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BEG-7

20th Century British literature

Block-4

British Novel: J.M. Synge’s, Ryers to The Sea

Unit 1 About J.M Synge

Unit 2 Full Text of The One Act Play

BLOCK 4 BRITISH NOVEL: J.M. SYNGE’S, RYERS

TO THE SEA

BLOCK OBJECTIVE

The following block is going to help you learn about J.M. Synge and one of his master

pieces ‘Ryders to the Sea’. This is a one act play that supposedly has some super-natural

assumptions attached to it. Synge has written it in a pure yet naïve form for the readers

to understand it better.

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UNIT 1: ABOUT J.M SYNGE

Structure

1.1 Objective

1.2 Introduction

1.3 About the Author

1.4 Synge and Yeats

1.5 Introduction to The Riders To The Sea

1.6 Check Your Progress

1.7 Let Us Sum Up

1.1 OBJECTIVE

After going through the text, you will be able to:

Know about J M Synge, his life and works

Learn about his one act play.

Learn about the themes of the play.

1.2 INTRODUCTION

Synge was a key figure in the Irish national theatre movement. When the Abbey

Theatre opened in 1904, Synge was to be one of its founding directors together with

Yeats and Yeats‘s close friend and collaborator Lady Gregory. In fact, as he was the

only one of the three directors who actually lived in Dublin – with his mother, having

given up his flat in Paris – he often had most to do with the day to day running of the

theatre. He was very friendly with W.G. and Frank Fay, the two brothers who led the

acting company; he fell in love and became engaged to the young actor Molly Algood,

who used the stage name of Maire O‘Neill. While Yeats and Gregory had been

instrumental in conceiving and establishing the national theatre movement, Synge was

the first major practicing playwright the movement produced. Along with the

development of the nationalistic prose-drama or the drama of ideas, the revival of

poetic drama also took place. In the beginning of the twelfth century despite the

efforts of the major Victorian poets, there is no tradition of poetic drama. By 1920

there is sign of a rebirth, but the atmosphere in which realistic, naturalistic drama

throve is uncongenial to poetic drama. At the Abbey theatre for years had been

attempted to revive poetry on the stage but lacked the essential qualities of the

dramatist. W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot defended poetic plays and waged on war against

realistic prose drama of the modern age.

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The Irish movement, also known as the Celtic Revival began a new brand in Modern

drama. This movement was essentially national in character and concentrated on Irish

themes and ideas. Irish drama was not intended to expose the cause of realism or

naturalism. Its aim is to bring back to drama the mythology, legends and symbols of

Irish life. ―The imaginative idealism which has always characterized the Celtic race,

the love of passionate and dreamy poetry which has exercised a fascination on the

Irish mind, the belief in the fairy world which Irish people have cherished is presented

in the plays produced at the Abbey Theatre. The object of the Irish dramatist is not to

make people think, but to make them feel; to give the audience an emotional and

spiritual uplifting such as they might experience at mass in a cathedral or at the

performance of a symphon( Castle 51). The Celtic revival in Ireland is a deliberate

attempt by a group of Irishmen to give Dublin a national theatre. Ireland has provided

them with stuff for their art. It is same as they have colors but not the paper to draw

their thoughts. Although they believe that they are glorifying the Irish past. The Irish

Literary Revival, also nicknamed as the ‗Celtic Twilight included Irish writers like

William Butler Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory, George William Russell, John

Millington Synge and Edward Martyn to stimulate a new appreciation of traditional

Irish literature and Irish poetry. The Irish Celtic Revival Movement encouraged the

creation of works written in the spirit of Irish culture, as distinct from English culture.

This was due to the political need for establishing an individual Irish identity. This

difference was kept alive by invoking Ireland‘s historic past, its myths, legends and

folklore. There was an attempt to revitalize the native language and religion of Irish

Celts.

1.3 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Millington Synge (April 16, 1871 – March 24, 1909) was an Irish dramatist,

poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary

Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre. He is best known for the

play The Playboy of the Western World, which caused riots in Dublin during its

opening run at the Abbey. SYNGE, JOHN MILLINGTON (1871–1909), Irish

dramatist, born at Newtown Little, near Rathfarnham (a suburban village adjoining

Dublin), on 16 April 1871 was youngest child (in a family of one daughter and four

sons) of John Hatch Synge, barrister-at-law, by his wife Kathleen, daughter of the

Rev. Robert Traill, D.D. (d. 1847), of Schull, county Cork, translator of Josephus.

His father dying when he was a year old, his mother moved nearer Dublin to Orwell

Park, Rathgar, which was his home until 1890, when he removed with his mother and

brother to 31 Crosthwaite Park, Kingstown, which was his family home until shortly

before his death.

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After attending private schools, first in Dublin and then at Bray, he studied with a

tutor between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. The main interest of his boyhood

was an intimate study of nature. 'He knew the note and plumage of every bird, and

when and where they were to be found.' In youth he joined the Dublin Naturalists

Field Club, and later took up music, becoming a proficient player of the piano, the

flute, and the violin. His summer vacations were spent at Annamoe, co. Wicklow,

among the strange people of the glens.

On 18 June 1888 he entered Trinity 'College, Dublin, as a pensioner, his college tutor

being Dr. Traill (now provost). He passed his little go in Michaelmas term, 1890 (3rd

class), obtained prizes in Hebrew and in Irish in Trinity term, 1892, and graduated

B.A. with a second class in the pass-examination in December 1892. His name went

off the college books six months later (3 June 1893).

While at Trinity he studied music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he

obtained a scholarship in harmony and counterpoint in 1891. On leaving college he

thought of music as a profession, and went to Germany to study that art and to learn

the German language. He first visited Coblentz, and (in the spring of 1894) Würzburg.

Before the end of 1894 he altered his plans, and, deciding to devote himself to literary

work, settled by way of preparation as a student in Paris in January 1895. For the next

few years his time was generally divided between France and Ireland, but in 1896 he

stayed in Italy long enough to learn Italian. He had a natural gift for languages, and

during these years he read much. From 1897 he wrote much tentative work, both prose

and verse, in French and English, and contemplated writing a critical study of Racine

and a translation from the Italian (either the ’Little Flowers,' or the 'Companions of St.

Francis of Assisi'). In May 1898 he first visited the Aran Islands.

In 1899, when he was living at the Hôtel Corneille (Rue Corneille), near the Odéon

theatre, in Paris, Synge was introduced to Mr. W. B. Yeats, one of the founders and

the chief inspiration of the Irish Literary Movement. Mr. Yeats suggested that Synge

should give up writing criticism either in French or English and go again to the Aran

Islands off Galway, or some other primitive place, to study and write about a way of

life not yet expressed in literature. But for this meeting it is likely that Synge would

never have discovered a form in which he could express himself; his mind would have

continued to brood without vitality upon questions of literary criticism. As a result of

this meeting, Synge went again to the Aran Islands (September 1899); the visit was

repeated in the autumns of 1900, 1901, and 1902. He lived among the islanders as one

of themselves, and was much loved by them; his natural genius for companionship

made him always a welcome guest. He took with him his fiddle, his conjuring tricks,

his camera and penny whistle, and feared that 'they would get tired of him, if he

brought them nothing new.'

