Edmund John Millington Synge ( 1871-1909 ) . an Irish dramatist. wrote ‘Riders to the Sea’ . one of his first two one-act dramas ( the other one is ‘The Shadow of the Glen’ ) . ‘Riders to the Sea’ ( 1904 ) is Synge’s dramatic response to the experience of his frequent visits in the Aran Islands. ‘Riders to the Sea’ dramatizes the archetypical battle of adult male against the hostile natural forces and rends man’s inevitable licking in the struggle against predestination which brings out a tragic consequence at the terminal of the drama.
This one-act drama is a calamity that portrays a tight and synthesized image of hopeless battle of an Aran adult female and her weakness against the destiny. Ernest A. Boyd ( American critic and writer ) in ‘The Contemporary Drama of Ireland’ provinces that ‘Riders to the Sea’ . sums up the kernel of the “constant battle of the Aran island-dwellers against their relentless enemy. the sea. ” The supporter in J. M. Synge’s one-act drama Riders to the Sea. Maurya. is an old Aran fisher-woman. whose name echoes the Grecian word moria. intending destiny.
Riders to the Sea does non suit the cast of authoritative Grecian calamity. as Aristotle defined it. for its cardinal character is a provincial. non a individual of high estate and she does non convey about her ain ruin. Maurya is therefore clearly different from the classical supporters such as Oedipus. Agamemnon or Antigone. all of whom are highborn. While classical and Renaissance tragic supporters undergo enduring owing to their ‘hubris’ or ‘hamartia’ . Maurya appears to be a inactive and incapacitated victim in the custodies of the destructive sea.
In Maurya’s instance. no profound inquiry seems to be raised about the complicated relationship between homo will and predestination. Yet. she resembles the great traditional supporters in her epic power of endurance and the religious transcendency over her agony. In J. M. Synge’s drama. Riders to the Sea. the audience is confronted with a narrative of an Aran female parent of eight kids populating on an island off the western seashore of Ireland.
When the drama opens. we find out that she has lost her hubby and five of her six boies to the sea. which is necessary for support as agencies of conveyance to the mainland and besides for engagement in the fishing industry. Her two girls. Cathleen and Nora. are besides present. The lone boy. Bartley. needs to take the Equus caballuss to fair across the bay. and Maurya begs him non to go forth. But Bartley insists that he will traverse the mainland in malice of air currents and high seas. Mad and aggravated at Bartley for non listening to her supplications. Maurya allows him to travel. nevertheless. without her approval.
Cathleen and Nora persuade their female parent to trail Bartley with the nutrient they forgot to give him and to give him her blessing regardless of her frights. Maurya returns horrified with a vision she has seen of Michael siting on the Equus caballus behind Bartley. When the misss show her Michael’s apparels her lone response is that the good white boards she had bought for his casket would function for Bartley alternatively. Even as she speaks. the adjacent adult females troop in. their voices raised in the “keen. ” that humdrum Irish chant of heartache.
Work forces follow conveying the organic structure of Bartley. The drama crawls to the terminal through Maurya’s fatalistic entry. They’re all gone now and at that place isn’t anything more the sea can make to me. ” She can kip now with no concern but that of famishment. In the ageless conflict between the life-giver and the destroyer. between the female parent and the destructive sea. Maurya. at last. ironically. is exultant. Having lost all her boies. she has been liberated from the everlasting rhythm of agony and heartache.
At this point. she seems to retreat her understanding from the community of world when her disenchantment compels her to province – “I won’t care what manner the sea is when the other adult females will be lamenting. The concluding stage of Maurya’s enduring reveals a passage from wretchedness to a profound tragic transcendency. Like the Sophoclean supporters. she achieves cognition and enlightenment out of wretchedness and heroically accepts her tragic muss. Tragic wisdom illuminates her head into the apprehension that decease is an indispensable episode in the cosmopolitan rhythm of life. Alternatively of impeaching God. she reconciles to her destiny courageously and gracefully and accepts her wretchedness as the sublime will of God. Reconstructing a broken life into a new being of religion and selflessness. she achieves tragic self-respect and lift in the eyes of the audience.
She invokes God’s approvals upon all – “… . may He hold mercy on my psyche. Nora. and the psyche of everyone is left life in the universe. ” Maurya. as portrayed by J. M. Synge in ‘Riders to the Sea’ . is genuinely an unforgettable character who wins our esteem by her unusual power of endurance. by her capacity to defy her bad lucks. and by her dignified behavior at a clip when she has suffered the most painful mourning of her life. Finally. she gives look to her stoical credence of her and destiny in the undermentioned memorable words— “No adult male at all can be populating everlastingly. and we must be satisfied. Declan Kiberd. an Irish author and bookman in his ‘Synge and the Irish Language’ ( Macmillan: London 1979 ) notes that Synge’s dramatic linguistic communication attempts to let the Aran island-dwellers “to speak straight for themselves. ” showing that Maurya’s celebrated words. “No adult male at all………… . must be satisfied” ( III. 27 ) . are translated about straight from a missive to Synge from an Inishmaan friend. Maurya is drawn to be regarded as tragic character in the proper sense of the word. After all we are reading a one-act drama in which an detailed portraiture was non possible.
Besides. there is no existent struggle either in Maurya’s head or between Maurya and fortunes. She has merely to stay inactive because there is no other pick for her. ‘Tess’ in Thomas Hardy’s celebrated fresh ‘Tess of the D’urbervilles’ is a tragic character because she puts up a brave battle against inauspicious fortunes. but cipher can contend against the sea which is the cause of the calamity in Synge’s drama. The terminal comes necessarily and this once more is traditional. Dunbar’s ‘Lament for the Maker’s’ may stand to encompass them all. So to cite: “Since for the Death remeid is none.
Best is that we for Death dispone. After our decease that unrecorded may we: Timor Mortis conturbat me. ” The play by virtuousness of being a one-act drama inescapably limits Synge’s range. But. in that limited range Synge has achieved singular consequence of tragic impact. The consequence is one of the most deeply traveling calamities of all time written. W. B. Yeats on Synge’s construct of manner provinces “The first usage of Irish idiom. rich. abundant. and right. for the intent of originative art was in J. M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea” ( Plays in Prose and Verse Written for an Irish Theatre. London: Macmillan 1922 ) .
