“RIDERS
TO THE
SEA”
AT A GLANCE:
• Author: J. M. Synge
• First Published: Molesworth Hall, Dublin –February
25, 1904
• Type of Work: Play in one act
• Type of Plot: Tragedy
• Time of Work: The late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries
• Setting: An island off the western coast of Ireland
• Genres: Drama, Tragedy
• Subjects: Sufferring,
Superstition, Christianity, Paganism
JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE
• Edward John Millington
Synge (1871- 1909)
• Irish dramatic, author and
poet
• John Hatch Synge (18231872) & Kathleen Traill
(1838- 1908)
• Hodgkin’s disease- March
24, 1909
• Cherrie Marie Louise
Matheson (1870- 1940)
• Much more of a listener than a talker; Synge's perfect mastery of
words is one of his greatest assets. Like Shakespeare, he can at once
supply environment, create atmosphere, paint word-pictures.
• Synge has written that the first crisis in his faith happened when he
was very young, possibly around the time his father died of smallpox.
He was grasping with the concepts of eternal pain and damnation.
• In 1888 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, studying Gaelic and Irish
antiquities and graduated with a B.A. in 1892. These are the years he
had started writing plays, inspired in part by his unrequited love of
Cherie (Cherrie) Marie Louise Matheson. She couldn't possibly see
herself marrying a non-believer and refused him a number of times.
• Synge travelled extensively in France and Italy. Wanting to make art
accessible to the common man, he formed the Irish Literary Society
in 1892. In Paris, around 1896, he was to meet the poet W.B. Yeats
who would become a lifelong friend and mentor.
• In the shadow of the Glen; Riders to the Sea; The
Playboy of the Western World; Prelude; The Aran
Islands; The Well of the Saints; Deirdre of the Sorrows;
The Tinkers Wedding
• Before one of the operations on his neck and previously,
Synge had expressed his anxieties about the fate of his
manuscripts upon his death to his good friend W.B.
Yeats. Yeats and Lady Gregory tried to oversee
posthumous publications but there were some disputes.
• "He was a drifting silent man full of hidden passion, and
loved wild islands, because there, set out in the light of
day, he saw what lay hidden in himself." W.B. Yeats,
1910
INTRODUCTION
• Yeats advised him that he would never surpass mediocrity if he
remained in Paris, so, intent on finding his writer's voice, he travelled
back and forth from the continent to the rocky Aran Islands for a
number of years to live with peasant seamen and their families.
• 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 recognized 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.
• There is a wonderful beauty of speech in the words of every
character, wherein the latent power of suggestion is almost
unlimited. In the quavering rhythm of the words, there is poignantly
present that quality of strangeness and remoteness in beauty which,
as we are coming to realize, 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.
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OTHER INFORMATIONS
Published as a flip book (one side in English, the other in French,
under the title À MER À CHEVAL
Celtic art - was developed in S Germany and E France by tribal artisans
of the mid- to late 5th cent. Although some classical influence was
evident in Celtic work, most of the complex, linear, highly ornamented
pieces that survive reveal an inspiration of great originality and power.
Stylized and fantastic plant and animal forms, as well as strong,
geometrical, intertwining patterns, decorated the surfaces of
household and ritual vessels, weapons, and body ornaments.
Irish literary renaissance- late 19th- and early 20th-century movement
that aimed at reviving ancient Irish folklore, legends, and traditions in
new literary works. The movement, also called the Celtic renaissance,
was in part the cultural aspect of a political movement that was
concerned with self-government for Ireland and discovering a literary
past that would be relevant to the struggle for independence.
Symbolism of Celtic design in literary- The visual vocabulary of Celtic
design expresses many messages. Those who are attracted to these
symbols and designs in modern times and who choose to use the
motifs of ancient times in today's world are often frustrated by an
apparent lack of reliable information about their meanings.
THEME:
TRAGEDY comes w/ FAITH
• Tragedy- loss, pain, suffering, death, problems, test, dilemmas and
the like.
• This play sum up the essence of the constant struggle of the islander
against their enemy, the sea. In human context, each and everyone
of us have different struggles and dilemmas to face. However, these
things will not be given to us by God if he knows that we can’t
surpass it.
• “No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied.”
-Life is neither mine nor yours. It was just borrowed from God. We
are all destined to die but, however, be contented and satisfied on
what we have now in present, we can predict but we can never tell
what will happen next. Let’s put our faith to God. He planned
everything, more than that of what we need, desire and expect.