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During his second stay he began a book on the Aran Islands, which was slowly

completed in France, Ireland, and London, and published in April 1907, with

illustrations by Mr. Jack B. Yeats.

Meanwhile he wrote two plays, 'The Shadow of the Glen ' and the 'Riders to the Sea,'

both founded on stories heard in Aran, and both finished, but for slight changes, by the

winter of 1902-3. 'The Shadow of the Glen' was performed at the Molesworth Hall,

Dublin, on 8 Oct. 1903. 'Riders to the Sea' was performed at the same place on 25 Feb.

1904. They were published in a single volume in May 1905. 'Riders to the Sea' is the

deepest and the tenderest of his plays. 'The Shadow of the Glen' is the first example of

the kind of tragically hearted farce which is Synge's main contribution to the theatre.

Of two other tragic farces of the same period, 'The Tinker's Wedding' (the first drama

conceived by him), was begun in 1902, but not finished till 1906, and only published

late in 1907; the more beautiful and moving 'The Well of the Saints' was written in

1903-4. 'The Tinker's Wedding,' the only play by Synge not publicly acted in Ireland,

was produced after his death at His Majesty's Theatre, by the Afternoon Theatre, on

11 Nov. 1909.

In the winter of 1902-3 Synge lived for a few months in London (4 Handel

Street, W.C.). Afterwards he gave up his lodging in Paris (90 Rue d'Assas), and

thenceforth passed much time either in or near Dublin. or in the wilds of Wicklow and

Kerry, the Blasket Islands, and the lonely places by Dingle Bay. There he found the

material for the occasional papers 'In Wicklow' and 'In West Kerry,' published partly,

from time to time, in the 'Manchester Guardian' and the 'Shanachie,' and reprinted in

the fourth volume of the 'Works.' From 3 June till 2 July 1905 he made a tour with Mr.

Jack B. Yeats through the congested districts of Connemara. Some descriptions of the

journey, with illustrations by Mr. Jack B. Yeats, were contributed to the 'Manchester

Guardian.' Twelve of the papers are re-printed in the fourth volume of the 'Works.'

The Abbey Theatre was opened in Dublin 27 Dec. 1904, and Synge became one of its

three literary advisers, helping to direct its destinies until his death. There on 4 Feb.

1905 was first performed 'The Well of the Saints' (published in December following).

There, too, was first acted (26 Jan. 1907) 'The Playboy of the Western World,' written

in 1905-6. This piece excited the uproar and confusion with which the new thing is

usually received, but was subsequently greeted with tumultuous applause both in

Dublin and by the most cultured audience in England.

During his last years Synge lived almost wholly in Ireland, mostly in Dublin. His

health, never very robust, was beginning to trouble him. His last months of life, 1908-

9, were spent in writing and rewriting the unfinished three-act play 'Deirdre of the

Sorrows,' which was posthumously published at Miss Yeats's Cuala Press, on 5 July

1910, and was acted at the Abbey Theatre on 13 Jan. 1910. He also worked at

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translations from Villon and Petrarch, wrote some of the strange ironical poems, so

like the man speaking, which were published by the Cuala Press just after his death,

and finished the study 'Under Ether,' published in the fourth volume of the 'Works.' He

died unmarried at a private nursing home in Dublin on 24 March 1909. He was buried

in a family tomb at the protestant Mount Jerome general graveyard at Harold's Cross,

Dublin. His 'Poems and Translations'—the poems written at odd times between 1891

and 1908, but most of them towards the end of his life—was published on 5 June 1909

by the Cuala Press.

Synge stood about five feet eight or nine inches high. He was neither weakly nor

robustly made. He was dark (not blackhaired), with heavy moustache, and small

goatee on lower lip, otherwise clean-shaven. His hair was worn rather long; his face

was pale, drawn, seamed, and old-looking. The eyes were at once smoky, and

kindling; the mouth had a great play of humour on it. His voice was very guttural and

quick, and lively with a strange vitality. His manner was generally reserved, grave,

courteous; he talked little; but had a bright malice of fun always ready. He gave little

in conversation; for much of his talk, though often wise with the criticism seen in his

prefaces, was only a reflection of things he had seen, and of phrases, striking and full

of colour, overheard by him at sea or on shore; but there was a charm about him which

all felt.

He brought into Irish literature the gifts of detachment from topic and a wild vitality of

tragedy. The ironical laughter of his comedy is always most mocking when it covers a

tragic intention. He died when his powers were only beginning to show themselves.

As revelations of himself, his poems and one or two of the sketches are his best works;

as ironic visions of himself, 'The Playboy,' 'The Shadow of the Glen,' and 'The

Tinker's Wedding' are his best; but in 'The Well of the Saints,' in 'Riders to the Sea,' in

the book on Aran, in the heart-breaking lyric about the birds, and in the play of

Deirdre, he touches with a rare sensitiveness on something elemental. Like all men of

genius he awakened animosity in those anxious to preserve old standards or fearful of

setting up new ones.

Among the most important portraits (other than photographs) are: 1. An oil painting

by Mr. J. B. Yeats, R.H.A., now in the Municipal Gallery in Dublin. 2. A drawing by

Mr. J. B. Yeats, R.H.A. (the best likeness), reproduced in the 'Samhain' for December

1904. 3. A drawing by Mr. J. B. Yeats, R.H.A., 'Synge at Rehearsal,' reproduced as a

frontispiece to 'The Playboy of the Western World,' and to the 'Works,' vol. ii. 4. A

drawing by Mr. James Paterson (the frontispiece to the 'Works,' vol. iv.).

'The Works of John M. Synge' (4 vols. 1910), with four portraits (two from

photographs), contain all the published books and plays, and all the miscellaneous

papers which his literary executors thought worthy of inclusion. Much unpublished

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material remains in their hands, and a few papers contributed to the ’Speaker' during

1904-5 and to the 'Manchester Guardian' during 1905-6-7-8, and an early article

in 'L'Européen' (Paris, 15 March 1902) on 'La Vieille Littérature Irlandaise,' have not

been reprinted.

1.4 SYNGE AND YEATS

Yeats was attending meetings of Irish League of the nationalist movement for freedom

and Synge was travelling Germany and France still in search for his true vocation. He

had thought that he should travel to Germany for the Germans naturally excelled in

music and had produced great musicians and he had won a scholarship from Royal

Academy of Music, Dublin. After having realized that, he could not attain the kind of

excellence in music to make a mark or even earn a living by it, he came to Paris. Here

he wrote some criticism of drama and poetry; he also did some translating work and

taught English at the University. It was here that he met Yeats and he said to him to

give up Paris and go to Aran Islands. So he made several visits to Aran Islands besides

travelling the length and breadth of the country doing exactly what Yeats had

suggested to him. All the major plays by J.M. Synge have at least one such factor in

them which triggered the Irish national consciousness in the past. Synge‘s plays from

their very beginning played a pivotal role in building up the traditional, cultural and

religious consciousness among Irish audience. The writers of the Irish Revival

including W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge aimed at being reacquainted with the Irish

people relating their lost culture. They tried to restore their national unity through

literature through themes borrowed from Irish Folklore and the ancient heroic stories.

