30 pages • 1 hour read
John Millington SyngeRiders to the Sea
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1904A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act I, Scene 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Act I, Scene 2 Summary
Once Maurya has walked far enough that the girls feel she will not turn back, Cathleen and Nora retrieve the bundle from the turf-loft to examine its contents. The flannel shirt, Cathleen explains, could belong to anyone, since many men on the island and the mainland can buy that flannel pattern, but Nora recognizes the stockings she stitched for Michael herself. They grieve, but they stop themselves quickly when they hear their mother returning, as they wish to wait to tell her the news until she feels better about Bartley’s departure.
Maurya looks distraught when she enters, and the girls press her, asking if she was able to give Bartley her blessing. She claims the words of the blessing would not leave her mouth, and she explains that she had a vision as he passed her on the road. He had the gray pony riding behind him, tied to the donkey, and on the gray pony, Maurya saw an image of Michael wearing fine clothes and new shoes. She claims that this vision reveals Bartley will die, too. Maurya delivers a powerful and tragic monologue, telling her daughters about all the men she has lost to the sea.
The girls hear a noise outside; shortly after, a group of somber women from the community enter the cottage, and Nora notes that some men approach with something carried between them, dripping water in an echo of the day the body of Maurya’s son Patch was brought to her, deceased. The women confirm to Maurya that it is Bartley’s body and explain that the gray pony knocked him into the sea.
Maurya, realizing the sea can do her no more harm now that all of her sons and her husband are dead, grieves more calmly than Nora claims she did for Michael. She sprinkles Bartley with holy water. Cathleen notes how broken Maurya is and speaks with one of the men about burying Bartley in the white boards originally meant for Michael.
Maurya accepts the fate of the family and those on the island, ending the play with her reflection that “No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied” with the good burial her sons will receive (105).
Act I, Scene 2 Analysis
The second half of Act I contains the climax, falling action, and denouement of the plot. The climax, Maurya’s vision of Michael (foretelling Bartley’s death), leads quickly into the falling action, or the arrival of mourners carrying Bartley’s body, and the denouement, when Maurya and her daughters give into the futility of a life reliant on the sea and the grief of lost loved ones. The denouement reveals the importance of the theme The Relationship Between Tragedy and Catharsis; the loss of every one of her sons and male relatives leaves Maurya with a sense of peace over the futility of fighting against the sea’s (or God’s) apathy for human life. Nora notes the odd calm that comes over Maurya, wondering if her mother cared more for Michael than for Bartley, since she is not crying and wailing as she did when Michael did not come home. Cathleen, however, recognizes the catharsis that Maurya has experienced. She knows that Maurya is at peace because Maurya realizes she has no more sons through which the sea can break her. With no more sons, she no longer has to anguish over the weather and pray unceasingly for the safe return of her loved ones. Her peace and catharsis, then, comes from her ability to accept her position as a broken woman with no more to lose.
The Contrast Between Christianity and Pagan Mysticism becomes clearer in Act I, Scene 2. Caught in between these two belief systems, the family is anxious about the reassuring words of the priest and feels inclined to superstition instead. The priest’s belief, that God wouldn’t take Maurya’s last son from her, proves to be untrue, suggesting the priest could have forbidden Bartley’s travel and avoided the death. Nonetheless, Maurya still sprinkles the body with Holy water and prepares him for a proper Christian burial, believing that is the best she or anyone else on the island could hope for. However, she also directly references Samhain, the pagan autumn festival of the Celts. She would spend Samhain praying for her sons, combining Christian and pagan traditions and superstitions in a manner typical of Irish Catholics at the time. Ultimately, though, neither side of Maurya’s faith helps her. Whether Christian, pagan, or something else entirely, the forces that govern the world reveal they do not care about the fate of Maurya or her family. Still, she and her family rely on these forces to bring a sense of reason and rationality to an unjust reality.
The conflict surrounding The Role of Place and Nature in Irish Culture comes to a head during the second scene of Act I. The characters have spent most of the play—and most of their lives—fighting against the destructive power of the sea. They have spent hours and days praying that their sons and brothers would be preserved during their many crossings, and each of the characters knows that they must continue to send loved ones to the sea if they wish to earn a living and survive. The characters feel impending doom hovering over their lives because of the threat nature and their place of belonging poses. The characters, however, do not seek new lands, feeling a sense of belonging or otherwise unable to afford to uproot their lives. Instead, they remain passive in the face of the sea’s power, looking to survive however they can and yet surrendering to the inevitability of death.
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By John Millington Synge
