnificent cavalry raid, an event that turned the war against the Serbs toward victory for the Bulgarians. He thus becomes Raina Petkoff's ideal hero; yet the more that we learn about this raid, the more we realize that it was a futile, ridiculous gesture, one that bordered on an utter suicidal escapade.

In contrast, Captain Bluntschli's actions in Raina's bedroom strike us, at first, as being the actions of a coward. (Bluntschli is a Swiss, a professional soldier fighting for the Serbs.) He climbs up a water pipe and onto a balcony to escape capture, he threatens a defenseless woman with his gun, he allows her to hide him behind the curtains, and then he reveals that he carries chocolates rather than cartridges in his cartridge box because chocolates are more practical on the battlefield. Yet, as the play progresses, Bluntschli's unheroic actions become reasonable when we see that he survives, whereas had the war continued, Sergius' absurd heroic exploits would soon have left him dead.

Throughout the play, Shaw arranged his material so as to satirize the glories associated with war and to ultimately suggest that aristocratic pretensions have no place in today's wars, which are won by using business-like efficiency, such as the practical matters of which Bluntschli is a master. For example, Bluntschli is able to deal with the business of dispensing an army to another town with ease, while this was a feat that left the aristocrats (Majors Petkoff and Saranoff) completely baffled. This early play by Shaw, therefore, cuts through the noble ideals of war and the "higher love" that Raina and Sergius claim to share; Arms and the Man presents a world where the practical man who lives with no illusions and no poetic views about either love or war is shown to be the superior creature.

The play begins in the bedroom of Raina Petkoff in a Bulgarian town in 1885, during the Serbo-Bulgarian War. As the play opens, Catherine Petkoff and her daughter, Raina, have just heard that the Bulgarians have scored a tremendous victory in a cavalry charge led by Raina's fiancé, Major Sergius Saranoff, who is in the same regiment as Raina's father, Major Paul Petkoff. Raina is so impressed with the noble deeds of her fiancé that she fears that she might never be able to live up to his nobility. At this very moment, the maid, Louka, rushes in with the news that the Serbs are being chased through the streets and that it is necessary to lock up the house and all of the windows. Raina promises to do so later, and Louka leaves. But as Raina is reading in bed, shots are heard, there is a noise at the balcony window, and a bedraggled enemy soldier with a gun appears and threatens to kill her if she makes a sound. After the soldier and Raina exchange some words, Louka calls from outside the door; she says that several soldiers want to search the house and investigate a report that an enemy Serbian soldier was seen climbing her balcony. When Raina hears the news, she turns to the soldier. He says that he is prepared to die, but he certainly plans to kill a few Bulgarian soldiers in her bedroom before he dies. Thus, Raina impetuously decides to hide him. The soldiers investigate, find no one, and leave. Raina then calls the man out from hiding; she nervously and absentmindedly sits on his gun, but she learns that it is not loaded; the soldier carries no cartridges. He explains that instead of carrying bullets, he always carries chocolates into battle. Furthermore, he is not an enemy; he is a Swiss, a professional soldier hired by Serbia. Raina gives him the last of her chocolate creams, which he devours, maintaining that she has indeed saved his life. Then he offends her by explaining how unprofessional the cavalry charge against the Serbians was, and if there had not been a stupid mistake on the part of the Serbs, the Bulgarians would have been massacred. Then the soldier says that the Bulgarian "hero," the leader of the troops, acted "like an operatic tenor . . . shouting his war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills." He says that the fellow was the laughingstock of everyone present. Raina then takes the portrait of Sergius and shows it to the officer, who agrees that this was indeed the person who was "charging the windmills and imagining he was doing the finest thing." Angry at the derogatory remarks about her "heroic" betrothed, Raina orders the stranger to leave. But he balks; he says that whereas he could climb up the balcony, he simply can't face the descent. When Raina goes after her mother to help, the "chocolate cream soldier" crawls into Raina's bed and falls instantly asleep. In fact, when they re-enter, he is sleeping so soundly that they cannot awaken him.

Act II begins four months later in the garden of Major Petkoff's house. The middle-aged servant Nicola is lecturing Louka on the importance of having proper respect for the upper class, but Louka has too independent a soul to ever be a "proper" servant. She has higher plans for herself than to marry someone like Nicola, who, she insists, has the "soul of a servant." Major Petkoff arrives home from the war, and his wife Catherine greets him with two bits of information: she suggests that Bulgaria should have annexed Serbia, and she tells him that she has had an electric bell installed in the library. Major Sergius Saranoff, Raina's fiancé and leader of the successful cavalry charge, arrives, and in the course of discussing the end of the war, he and Major Petkoff recount the now-famous story of how a Swiss soldier escaped by climbing up a balcony and into the bedroom of a noble Bulgarian woman. The women are shocked that such a crude story would be told in front of them. When the Petkoffs go into the house, Raina and Sergius discuss their love for one another, and Raina romantically declares that the two of them have found a "higher love."