Through history Synge learnt the loss of his land and his successors understood the

Irish psyche through his dramas—their desire for their lost land. Synge always dreamt

of New Ireland and this vision is reflected in his plays. Synge portrayed mostly those

incidents in his plays which strongly present influences of the Celtic mythology and

folklore to revive the glory of the ancient Irish Celts, their beliefs and ritualistic

practices. As far as the major characters of Synge‘s plays are concerned, one may

notice that though all of them belong to the rural peasant class or group‘of Ireland, yet

their behavioural patterns are not stereotypical. They turn into different personalities

by the end of each play and exude a non-traditional aspect of their identity which is, in

a way, ‗modern.‘ Even in Synge‘s Riders to the Sea, Maurya, in the end, does not

remain a stereotyped rural woman who keeps on crying for the death of her only

surviving son. Instead, she turns into a woman displaying courage, fortitude and an

understanding of the realities of life when she says, ―No man at all can be living

forever, and we must be satisfied (Synge, Collected Plays 50. InThe Well of the

Saintstoo, Martin and Mary Doul transform from the simple rustic beggars to the

people who exist‘and enjoy a right to decide their own ways to lead life. They dare to

deny the saint and throw away the can of holy water before his eyes. The Tinker’s

Wedding also, serves as an example when we see that all the characters move far

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beyond their set roles and not only beat the all powerful priest but also tie him in a

sack. Synge‘s characters do come out the four walls of the set social roles and norms,

but there are certain situations which compel them to behave in this way. This was

unbearable for the people watching his plays‘performance especially the case of Nora

Burke in Shadow of the Glen and ChristyMahon in The Playboy of the Western

World. Nora chose to live with a tramp seeking separation from her husband while

Christy ‗killed‘ his father to avoid his tyranny. The trouble broke out on the very first

show of the play. The audience turned violent and disrupted the show by cat-calls and

hissing. The next night witnessed a riot pre-planned by those who did not like the

play. Police protection is sought but the chaos continued. In support of the play W.B.

Yeats organized a debate in the theatre and engaged himself in a spirited discussion to

fight back the allegation against the play. Even Arthur Griffith‘s United Irishman, the

New York Gaelic American and societies like Clanna-Gael lashed out for the play

being, as they found, politically offensive. They are of the opinion that the play hurt

the touchy sensibilities of an aggrieved nation. The play continued to raise storm even

after the death of Synge in 1909. The Playboy of the Western World shows Synge‘s

dramatic power at its peak. The exotic appeal of Synge‘s work can scarcely be

exaggerated; and it is another aspect of his romantic and lyrical character. Synge

himself experienced the language and life he found in the Aran Islands as something

rare and strange, beautiful because it was unsophisticated, remote and elemental. It

awoke the artist in him, as Paris had not been able to do, because he was a romantic.

And in this Synge is the pure artist, without any admixture of the political intentions

that have always to be reckoned with in Yeats and other adherents of the Celtic

Renaissance. The direct sensuous consciousness of a patently picturesque speech and

way of thinking is the inspiration of this play; and the point gains in importance when

we consider that this is his, most ambitious work. The basis of the comic here is a

delicate and capricious mockery at the very idea of fine language, closely related as it

is to fine ideas. Synge plays in this comedy with his own discovery. Through his

mock-hero Christy Mahon he allows his instrument to elaborate its most splendid

ornaments. Some have been so entranced as to take it at its high face-value as sheer

poetry. W.B. Yeats suggested Synge to visit the Aran Islands to collect materials for

his literary works. He hoped that the language there, rich with folk imagination would

also fascinate Synge. When Synge began to draw his material from the Aran Islands

he had found, by one of those accidents of fortune which sometimes save genius from

extinction, the people who alone could stimulate his imagination and offer him

something on which this strange combination of dramatist and nature-mystic could

work. In his preface to the play he explicitly expresses his view on literature that all

art is a collaboration; and there is little doubt that in the happy ages of literature,

striking and beautiful phrase were as ready to the story-teller's or the playwright‘s

hand, as the rich cloaks and dresses of his time. It is interesting to minutely note the

following dialogue of Christy— I'd be happy as the sunshine of St. Martin's Day,

watching the light passing the north or the patches of fog, till I'd hear a rabbit starting

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to screech and I'd go running in the furze. Then, when I'd my full share, I'd come

walking down where you'd see the ducks and geese stretched sleeping on the highway

of the road.(32) This speech of Christy is steeped in poetic imagination. It is brilliant

for the colours, standing sharp and clear against each other and giving radiance each to

each, convey, no less than the rich and glorious images and rhythms of the talk, the

vitality and fertility which are the essence of the play. It is Synge‘s affinity of spirit

rather than conscious advocacy of the revival of ancient civilization of Ireland that

carries on the tradition of ancient Irish nature poetry. J.M. Synge follows the strange

life of the people who are brought up in the atmosphere quite different from the

sophisticated society. The Riders to the Sea, The Shadow of the Glen and The Playboy

of the Western World are the stories taken from this island. Pat Dinane, an old man

told Synge the story which later came as The Shadow of the Glen. Later, he had been

informed of a person who murdered his father in Connemara and fled to Inishmaan,

became the basis for his The Playboy of the Western World. Riders to the Sea is again

a play based on the true death of a young man, who was lamented and mourned by his

relatives. Sometimes imagination may have mingled with the reality but the result of it

has been always satisfactory and justified. Yeats attributed to Synge, ―the true Irish

heart- he lives in Aran, speaks Irish and knows the people.‖(57) Through history

Synge learnt the loss of his land and his successors understood the Irish psyche

through his dramas—their desire for their lost land. Synge always dreamt of New

Ireland and this vision is reflected in his plays. A towering contribution of Synge to

the Irish Dramatic tradition would be his idyllic scenes of simple, rustic and

unsophisticated folk in the unaltered originality of the countryside. Synge was very

much involved with the staging of his plays which gives us a glimpse of this particular

style in regard to the performance of his plays.

He created a non-English atmosphere in his plays with the help of chanting‘ style of

the actors while delivering dialogue. It can be said that he provided the old Celtic feel

through his plays by using Irish language and style. J. M. Synge, like many Irish

nationalists and literary figures of the time, took a deep interest in traditional Irish

folklore and in the peasants for whom it was still an integral part of everyday life.

