Synopsis of Riders to the Sea
Riders to the Sea is a dramatic recreation of J.M. Synge’s observation of the lives of peasant fishermen in the Aran Island situated at the West Coast of Ireland. According to Bernard Beckerman, “The bleakness and precariousness” of the Aran Islanders’ “existence matched only by their fortitude and resignation, impressed themselves upon Synge’s”, imagination and led to the composition of Riders to the Sea (Dynamics of Drama,p. 64).
In the play, Maurya, an aged wife of a fisherman already bereft of her husband and four sons is pensive, awaiting the news of yet his fifth son Michael, who again is missing and being suspected to have been drowned in the sea like his father and four brothers. Meanwhile, Bartley the youngest and the only remaining son of the family is preparing to ride to the sea on his way to a horse – fair in the mainland town, Connemara. Maurya’s premonition of doom could not stop Bartley from embarking on the journey.
Since he failed to be persuaded to stay at home, his mother refused to bless him and to wish him journey mercies. Shortly after Bartley left, his two sisters Cathleen and Nora remembered that they forgot to give him any food for the journey. Maurya who has not been comfortable with the way she parted ways with Bartley decides to run after him, to give him the food and her blessing.
Immediately the old woman leaves the house, Cathleen and Nora begin to examine the clothes which were found on the body of a drowned man that the water washed up on the coast of Donegal. On examination the clothes were found to be Michael’s. In a moment, Maurya returns looking very disturbed. She has been prevented from delivering the food and her blessing to Bartley by the vision of the missing Michael she saw. As she is finishing her story, a group of women enter the cottage to announce the death of Michael to Maurya. Michael has been found drowned and has been buried in north of the island.
As the death of Michael is being mourned, the body of Bartley who has been discovered drowned is brought into the cottage in confirmation of Maurya’s premonition. Having been forcibly deprived of a husband and her six male children, Maurya whose sorrow is beyond description utters in resignation:
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.
Critical Study of Riders to the Sea
Riders to the Sea is an eerie drama on the precariousness of depending on the sea for livelihood. In the text, the sea is, according to Maurice Bourgeois, “identified with doom and death; it is sea whose formidable presence is felt all about the play; the sea that lurks behind stage; the sea that throws loaded dice in the game of human existence”. The contact with the sea is direct and immediate. It is portrayed ambivalently as an incredible ally as well as a sworn enemy. As an ally the sea serves as the major source of livelihood and as a bridge to the mainland. The Islanders are mainly fishermen and they must ride to the sea if they must survive.
Bartley’s refusal to stay at home portrays him as a courageous man who is not deterred by the hazards of the sea. As the only surviving man of the house who must provide food for his two sisters and aged mother, Bartley must grapple with the sea. According to Donoghue:
The sea represents the only terms in which Bartley can live with a purpose. The sea is his life as well as his livelihood. The issue between Maurya and the Sea, therefore, is not merely a straight fight between Good and Evil for the soul of Man: the Sea may be Evil but it constitutes Bartley’s only way of real life: to stay at home to side with Maurya, would be for Bartley the yielding up of the source of meaningful living.
The implication is that Bartley’s insistence on riding to the sea is an acceptance of responsibility. As the only man of the house he must demonstrate responsibility. Beckerman observes that by insisting on going to Connemara to participate in the horse-fair because of its economic promises; Bartley is only “attempting to fulfill his role as the only man of the house”. Bartley understands fully well that as Alan Price states:
Men must risk their lives to keep all alive; the cost in human life and suffering merely to maintain existence of the community is enormous, but unless one wants to lie down and die without an effort, this cost must be paid.
However, the people’s contact with the sea leaves a trail of woes. With the sea, “we are confronted with an impersonal note of impending terror – perception of power intense, irresponsible, unfathomable, consigning humanity to utter destruction”. The picture which the sea paints is that life is ultimately tragic. The drowning of all of Maurya’s male children as they seek to fend for themselves and their entire family signifies the futility of man’s struggles and toils. Bartley even have to starve occasionally, yet all his toiling does not amount to anything.
Bartley’s death is pathetic on principally two accounts. In the first place, it forecloses any idea of procreation in the family from patriarchal perspective. Secondly, Maurya has no more male child to cater for her in her old age. This is Maurya’s fear. And this account for her question to Bartley:
What way will I live and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking for the grave?
Maurya’s worry is deep and grounded. She needs at least a son to lay her to rest when the bell tolls. For her Bartley being alive to perform this function is more important than anything else. This is why when Bartley tells her the economic benefit of his journey, she retorts:
What is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?
Maurya’s reality is a dismal one. Her world is a world where things go anti-clock – wise. Inheritance, for example, is supposed to be from parents to the children but hers is a reversed order, she laments this before her daughters:
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.
The above statement underscores Maurya’s hopelessness and perception of life as meaningless; but Riders to the Sea is not an individual tragedy but the tragedy of humanity as a whole. It is a frightening tragedy of the fate of man. Thomas F. Van Laan posits in this direction that “Maurya’s defeat by her antagonist is the defeat of us all”. This is because the play appears to be saying that death will forever keep consigning man to the abyss of no return, no matter the effort to ward it off.
CONCLUSION
This article examines the Abbey theatre of the Irish people. It sees its emergence as part of the effort to promote interest in Irish identity and way of life. The study illustrates the point with John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea.
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