When Raina goes to get her hat so that they can go for a walk, Louka comes in, and Sergius asks if she knows how tiring it is to be involved with a "higher love." Then he immediately tries to embrace the attractive maid. Since he is being so blatantly familiar, Louka declares that Miss Raina is no better than she; Raina, she says, has been having an affair while Sergius was away, but she refuses to tell Sergius who Raina's lover is, even though Sergius accidently bruises Louka's arm while trying to wrest a confession from her. When he apologizes, Louka insists that he kiss her arm, but Sergius refuses and, at that moment, Raina re-enters. Sergius is then called away, and Catherine enters. The two ladies discuss how incensed they both are that Sergius related the tale about the escaping soldier. Raina, however, doesn't care if Sergius hears about it; she is tired of his stiff propriety. At that moment, Louka announces the presence of a Swiss officer with a carpetbag, calling for the lady of the house. His name is Captain Bluntschli. Instantly, they both know he is the "chocolate cream soldier" who is returning the Major's old coat that they disguised him in. As they make rapid, desperate plans to send him away, Major Petkoff hails Bluntschli and greets him warmly as the person who aided them in the final negotiations of the war; the old Major insists that Bluntschli must their houseguest until he has to return to Switzerland.

Act III begins shortly after lunch and takes place in the library. Captain Bluntschli is attending to a large amount of confusing paperwork in a very efficient manner, while Sergius and Major Petkoff merely observe. Major Petkoff complains about a favorite old coat being lost, but at that moment Catherine rings the new library bell, sends Nicola after the coat, and astounds the Major by thus retrieving his lost coat. When Raina and Bluntschli are left alone, she compliments him on his looking so handsome now that he is washed and brushed. Then she assumes a high and noble tone and chides him concerning certain stories which he has told and the fact that she has had to lie for him. Bluntschli laughs at her "noble attitude" and says that he is pleased with her demeanor. Raina is amused; she says that Bluntschli is the first person to ever see through her pretensions, but she is perplexed that he didn't feel into the pockets of the old coat which she lent him; she had placed a photo of herself there with the inscription "To my Chocolate Cream Soldier." At this moment, a telegram is brought to Bluntschli relating the death of his father and the necessity of his coming home immediately to make arrangements for the six hotels that he has inherited. As Raina and Bluntschli leave the room, Louka comes in wearing her sleeve in a ridiculous fashion so that her bruise will be obvious. Sergius enters and asks if he can cure it now with a kiss. Louka questions his true bravery; she wonders if he has the courage to marry a woman who is socially beneath him, even if he loved the woman. Sergius asserts that he would, but he is now engaged to a girl so noble that all such talk is absurd. Louka then lets him know that Bluntschli is his rival and that Raina will marry the Swiss soldier. Sergius is incensed. He sees Bluntschli and immediately challenges him to a duel; then he retracts when Raina comes in and accuses him of making love to Louka merely to spy on her and Bluntschli. As they are arguing, Bluntschli asks for Louka, who has been eavesdropping at the door. She is brought in. She says that she is not ashamed and that her love is at stake and that her feelings for Sergius are stronger than Raina's feelings for the "chocolate cream soldier."

At this point, Major Petkoff enters in short sleeves; when Nicola enters with Petkoff's old coat, Raina helps him on with the coat and deftly removes the inscribed portrait from the coat pocket. Thus, when her father reaches for the photograph to ask Raina the meaning of a photograph of her with the inscription: "Raina, to her Chocolate Cream Soldier: A Souvenir," the photo is missing! Major Petkoff is confused and asks Sergius if he is the person; he responds indignantly that he is not. Then Bluntschli explains that he is the "chocolate cream soldier" and that Raina saved his life. Petkoff is further confused when Raina points out that Louka is the true object of Sergius' affections, despite the fact that Louka is engaged to Nicola. Suddenly Louka feels as though she is being bartered, and she demands an apology; when Sergius kisses her hand in apology, she reminds him that his touch now makes her his "affianced wife", and thus they become engaged. Bluntschli asks permission to become a suitor for Raina's hand, and when he lists all of the possessions which he has (200 horses, 9600 pairs of sheets, ten thousand knives and forks, etc.), permission for the marriage is granted, and Bluntschli says that he will return in two weeks to marry Raina. Succumbing with pleasure, Raina gives a loving smile to her "chocolate cream soldier."

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.