Although not quite the mystic his friend W. B. Yeats was, Synge nevertheless felt a

deep connection between folklore and nature. Much of his time on the Aran Islands

was spent listening to storytellers and many of these tales went into his book The Aran

Islands, where they punctuated Synge‘s reflections on the routines and customs of the

people and the harsh natural environment of the islands. These stories also provided

the basic plotlines for several of his plays. Folklores can be followed on and off in

Synge‘s plays. Synge‘s characters are common peasants, fishermen, tramps, travelers

and rogues and their morality is left deliberately ambiguous. Synge sought to portray

the fishing community and peasant life of the Aran Islands in a realistic light. Synge

closely studied the local Hiberno-English dialect and faithfully reproduced it in the

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plays. All of Synge‘s major characters are modeled on people from the peasantry, the

real representatives of the Irish Celts who kept Irish mythical notions alive.

(https://zenodo.org/record/3374275#.XuvZhmgzbIU)

1.5 INTRODUCTION TO THE RIDERS TO THE SEA

It must have been on Synge's second visit to the Aran Islands that he had the

experience out of which was wrought what many believe to be his greatest play. The

scene of "Riders to the Sea" is laid in a cottage on Inishmaan, the middle and most

interesting island of the Aran group. While Synge was on Inishmaan, the story came

to him of a man whose body had been washed up on the far away coast of Donegal,

and who, by reason of certain peculiarities of dress, was suspected to be from the

island. In due course, he was recognised as a native of Inishmaan, in exactly the

manner described in the play, and perhaps one of the most poignantly vivid passages

in Synge's book on "The Aran Islands" relates the incident of his burial.

The other element in the story which Synge introduces into the play is equally true.

Many tales of "second sight" are to be heard among Celtic races. In fact, they are so

common as to arouse little or no wonder in the minds of the people. It is just such a

tale, which there seems no valid reason for doubting, that Synge heard, and that gave

the title, "Riders to the Sea", to his play.

It is the dramatist's high distinction that he has simply taken the materials which lay

ready to his hand, and by the power of sympathy woven them, with little modification,

into a tragedy which, for dramatic irony and noble pity, has no equal among its

contemporaries.

Great tragedy, it is frequently claimed with some show of justice, has perforce

departed with the advance of modern life and its complicated tangle of interests and

creature comforts. A highly developed civilisation, with its attendant specialisation of

culture, tends ever to lose sight of those elemental forces, those primal emotions,

naked to wind and sky, which are the stuff from which great drama is wrought by the

artist, but which, as it would seem, are rapidly departing from us.

It is only in the far places, where solitary communion may be had with the elements,

that this dynamic life is still to be found continuously, and it is accordingly thither that

the dramatist, who would deal with spiritual life disengaged from the environment of

an intellectual maze, must go for that experience which will beget in him inspiration

for his art.

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The Aran Islands from which Synge gained his inspiration are rapidly losing that

sense of isolation and self-dependence, which has hitherto been their rare distinction,

and which furnished the motivation for Synge's masterpiece. Whether or not Synge

finds a successor, it is none the less true that in English dramatic literature "Riders to

the Sea" has an historic value which it would be difficult to overestimate in its

accomplishment and its possibilities. A writer in The Manchester Guardian shortly

after Synge's death phrased it rightly when he wrote that it is "the tragic masterpiece

of our language in our time; wherever it has been played in Europe from Galway to

Prague, it has made the word tragedy mean something more profoundly stirring and

cleansing to the spirit than it did."

The secret of the play's power is its capacity for standing afar off, and mingling, if we

may say so, sympathy with relentlessness. There is a wonderful beauty of speech in

the words of every character, wherein the latent power of suggestion is almost

unlimited. "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." In the quavering rhythm of these words, there is poignantly

present that quality of strangeness and remoteness in beauty which, as we are coming

to realise, is the touchstone of Celtic literary art. However, the very asceticism of the

play has begotten a corresponding power which lifts Synge's work far out of the

current of the Irish literary revival, and sets it high in a timeless atmosphere of

universal action.

Its characters live—and die. It is their virtue in life to be lonely, and none but the

lonely man in tragedy may be great. He dies, and then it is the virtue in life of the

women—mothers and wives and sisters—to be great in their loneliness, great as

Maurya, the stricken mother, is great in her final word. "Michael has a clean burial in

the far north, by the grace of the Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of

the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man

at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied."

The pity and the terror of it all have brought a great peace, the peace that passeth

understanding, and it is because the play holds this timeless peace after the storm

which has bowed down every character, that "Riders to the Sea "may rightly take its

place as the greatest modern tragedy in the English tongue.

EDWARD J. O'BRIEN.

1.6 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Describe about the life and education of J.M. Synge.

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Write a short note on the relationship between Synge and Yeats.

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1.7 LET US SUM UP

During his last years Synge lived almost wholly in Ireland, mostly in Dublin. His

health, never very robust, was beginning to trouble him. His last months of life, 1908-

9, were spent in writing and rewriting the unfinished three-act play 'Deirdre of the

Sorrows,' which was posthumously published at Miss Yeats's Cuala Press, on 5 July

1910, and was acted at the Abbey Theatre on 13 Jan. 1910. He also worked at

translations from Villon and Petrarch, wrote some of the strange ironical poems, so

like the man speaking, which were published by the Cuala Press just after his death,

and finished the study 'Under Ether,' published in the fourth volume of the 'Works.' He

died unmarried at a private nursing home in Dublin on 24 March 1909. He was buried

in a family tomb at the protestant Mount Jerome general graveyard at Harold's Cross,

Dublin. His 'Poems and Translations'—the poems written at odd times between 1891

and 1908, but most of them towards the end of his life—was published on 5 June 1909

by the Cuala Press

12

UNIT 2 FULL TEXT OF THE ONE ACT PLAY

Structure

2.1 Objectives

2.2 Introduction

2.3 Riders to the Sea; the Text

2.4 Analysis of the Play

2.5 Results and Discussion

2.6 Mystery behind the Death of Michael

2.7 Supernatural Vision of Maurya

2.8 Supernatural Nuance in The Title

2.9 Check Your Progress

2.10 Let Us Sum Up

2.1 OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit, you will be able to:

Learn about the full text of “Ryders to the Sea”.

Learn about the major characters in the play.

Analyze the play and build your perception

2.2 INTRODUCTION

Riders to the Sea is a play written by Irish Literary Renaissance playwright John

Millington Synge. It was first performed on 25 February 1904 at the Molesworth

Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theater Society with Helen Laird playing Maurya.

A one-act tragedy, the play is set in the Aran Islands, Inishmaan, and like all of

Synge's plays it is noted for capturing the poetic dialogue of rural Ireland. The plot is

based not on the traditional conflict of human wills but on the hopeless struggle of a

people against the impersonal but relentless cruelty of the sea.

