Enam's Note

‘ Riders to the Sea’ , by John Millington Synge, is one of the perfect one-act plays where all the characters are the puppet of the fate. Synge, suggested by WB Yeats, stays four years in the “Aran Island” and very closely observes how destiny plays an important role in the life of the islanders and very sincerely portrays in this great play. Now we are going to discuss it in detail. In this play, tragedy comes to the characters without any hamartia or tragic flaw. Here we see, the characters are not least responsible for their downfall or death unlike Shakespearean tragedy. Here destiny or the fate controls every thing. None can avoid it. Here life means nothing but tragedy and unconditional surrender to the mysterious fate. We see that, the inhabitants of the “Aran Island” are constantly struggling against the sea in order to support their daily bread ignoring the possibility of death, because they have no other option to avoid the sea. Thus, they embrace the watery

Question: How does the playwright portrays the character of Maurya as a Universal mother in his play "Riders to the Sea"? Maurya, a woman of over eighty, is one of the four major characters of the play ‘ Riders to the Sea’ by John Millington Synge. The whole story moves around her, telling the tale of her tragic past. Her great endurance and bravery in the most striking phases of the life reaches her at the level of real heroine of the play. Now we are going to look into Maurya critically.                         At the very beginning of the play we see that, Maurya has already lost her four sons and now she is waiting to recover the dead body of fifth one, Michael, who has been missing for nine days and to receive his dead body. As she says; “…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.” Now, Bartley is only one alive son of her family.