A title is
always very significant in dramatic literature as it plays a conspicuous role
to give a suggestive hint about the theme of the play. The title Riders to the Sea is so appealing
because at the very outset it hints that it is a story of a group of peasants
and fishermen who are professionally riders, living at the coastal region of
the Bay of Galway and the key word ‘riders’ is metaphorically used by the
playwright to refer to those people who move on the sea in their struggle for
existence , and thereby, hinting at the eternal conflict between man and
neccesity.The title is , therefore used in a highly dramatic sense and the
experience out of which the author drew the word ‘riders’ is based on reality.
The presence
of the sea is pervasive in the play. Its presence is almost as eerie and
haunting as that of Egdon Heath in Hardy’s novel The
Return of the Native and the uncultured primitive fishermen are presented
as pitied against the ferocity of the hungry sea , and the force of the
circumstances of the lives,they are decreed to take regular voyage to the sea:
the matter of fact is that they cannot survive without venturing out on the sea
for the sake of the subsistence. Undeniably, the sea gives them fish for food,
passage across the market in Ireland and supplies them with kelp which can be
used to extract iodine. Riding to the sea is,thus, an indispensable course of
their daily routine, though the islanders cannot understand the mysterious way
of the sea: the sea may wash open Atlantic with no land inside; and it is very
probable that the rider might return but his return would be in the form of a
corpse washed ashore by the waves. In Riders
to the Sea , the title refers to all fisher folk in general through the
focused eight male members of Maurya’s family who rode to the sea to be
devoured in the long run. Bartley’s, the only surviving son of Maurya, decision
to go to the sea does not imply any challenge on his part. He is simply toiling
to earn his living. This is not an act of “hubris” or “hamartia”.
Implicitly,
the title brings out symbolically the bread earners and the adverse worldly
force, though mother’s stoical resignation to the will of God in conclusion
focuses the human riders and superior force to the elemental fate and
therefore, the sea cannot ultimately keep the native grandeur of human mind
suppressed. Synge’s title is thus quiet precise and suggestive.
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