Maurya has lost her husband, and five of her sons to the sea. As the play begins Nora

and Cathleen receive word from the priest that a body, which may be their brother

Michael, has washed up on shore in Donegal, on the Irish mainland north of their

home island of Inishmaan. Bartley is planning to sail to Connemara to sell a horse, and

ignores Maurya's pleas to stay. 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 Nora and Cathleen

receive clothing from the drowned corpse that confirms it was Michael. Maurya

13

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. He has fallen off his horse into the sea and

drowned.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_to_the_Sea)

2.3 RIDERS TO THE SEA; THE TEXT

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

First performed at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, February 25th, 1904.

SCENE.—An Island off the West of Ireland.

(Cottage kitchen, with nets, oil-skins, spinning wheel, some new boards standing by

the wall, etc. Cathleen, a girl of about twenty, finishes kneading cake, and puts it

down in the pot-oven by the fire; then wipes her hands, and begins to spin at the

wheel. Nora, a young girl, puts her head in at the door.)

NORA.

In a low voice.

Where is she?

CATHLEEN.

She’s lying down, God help her, and may be sleeping, if she’s able.

Nora comes in softly, and takes a bundle from under her shawl.

CATHLEEN.

Spinning the wheel rapidly.

What is it you have?

NORA.

The young priest is after bringing them. It’s a shirt and a plain stocking were got off a

drowned man in Donegal.

Cathleen stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out to listen.

NORA.

We’re to find out if it’s Michael’s they are, some time herself will be down looking by

the sea.

CATHLEEN.

How would they be Michael’s, Nora. How would he go the length of that way to the

far north?

14

NORA.

The young priest says he’s known the like of it. “If it’s Michael’s they are,” says he,

“you can tell herself he’s got a clean burial by the grace of God, and if they’re not his,

his, let no one say a word about them, for she’ll be getting her death,” says he, “with

crying and lamenting.”

The door which Nora half closed is blown open by a gust of wind.

CATHLEEN.

Looking out anxiously.—Did you ask him would he stop Bartley going this day with

the horses to the Galway fair?

NORA.

“I won’t stop him,” says he, “but let you not be afraid. Herself does be saying prayers

half through the night, and the Almighty God won’t leave her destitute,” says he,

“with no son living.”

CATHLEEN.

Is the sea bad by the white rocks, Nora?

NORA.

Middling bad, God help us. There’s a great roaring in the west, and it’s worse it’ll be

getting when the tide’s turned to the wind.

She goes over to the table with the bundle.

Shall I open it now?

CATHLEEN.

Maybe she’d wake up on us, and come in before we’d done.

Coming to the table.

It’s a long time we’ll be, and the two of us crying.

NORA.

Goes to the inner door and listens.—She’s moving about on the bed. She’ll be coming

in a minute.

CATHLEEN.

15

Give me the ladder, and I’ll put them up in the turf-loft, the way she won’t know of

them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she’ll be going down to see would he be

floating from the east.

They put the ladder against the gable of the chimney; Cathleen goes up a few steps

and hides the bundle in the turf-loft. Maurya comes from the inner room.

MAURYA.

Looking up at Cathleen and speaking querulously.

Isn’t it turf enough you have for this day and evening?

CATHLEEN.

There’s a cake baking at the fire for a short space.

{{quote|

Throwing down the turf and Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes to

Connemara.

Nora picks up the turf and puts it round the pot-oven.

MAURYA.

Sitting down on a stool at the fire.

He won’t go this day with the wind rising from the south and west. He won’t go this

day, for the young priest will stop him surely.

NORA.

He’ll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety and Colum

Shawn saying he would go.

MAURYA.

Where is he itself?

NORA.

He went down to see would there be another e be another boat sailing in the week, and

I’m thinking it won’t be long till he’s here now, for the tide’s turning at the green

head, and the hooker’ tacking from the east.

CATHLEEN.

I hear some one passing the big stones.

NORA.

Looking out.—He’s coming now, and he’s in a hurry.

16

BARTLEY.

Comes in and looks round the room. Speaking sadly and quietly.—Where is the bit of

new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara?

CATHLEEN.

Coming down.—Give it to him, Nora; it’s on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up

this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.

NORA.

Giving him a rope.—Is that it, Bartley?

MAURYA.

You’d do right to leave that ro pe, Bartley, hanging by the boards {{quote|{{block

right|Bartley takes the rope]. It will be wanting in this place, I’m telling you, if

Michael is washed up to-morrow morning, or the next morning, or any morning in the

week, for it’s a deep grave we’ll make him by the grace of God.

BARTLEY.

Beginning to work with the rope.—I’ve no halter the way I can ride down on the mare,

and I must go now quickly. This is the one boat going for two weeks or beyond it, and

the fair will be a good fair for horses I heard them saying below.

MAURYA.

It’s a hard thing they’ll be saying below if the body is washed up and there’s no man

in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price for the finest white boards you’d

find in Connemara.

She looks round at the boards.

BARTLEY.

How would it be washed up, and we after looking each day for nine days, and a strong

wind blowing a while back from the west and south?

MAURYA.

If it wasn’t found itself, that wind is raising the sea, and there was a star up against the

moon, and it rising in the night. If it was a hundred horses, or a thousand horses you

had itself, what is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son

only?

BARTLEY.

17

Working at the halter, to Cathleen.—Let you go down each day, and see the sheep

aren’t jumping in on the rye, and if the jobber comes you can sell the pig with the

black feet if there is a good price going.

MAURYA.

How would the like of her get a good price for a pig?

BARTLEY.

To Cathleen.—If the west wind holds with the last bit of the moon let you and Nora

get up weed enough for another cock for the kelp. It’s hard set we’ll be from this day

with no one in it but one man to work.

MAURYA.

It’s hard set we’ll be surely the day you’re drownd’d with the rest. What way will I

live and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking for the grave?

Bartley lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a newer one of the

same flannel.

BARTLEY.

To Nora.—Is she coming to the pier?

NORA.

Looking out.—She’s passing the green head and letting fall her sails.

BARTLEY.

Getting his purse and tobacco.—I’ll have half an hour to go down, and you’ll see me

coming again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in four days if the wind is bad.

MAURYA.

Turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her head.—Isn’t it a hard and

cruel man won’t hear a word from an old woman, and she holding him from the sea?

CATHLEEN.

It’s the life of a young man to be going on the sea, and who would listen to an old

woman with one thing and she saying it over?

BARTLEY.

Taking the halter.—I must go now quickly. I’ll ride down on the red mare, and the

gray pony’ll run behind me. . . The blessing of God on you.

He goes out.

18

MAURYA.

Crying out as he is in the door.—He’s gone now, God spare us, and we’ll not see him

again. He’s gone now, and when the black night is falling I’ll have no son left me in

the world.

CATHLEEN.

Why wouldn’t you give him your blessing and he looking round in the door? Isn’t it

sorrow enough is on every one in this house without your sending him out with an

unlucky word behind him, and a hard word in his ear?

Maurya takes up the tongs and begins raking the fire aimlessly without looking round.

NORA.

Turning towards her.—You’re taking away the turf from the cake.

CATHLEEN.

Crying out.—The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we’re after forgetting his bit of bread.

