Maurya is an old Aran fisher-woman whose name echoes the Greek word moira,

meaning 'fate'living on one of the Aran Islands at the mouth of Galway Bay on the
western coast of Ireland, awild, desolate, impoverished area. She has 6 sons, 4 of
whom have died at sea. Michael, one of 2remaining sons, is also feared dead, as is
Bartley, her final son. Once the deaths of the final 2sons have been confirmed,
Maurya realizes that she has lost every one of the men in her life tothe sea,
including her husband and his father.She is a very strong woman who has endured
much suffering in her life due to the deaths in herfamily. She has remained strong
for the rest of her family and has trusted God's plan for her andfor her children. The
most important aspect of her chracterisation is the change in her attitude tolife &
death after her last son & the last surviving male member of her family, Bartley,
isdrowned in the sea. She ultimately is able to find peace with the deaths of her
husband and sonsbecause the sea cannot take any more people from her. Moreover,
she realizes that they are alltogether now in Heaven.
Mauryas nobility and maturity of spirit enable her to see the good in all of her men
now being
together. She sprinkles Hol
y Water over the dead Bartley and asks Gods mercy on the souls of
her men, on her own, and, generously, on the souls of everyone left living in the
world.JM SYNGE
: RIDERS TO THE SEA: In What ways is Riders to the sea comparable to Greek
tragedy?
Question : In What ways is Riders to the sea comparable to Greek tragedy?

or, Discuss the significance of the role of Fate in Riders to the Sea.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Answer :
Drama must excite, startle, thrill and shake us. Such effects cannot be produced by
a play whichis lacking in conflict. The conflict in a tragic play may be between
human beings pulling indifferent directions, between a character and the
environment in which he finds himself or the society of which he is a member.
Riders to the Sea succeeds in representing human sufferings which raises pity and
fear among us and makes us to decide that the play is a great one in its tragic
appeal. The tragic theme of Riders to the Sea moves round with the deep pathos of
a mother Maurya. The tragedy of the play is simple and straight- forward, but
sublime and universal in its penetrative appeal.
The play brings out the utter tragedy of humanity, pitted against the violent force of
a cold, unrelenting, natural element- the sea. The sea assumes here almost the role
of fate and becomes instrumental to human suffering and death. Riders to the sea is

indeed a great tragedy in its representation of human suffering and cathartic

appeal. There are two views on the tragic vision of life. One is that man is the plaything of inscrutable power called fate and another is that character is responsible
for the tragic end. In Greek tragedies, tragic fate for the heroes is predetermined.
Oedipus and Antigone become obstinate and tyrannical. Their tragedy is due to
their over confidence in their respective attitudes. In this light, we see Riders to the
Sea as a suitable combination of Greek and Shakespearean tragedies.
The protagonist in J. M. Synge's one-act play Riders to the Sea, Maurya, is a peasant
woman belonging to the Irish fishing community of the Aran Islands. In the social status,
Maurya is thus distinctly different from the towering classical protagonists such as Oedipus,
Agamemnon and Antigone, all of whom are highborn. While classical and Renaissance tragic
protagonists undergo suffering owing to their 'hubris' or 'hamartia', Maurya appears to be a
passive and helpless victim in the hands of the destructive sea. In Maurya's case, no
profound question seems to be raised about the intricate relationship between human will
and predestination. Yet, she resembles the great traditional protagonists in her heroic power
of endurance and the spiritual transcendence over her suffering.
In Riders to the Sea, Maurya at first appears to be a weak and helpless victim as he has lost
her husband and four of her six sons in the sea. She is crazed and disoriented by the
disappearance of her fifth son Michael, missing at sea for nine long days. The intensity of
her suffering in the hands of the cruel and unpredictable sea is no less than that of the
classical protagonists who are victimized by the malice and caprice of the fate. Maurya is

