Local And Universal Appeal of J. M Synge’s “Riders to the Sea”

J. M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea is evidently and unquestionably a play with a distinct regional interest whose setting is an island off the west of Ireland.

This island is one of a group of islands known as the Aran Islands. Acting on the advice of W. B. Yeats, Synge pays several visits to the Aran Islands and stays on each of the three islands to study the manners, habits, beliefs, and mode of life of the natives there.

Synge drew much of the material from his first-hand knowledge of these islands and their people. The very idea, for instance, comes to him from a drowning incident that takes place during one of his visits to these islands.

A proper analysis of the play reveals that the regional quality of this play is evident. It is clear not only from how the characters speak here but also their beliefs and habits.

Maurya’s People Represent The Difficult Life of Island Peasants

Maurya belongs to a family of peasants-cum-fishermen. These people earn their living partly by rearing animals, partly from sowing such crops as rye, and partly from fishing in the sea. They often have to visit the mainland to attend the cattle fairs there to buy and sell animals and dispose of their produce.

The islanders also collect sea-weeds known as ‘kelp’ which is burnt to make manure. These people’s life aspects have shined to us through our reading of this play.

These people live close to the seashore and have to encounter the sea for various purposes to pursue their hobbies. They are exposed to certain risks and hazards. Cases of drowning are necessarily persistent. This particular danger from the sea forms the theme of Riders to the Sea.

We see that the sea devours all the male members of Maurya’s family. The play’s climax comes when the last surviving son Bartley drowns in the ocean. But it is noteworthy that the sea, which devours all the male members of Maurya’s family, is also a source of their livelihood.

Thus Synge has depicted the ocean here in its dual characters and, on the other, a destroyer.

Maurya’s Pathos Represent The Typical Fate of Many Island Families

The family to which Maurya, Cathleen, Nora, and Bartley belong is a typical one representing the entire community of the island. This means that Maurya is not the only victim of the sea but that other families and mothers must have gone through a similar experience.

We are naturally struck by the fact that the people of this island find life a hard struggle and that they are engaged in a lifelong contest with the sea, with the odd situations against them. Thus the regional or local appeal of the play is evident.

But the play transcends its local or regional character. The tragedy in the space is not just a woman belonging to one of the Aran Islands but a human tragedy with a universal appeal. Here, the sea symbolizes destiny or fate, which is hostile to human beings.

Oedipus Represents The Men’s Inevitable Fate Worldwide

Maurya is any woman as prey in the hands of fate. In this respect, Riders to the Sea reminds us of the ancient classical tragedies in which fate is the principal foe of human beings that any man cannot avert. Oedipus, for instance, trying his utmost, cannot prevent himself from the hands of fate, and finally, he is doomed.

Thus in Oedipus Rex, Oedipus represents every man in the world.

Like Oedipus, Maurya tries her best to prevent him from going to the mainland. She feels that a storm is likely to blow over the sea and that Bartley, too, may be lost. But fate has already decided to snatch Bartley away from Maurya.

Despite Maurya’s earnest pleas to Bartley to give up his journey to the sea, Bartley insists on this and leaves, never to return alive. The result has been what Maurya thought. The sea devoured her only surviving son, Bartley.

However, while Maurya’s fate profoundly moves us, we realize that her cause is not unique. Women worldwide undergo a similar agony of suffering, similar anguish. The circumstances may be different, the conditions of life may be other, but suffering remains the same in all cases because the play Riders to the Sea attains a universal quality.

In Essence

A critic has aptly summed up the universal significance of Riders to the Sea. According to this critic, the island of Riders to the Sea is Ireland but more than Ireland. Its predicaments are those of the Irish peasants and those of all men. Its beliefs are those of the Irish peasants.

Still, they are also those who combine superstition with Christian belief or are troubled by thoughts of spiritual realities beyond their ability to understand and control. Whatever the fact, in the height of the arguments mentioned above, the local and universal quality of the play Riders to the Sea is unavoidable.

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