She comes over to the fire.

NORA.

And it’s destroyed he’ll be going till dark night, and he after eating nothing since the

sun went up.

CATHLEEN.

Turning the cake out of the oven.—It’s destroyed he’ll be, surely. There’s no sense left

on any person in a house where an old woman will be talking for ever.

Maurya sways herself on her stool.

CATHLEEN.

Cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth; to Maurya.—Let you go down

now to the spring well and give him this and he passing. You ’ll see him then and the

dark word will be broken, and you can say “God speed you,” the way he’ll be easy in

his mind.

MAURYA.

Taking the bread.—Will I be in it as soon as himself?

CATHLEEN.

If you go now quickly.

MAURYA.

Standing up unsteadily.—It’s hard set I am to walk.

19

CATHLEEN.

Looking at her anxiously.—Give her the stick, Nora, or maybe she’ll slip on the big

stones.

NORA.

What stick?

CATHLEEN.

The stick Michael brought from Connemara.

MAURYA.

Taking a stick Nora gives her.—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.

She goes out slowly. Nora goes over to the ladder.

CATHLEEN.

Wait, Nora, maybe she’d turn back quickly. She’s that sorry, God help her, you

wouldn’t know the thing she’d do.

NORA.

Is she gone round by the bush?

CATHLEEN.

Looking out.—She’s gone now. Throw it down quickly, for the Lord knows when

she’ll be out of it again.

NORA.

Getting the bundle from the loft.—The young priest said he’d be passing to-morrow,

and we might go down and speak to him below if it’s Michael’s they are surely.

CATHLEEN.

Taking the bundle.—Did he say what way they were found?

NORA.

Coming down.—“There were two men,” says he, “and they rowing round with poteen

before the cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they passing

the black cliffs of the north.”

CATHLEEN.

Trying to open the bundle.—Give me a knife, Nora, the string’s perished with the salt

water, and there’s a black knot on it you wouldn’t loosen in a week.

20

NORA.

Giving her a knife.—I’ve heard tell it was a long way to Donegal.

CATHLEEN.

Cutting the string.—It is surely. There was a man in here a while ago—the man sold

us that knife—and he said if you set off walking from the rocks beyond, it would be

seven days you’d be in Donegal.

NORA.

And what time would a man take, and he floating?

Cathleen opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They look at them

eagerly.

CATHLEEN.

In a low voice.—The Lord spare us, Nora! isn’t it a queer hard thing to say if it’s his

they are surely?

NORA.

I’ll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel on the other

{{quote|{{block right|she looks through some clothes hanging in the corner.] It’s not

with them, Cathleen, and where will it be?

CATHLEEN.

I’m thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt was heavy with

the salt in it {{quote|{{block right|pointing to the corner]. There’s a bit of a sleeve

was of the same stuff. Give me that and it will do.

Nora brings it to her and they compare the flannel.

CATHLEEN.

It’s the same stuff, Nora; but if it is itself aren’t there great rolls of it in the shops of

Galway, and isn’t it many another man may have a shirt of it as well as Michael

himself?

NORA.

Who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, crying out.—It’s Michael,

Cathleen, it’s Michael; God spare his soul, and what will herself say when she hears

this story, and Bartley on the sea?

CATHLEEN.

Taking the stocking.—It’s a plain stocking.

NORA.

21

It’s the second one of the third pair I knitted, and I put up three score stitches, and I

dropped four of them.

CATHLEEN.

Counts the stitches.—It’s that number is in it {{quote|{{block right|crying out.] Ah,

Nora, isn’t it a bitter thing to think of him floating that way to the far north, and no

one to keen him but the black hags that do be flying on the sea?

NORA.

Swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on the clothes.—And isn’t it a

pitiful thing when th ere is nothing left of a man who was a great rower and fisher, but

a bit of an old shirt and a plain stocking?

CATHLEEN.

After an instant.—Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little sound on the path.

NORA.

Looking out.—She is, Cathleen. She’s coming up to the door.

CATHLEEN.

Put these things away before she’ll come in. Maybe it’s easier she’ll be after giving

her blessing to Bartley, and we won’t let on we’ve heard anything the time he’s on the

sea.

NORA.

Helping Cathleen to close the bundle.—We’ll put them here in the corner.

They put them into a hole in the chimney corner. Cathleen goes back to the spinning-

wheel.

NORA.

Will she see it was crying I was?

CATHLEEN.

Keep your back to the door the way the light’ll not be on you.

Nora sits down at the chimney corner, with her back to the door. Maurya comes in

very slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes over to her stool at the other side of

the fire. The cloth with the bread is still in her hand.

The girls look at each other, and Nora points to the bundle of bread.

CATHLEEN.

After spinning for a moment.—You didn’t give him his bit of bread?

22

Maurya begins to keen softly, without turning round.

CATHLEEN.

Did you see him riding down?

Maurya goes on keening.

CATHLEEN.

A little impatiently.—God forgive you; isn’t it a better thing to raise your voice and

tell what you seen, than to be making lamentation for a thin g that’s done? Did you see

Bartley, I’m saying to you?

MAURYA.

With a weak voice.—My heart’s broken from this day.

CATHLEEN.

As before.—Did you see Bartley?

MAURYA.

I seen the fearfulest thing.

CATHLEEN.

Leaves her wheel and looks out.—God forgive you; he’s riding the mare now over the

green head, and the gray pony behind him.

MAURYA.

Starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows her white tossed hair.

With a frightened voice.—The gray pony behind him.

CATHLEEN.

Coming to the fire.—What is it ails you, at all?

MAURYA.

Speaking very slowly.—I’ve seen the fearfulest thing any person has seen, since the

day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child in his arms.

CATHLEEN AND NORA.

Uah.

They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire.

NORA.

Tell us what it is you seen.

MAURYA.

23

I went down to the spring well, and I stood there saying a prayer to myself. Then

Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the gray pony behind him

{{quote|{{block right|she puts up her hands, as if to hide something from her eyes.]

The Son of God spare us, Nora!

CATHLEEN.

What is it you seen.

MAURYA.

I seen Michael himself.

CATHLEEN.

Speaking soft ly.—You did not, mother; it wasn’t Michael you seen, for his body is

after being found in the far north, and he’s got a clean burial by the grace of God.

MAURYA.

A little defiantly.—I’m after seeing him this day, and he riding and galloping. Bartley

came first on the red mare; and I tried to say “God speed you,” but something choked

the words in my throat. He went by quickly; and “the blessing of God on you,” says

he, and I could say nothing. I looked up then, and I crying, at the gray pony, and there

was Michael upon it—with fine clothes on him, and new shoes on his feet.

CATHLEEN.

Begins to keen.—It’s destroyed we are from this day. It’s destroyed, surely.

NORA.

Didn’t the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn’t leave her destitute with no son

living?

MAURYA.