an old Aran fisher-woman whose name echoes the Greek word moira, meaning
'fate'living on one of the Aran Islands at the mouth of Galway Bay on the western
coast of Ireland . The final climax to her tragic experience is foreshadowed when her only
surviving son, Bartley, insists on sailing during tempestuous weather.
Maurya's desperate attempt to prevent Barley from sailing comprises of one of the most
dramatic moments in the play. While Maurya insistently cites several reasons to dissuade
her son, he offers a passive resistance by refusing to address her queries with definite
answers. While Maurya had previously refused to admit the possibility of Michael's death,
she readily acknowledges it only to hinder Bartley. She opines that Michael's body is
recovered, a man would be required to arrange for the funeral rites that would be
impossible without Bartley's presence. When no excuses suffice, she candidly exposes the
raw core of her suffering heart, pleading Bartley not to devastate her by adamantly sailing
to his death. Though she accuses Bartley of being hard-hearted and indifferent, the pain of
separation surpasses her accusation.
Unlike the classical tragic protagonists, Maurya has not been characterized by the
Aristotelian attributes of 'hubris' and 'hamartia'. Her suffering is not based on individual
volition or responsibility. She is a sufferer from the very beginning of the play and has been
described as frantically praying and pleading to God for the safety and security of her sons.
Though she is a Christian, she cannot rely on the superficial consolation offered by the
young priest who insists that "Almighty God won't leave her destitute with no son living".
Like all other Aran mothers, she is a pagan at her heart, believing more in dark and

destructive supernatural forces governing human destiny than the will of the benevolent and
merciful Father.
Through Maurya, Synge depicts the tragic foreknowledge of most aged Aran mothers. Being
accustomed to repeated bereavement, Maurya possesses the intuitive knowledge that
Bartley's decision to sail to Galway to sell the two horses is a fateful one. It is this tragic
wisdom that makes her cry out over her son's inevitable destiny during his departure
"He's gone now, God spare us and I will not see him again. He is gone now and when the
black night is falling, I'll have no son left me in the world." Traumatized by fear and anxiety,
she is unable to bless her son or handing him his piece of bread all these being
symbolically interpreted by Maurya's daughters and the rustic audience as an ill omen or a
curse. Maurya's culminating tragic experience of losing her last son is therefore a
predictable one.
The dramatist reveals to us the uncorrupted and untamed folk-imagination of Maurya
through the supernatural vision that she witnesses at the spring-well. The strength of her
intuition makes her envision the spectre of Michael adorned in new clothes and shoes on the
gray pony, following Bartley, riding the red mare. Reminiscent of the red and the dark
horses in the biblical Revelation, the rider of the dark horse is emblematic of death.
Following the rider on the red mare, symbolizing life, the rider of the dark horse
symbolically anticipates Bartley's death. This supernatural vision of Maurya universalizes the
intricate relationship between life and death.
Maurya's suffering reaches its climactic moment towards the end of the play, reminding us
of the destinies of Hecuba and Niobe. Her initial response to Bartley's death is one of stoic
defiance when she declares with a challenge, "There's no harm the sea can do t me". In the
perpetual battle between the life-giver and the destroyer, between the mother and the
destructive sea, Maurya, at last, ironically, is triumphant. Having lost all her sons, she has
been emancipated from the everlasting cycle of suffering and bereavement. At this point,
she seems to withdraw her sympathy from the community of mankind when her
disillusionment compels her to state "I won't care what way the sea is when the other
women will be keening." ]
The final phase of Maurya's suffering reveals a transition from misery to a profound tragic
transcendence. Like the Sophoclean protagonists, she achieves knowledge and
enlightenment out of misery and heroically accepts her tragic predicament. Tragic wisdom
illuminates her mind into the understanding that death is an essential episode in the
universal cycle of life. Instead of accusing God, she reconciles to her fate bravely and
gracefully and accepts her destitution as the sublime will of God. Reconstructing a broken
life into a new existence of faith and altruism, she achieves tragic dignity and elevation in
the eyes of the audience. She reflects the true spirit of Christian humanism, invoking God's
blessings upon all " may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and the soul of everyone is
left living in the world". She further states "no man at all can be living for ever and we
must be satisfied". It is this spiritual sublimation of misery that gives Maurya the status of a
great tragic heroine.\

In Riders to the Sea, Synge transforms a common Aran peasant woman to a universal
mother. Through her, the dramatist provides us with a glimpse into the strength of the
human spirit that can spiritually triumph over the worst form of adversity. Instead of being a
victim of destructive forces, as the modern tragic protagonist usually is, Maurya is raised to
a position of tragic glory. Thus, he creates a new dimension in depicting the character of a
tragic protagonist who is none but a down-to-earth sufferer.

She finds consolation in the fact that nothing worse can happen to her. Now she will have peace and
sound sleep. Her sufferings are great, but she rises above them. In the end, this peasant woman, by
her stoic acceptance of her cruel destiny, attains tragic greatness and becomes a true heroine of this
grim tragedy.