Tragedies are just test. A Test of faith and love.
CHARACTERS
• MAURYA- an old peasant woman. She has reared six sons, four of whom
are known to be dead, as are her husband and her husband’s father
• BARTLEY- her son
• CATHLEEN- her daughter
• NORA- a younger daughter
• YOUNG PRIEST
• MEN AND WOMEN
(mentioned only)
• STEPHEN AND SHAWN- lost in the great wind; found after the bay of
Gregory
• SHEAMUS, HIS FATHER AND HIS OWN FATHER- lost in a dark night; no
signs found
• PATCH- drowned
• MICHAEL- 9 days on the sea and the wind blowing
SYNOPSIS OF THE PLAY
AFTER nine days of constant grieving for her missing son,
Michael, who, she feels certain, has been drowned, old Maurya has
fallen into a fitful sleep. Her daughter, Cathleen, is busy with
household tasks, when another daughter, Nora, slips quietly into the
kitchen with a bundle given her by the young priest. It contains part
of the clothes taken from the body of a drowned man far in the
north. They have been sent to Maurya's cottage with a view to
possible identification.
As Maurya shows signs of waking, the girls hide the bundle until
sometime when they shall be alone. Maurya's grieving for Michael is
now coupled with fear of losing Bartley, her only remaining son. Five
sons and a husband she has already lost to the sea. Will that
insatiable tyrant insist on taking her sixth. The priest says not. But
now Bartley insists that he will cross to the mainland this very day, in
spite of winds and high seas, to dispose of a horse at the fair.
In a fit of pique at this only remaining son for not listening to her
pleas, Maurya let him go without her blessing. The girls persuade her
to intercept him with the lunch they had forgotten to give him and so
to make opportunity for that blessing a mother should have given.
While Maurya is gone the
girls open the package. The
clothes are, indeed, Michael's.
Their only comfort is the
thought that his body has been
given a good Christian burial
there in the north where it was
washed up. At this point
Maurya returns terrified with a
vision she had had of Michael
riding on the red horse behind
Bartley. Now she is sure Bartley
is doomed. When the girls show
her Michael's clothes her only
response is that the good white
boards she had bought for his
coffin would serve for Bartley
instead.
• Even as she speaks, the
neighboring women troop in,
their voices raised in the "keen,"
that monotonous Irish chant of
grief. Men follow bringing the
body of Bartley who has been
knocked off a cliff into the surf
by the horse he was leading. The
play closes on the note of
Maurya's fatalistic submission.
She can sleep now with no
worry but that of starvation.
"They're all gone now and there
isn't anything more the sea can
do to me. . . . No man at all can
be living forever and we must be
satisfied."
INTERPRETATION in GENERAL
• In real scenario, we will be experiencing these kind of
things- the loss, pain, suffering and death but, let’s look the
world in a wider perspective. These things will serve as our
opportunities and chances to give us our own battle and be
the hero.
• For some point, this play is more realistic and painful rather
than a dramatic story. Grief never seems to disappear in just
a snap of your finger. It takes time; we should be hard as
rock, with God at the center , so that we can move on with
our life and accept truths and realities with an open heart
and mind.
VIEW POINTS:
• What are Nora and Cathleen talking about at the beginning of the
play? How does it affect Maurya, their mother?
• What purpose do the nails, the white board, and the ropes have for
Bartley at the beginning and the end of the narrative?
• How is Maurya represented in this drama? What makes her a tragic
figure?
• Why does Maurya not allow Bartley to go to the Galway Fair? What is
her premonition about this?
• Why is the play called “Riders to the Sea”?
• How is the sea presented in the play? In what way does it determine
the fate of the characters in this dramatic piece?
• Explain “No man at all can be living forever and we must be satisfied”
in relation to Maurya’s reaction over the death of all her sons and
husband.
RESOURCES
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7rGs7px5Ok
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W885YFe93SI
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_gGFRvMZq8&p=C39D49CBC
FE80EC3&playnext=1&index=7
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw63m1ukRdQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSZe1EIo7NE
• http://www.online-literature.com/synge/riders-to-the-sea/
• http://www.one-act-plays.com/dramas/riders_to_the_sea.html
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425404/
• http://www.enotes.com/riders-sea-salem/riders-sea