In a low voice, but clearly.— It’s little the like of him knows of the sea. . . . Bartley

will be lost now, and let you call in Eamon and make me a good coffin out of the

white boards, for I won’t live after them. I’ve had a husband, and a husband’s father,

and six sons in this house—six fine men, though it was a hard birth I had with every

one of them and they coming to the world—and some of them were found and some

of them were not found, but they’re gone now the lot of them. . . There were Stephen,

and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay of Gregory of the

Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and in by that door.

She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something through the door

that is half open behind them.

24

NORA.

In a whisper.—Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in the north-east?

CATHLEEN.

In a whisper.—There’s some one after crying out by the seashore.

MAURYA.

Continues without hearing anything.—There was Sheamus and his father, and his own

father again, were lost in a dark night, and not a stick or sign was seen of them when

the sun went up. There was Patch after was drowned out of a curagh that turned over. I

was sitting here with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two

women, and three women, and four women coming in, and they crossing themselves,

and not saying a word. I looked out then, and there were men coming after them, and

they holding a thing in the half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it—it was a dry

day, Nora—and leaving a track to the door.

She pauses again with her hand stretched out towards the door. It opens

softly and old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the threshold, and

kneeling down in front of the stage with red petticoats over their heads.

MAURYA.

Half in a dream, to Cathleen.—Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is it at all?

CATHLEEN.

Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is found there how could he

be here in this place?

MAURYA.

There does be a power of young men floating round in the sea, and what way would

they know if it was Michael they had, or another man like him, for when a man is nine

days in the sea, and the wind blowing, it’s hard set his own mother would be to say

what man was it.

CATHLEEN.

It’s Michael, God spare him, for they’re after sending us a bit of his clothes from the

far north.

She reaches out and hands Maurya the clothes that belonged to Michael. Maurya

stands up slowly, and takes them into her hands. Nora looks out.

NORA.

25

They’re carrying a thing among them and there’s water dripping out of it and leaving a

track by the big stones.

CATHLEEN.

In a whisper to the women who have come in.—Is it Bartley it is?

ONE OF THE WOMEN.

It is surely, God rest his soul.

Two younger women come in and pull out the table. Then men carry in the body of

Bartley, laid on a plank, with a bit of a sail over it, and lay it on the table.

CATHLEEN.

To the women, as they are doing so.—What way was he drowned?

ONE OF THE WOMEN.

The gray pony knocked him into the sea, and he was washed out where there is a great

surf on the white rocks.

Maurya has gone over and knelt down at the head of the table. The women are

keening softly and swaying themselves with a slow movement. Cathleen and Nora

kneel at the other end of the table. The men kneel near the door.

MAURYA.

Raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people around her.—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. {{quote|{{block right|To Nora]. Give

me the Holy Water, Nora, there’s a small sup still on the dresser.

Nora gives it to her.

MAURYA.

Drops Michael’s clothes across Bartley’s feet, and sprinkles the Holy Water over

him.—It isn’t that I haven’t prayed for you, Bartley, to the Almighty God. It isn’t that

I haven’t said prayers in the dark night till you wouldn’t know what I’ld be saying; but

it’s a great rest I’ll have now, and it’s time surely. It’s a great rest I’ll have now, and

great sleeping in the long nights after Samhain, if it’s only a bit of wet flour we do

have to eat, and maybe a fish that would be stinking.

26

She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under her breath.

CATHLEEN.

To an old man.—Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the sun rises.

We have fine white boards herself bought, God help her, thinking Michael would be

found, and I have a new cake you can eat while you’ll be working.

THE OLD MAN.

Looking at the boards.—Are there nails with them?

CATHLEEN.

There are not, Colum; we didn’t think of the nails.

ANOTHER MAN.

It’s a great wonder she wouldn’t think of the nails, and all the coffins she’s seen made

already.

CATHLEEN.

It’s getting old she is, and broken.

{{quote|

Maurya stands up again very slowly and spreads out the pieces of

Michael’s clothes beside the body, sprinkling them with the last of the

Holy Water.

NORA.

In a whisper to Cathleen.—She’s quiet now and easy; but the day Michael was

drowned you could hear her crying out from this to the spring well. It’s fonder she was

of Michael, and would any one have thought that?

CATHLEEN.

Slowly and clearly.—An old woman will be soon tired with anything she will do, and

isn’t it nine days herself is after crying and keening, and making great sorrow in the

house?

MAURYA.

Puts the empty cup mouth downwards on the table, and lays her hands together on

Bartley’s feet.—They’re all together this time, and the end is come. May the Almighty

God have mercy on Bartley’s soul, and on Michael’s soul, and on the souls of

Sheamus and Patch, and Stephen and Shawn (bending her head); and may He have

mercy on my soul, Nora, and on the soul of every one is left living in the world.

She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women, then sinks away.

MAURYA.

27

Continuing.—Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty

God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely.

What more can we want than that? No man at all can be living for ever, and we must

be satisfied.

She kneels down again and the curtain falls slowly.

2.4 ANALYSIS OF THE PLAY

Synge (2008), an Irish writer, with a full name John Millington Synge, having a great

interest in the Aran Islands, situated at the west coast of Ireland, wrote a one-act play,

Riders to the Sea in 1990. The play is focused on a family of fisherman mostly

dependent their living on the sea. Synge has visited the Aran Islands for several times

making a study on the manners and life style of the local inhabitants and he is much

impressed by their preservations of their traditional folk ways and arts giving a certain

dignity to human life. Synge, in Riders to the Sea, also inserts schemes of the peasant

life, close to myth and supernaturalism, creating something new in his closely-knitted

play. From the beginning to the end, the play is serious and the seriousness goes on

mounting till it reaches its climax towards the end of the play and this is intensely

horrible and tragic. The elements of the plot are closely and neatly packed and

appeared to be dense. This is the distinctive quality of Synge as a playwright in

writing this play as within a short course of the story, everything about the characters

could be revealed. Synge does not use a sub-plot of any kind, which at times could a

story go beyond control. He simply relates how the various members of a fisherman

family die on the sea. The story of the play is centered on Maurya, the old mother,

whose husband and five sons have been taken by the sea. And now he has two

daughters, Cathleen and Nora and her youngest son, Bartley. Now she is trying to stop

Bartley from going to the mainland to sell horses; however Bartley has to go to the

fair on the mainland for this is concerned with their living. But unfortunately, while

trying to get all the horses on to the boat, Bartley is drowned. By the death of Bartley,

Maurya has no more sons and she now feels relieved as she is not terrorized anymore

by the sea. She has finished all her sufferings and she says that the sea cannot frighten

her anymore. She feels as if she were a winner in a deadly contest. Her suffering is

absolutely complete now. Her last son has also gone forever. No man at all can be

living forever and we must be satisfied. (Synge, 2008, p. 45) This is her last words

showing that she could now accept that all the things in the world are to be changed;

man changes as the time changes too. No one could stand against what is already

written in fate. This is what popularly said as destiny is character. Throughout a

certain even, one could realize the real sense of life and one would realize that human

life in mortal. When such a paradigm has come to everyone’s mind, then no one

would ever complain of something bad or unexpected. The only thing that man could

do is to try but still with limited capacity.

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2.5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The story is about the tragic life of a family; however as the story goes by, some

elements of supernaturalism are also exposed, and this makes the play thrilled. In time

of writing this play, Synge sees that there is a strong belief in the existence of the

supernatural among the inhabitants of the Aran Islands. By this it is seen that the

supernatural is a significant aspect of Synge’s play Riders to the Sea and becomes an

integral part of the whole play. The supernatural gives a certain type of chemistry for

all the things exposed. The supernatural appears in varied forms: Mystery behind the

death of Michael, Supernatural vision of Maurya, Foresight of Maurya and

Supernatural nuance in the title. Characteristics for the phenomena claimed as

supernatural are anomaly, uniqueness and uncontrollability, thus lacking

reproducibility required for scientific examination. By this it is clear that

supernaturalism is a quality of being supernatural in which there is a force that cannot

be analyzed based on logic and believed to originate by divine power and this power

can subsequently influence the real object. Although the supernatural is beyond the

reach of logical thinking but it can be perceived by the five senses. Every person has

supernatural powers but not everyone can feel and direct the potential so that things

related to the supernatural are always considered rare or unusual.

2.6 MYSTERY BEHIND THE DEATH OF MICHAEL

There are many kinds of mysteries, but all of them involve some element of an

unknown phenomenon. A mystery is equivalent to a secret, where there is an

explanation between why something happened, but it is not revealed to everyone. An

event could be a mystery to one person, but not to another, as they may have different

sets of knowledge. Mystery is something hidden and cannot be elaborated or described

objectively. An interpretation of a mystery is usually conducted based on subjectivity.

Mystery is also associated with supernatural phenomena; though in reality that not all

mysteries are of supernatural basis. By this it is stated that a mystery could be

analogized as a question without an answer. This is linked with the mysterious death

of Michael. Michael is the second last son who is firstly declared missing and

considered dead in the sea but after some time it is revealed that Michael has died

dragged by the sea waves. This can be seen at the beginning of the story. There are

some things that are supposedly linked to the supernatural behind Michael's death so it

can be said that Michael's death has a mystery. NORA: (coming down) "There were

two men," says he, "and they rowing round with potent before the cocks crowed, and

the oar of one of them caught the body, and they passing the black cliffs of the north."

(Synge, 2008, p. 30) Nora, the younger daughter, is told by the priest that there are

two men carrying the boat and one of them feels that the oar touches something and it

is a dead body. This happens before the cock crows and at that time they are passing

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the black cliff of the north. For the inhabitants of Aran Islands, the cock’s crow is

always associated with the spirit of the dead returning to the grave and the spirit must

arrive at the grave before or along with the time of the cock’s crow. So in order not to

be disturbed by the spirit or ghost, the inhabitants start their activities after the cock’s

crow that is at dawn. Furthermore, the black cliffs are also associated with the journey

of the spirit toward the underworld. The spirit must pass through the black cliff before

it reaches the underworld. By this, Michael’s death based on the beliefs of the local

inhabitants is closely tied with the mystery with the supernatural.

2.7 SUPERNATURAL VISION OF MAURYA

Maurya has a supernatural vision based on her intuition as a mother. According to

Vallotton (2009) vision is what people see, but it is also the way in which they see.

Vision is the lens that interprets the events of life, the way people view people and

their concept of God. Their minds receive images from their eyes but their heart

interprets these images. If their hearts become bitter, jealous, hurt or in some way

infected, the lens of the heart is distorted. What people perceive is happening and what

are really going on could be two completely different things.

MAURYA: (speaking very slowly) I've seen the fearfulest thing any person has seen,

since the day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child in his arms.

MAURYA: I went down to the spring-well, and I stood there saying a prayer to

myself. Then Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the gray pony

behind him. (She puts up her hands, as if to hide something from her eyes.) The Son

of God spare us, Nora!

MAURYA: I seen Michael himself.

MAURYA: (a little defiantly) I'm after seeing him this day, and he riding and

galloping. Bartley came first on the red mare; and I tried to say "God speed you," but

something choked the words in my throat. He went by quickly; and, "The blessing of

God on you," says he, and I could say nothing. I looked up then, and I crying, at the

gray pony, and there was Michael upon it--with fine clothes on him, and new shoes on

his feet. (Synge, 2008, p. 36)

This is a picture that Maurya has a supernatural vision. At that time Maurya intends to

deliver bread to Bartley who is going to the mainland; but when she gets to Spring

Well, she sees Bride Dara, who is always associated with death or an omen that make

her unable to do anything; she cannot even speak. She just stands still staring at

Bartley riding a red horse and behind him is Michael riding a gray horse following

Bartley. It is clear that Maurya has seen Michael’s ghost and it is a bad sign because

of the belief that such event indicates that Michael wants to take Bartley.

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2.8 SUPERNATURAL NUANCE IN THE TITLE

From the outset till the end of the story Riders to the Sea has a supernatural nuance,

including the title given by Synge. Uddin (2016) emphasizes this by stating that

Riders to the Sea is the outcome of his actual experience during his staying of five

summers in the Aran Island. It is the culture, traditions and superstitions of that land

which he wants to present as it is. The title of this play is Riders to the Sea, and the

word riders are plural; while from the existing storyline, only Bartley rides a horse. So

the word riders is made plural to show that the spirit of Michael is the second rider.

The title of this play has shown that this play is full of supernatural elements.

The overall exposures above have provided an illustration as well as proof that the

play Riders to the Sea has supernatural phenomena. The supernatural phenomena are

the reflection of the traditions and lifestyles of the inhabitants of Aran Islands that

have been observed by Synge. Some of the most significant supernatural phenomena

in the play are the mystery of Michael's death, Maurya's ability as a protagonist to see

things related to the supernatural, Maurya's intuition to predict, and the title given by

Synge. The uses of supernatural phenomena are common in literary works to give

sensation to the audience or readers.

2.9 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

What according to you is the theme of the one act play/

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Who was Micheal? Write a note on Micheal’s mystery.

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2.10 LET US SUM UP

Synge stood about five feet eight or nine inches high. He was neither weakly nor

robustly made. He was dark (not black-haired), with heavy moustache, and small

goatee on lower lip, otherwise clean-shaven. His hair was worn rather long; his face

was pale, drawn, seamed, and old-looking. The eyes were at once smoky, and

kindling; the mouth had a great play of humor on it. His voice was very guttural and

quick, and lively with a strange vitality. His manner was generally reserved, grave,

courteous; he talked little; but had a bright malice of fun always ready. He gave little

in conversation; for much of his talk, though often wise with the criticism seen in his

prefaces, was only a reflection of things he had seen, and of phrases, striking and full

of color, overheard by him at sea or on shore; but there was a charm about him which

all felt.

(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Synge,_John_Millington_(DNB12))