© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.

org (ISSN-2349-5162)

Hostility of Fate towards Human Beings: A Study

on the Role of Destiny in
J. M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea
S.T. Siva Ranjan,
Assistant Professor, Department of English,
Sivanthi Adithanar College, Pillayarpuram,
Kanyakumari District, Tamilnadu-629701.

Abstract

Drama, with its remarkable artistic expressions and aesthetic composure, contributes to humanity the
perfect ideals of life and truth aiming at renovation of lifestyle. The tyranny of fate is experienced by all
irrespective of the class to which they belong. John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea is a heartbreaking
magnum opus that portrays the wonders of sea as the part of nature which is the real background and setting to
the play and occasionally playing the role of an artist. This one-act play reminds us of ancient classical
tragedies in which fate is the principal foe of human beings who are arbitrarily punished for no fault of their
own. All the characters seem to be puppets in the hands of fate as they are fore-doomed to suffer from the fate
according to their previous karma which never lets them to escape the doom which has been specially
ordained for them. Fate has here been shown to be relentless, merciless and hostile to human beings. This
paper strives to give accent to the misfortunes of a peasant fishing family and the hostility of fate towards this
family.It also unfolds the tragedy brought about wholly by fate which employs the sea as its principal agent.

Keywords: Destiny, Fate, Death, Sea, Struggle, Burial.

In the world of literature, drama being an audio-visual medium of expression is of course the most
peculiar, the most appealing and the most delightful of all types of literary pursuits. It is so deeply associated
with the inner consciousness that it has rightly been regarded as the best means for the exploration of human
nature in all its varieties and manifestations. The Irish Literary Drama Riders to the Sea, written by John
Millington Synge, appeals to the intellect and the spirit then to the senses. Being a natural mystic, the
dramatist Synge had brilliantly sketched out a peasant life so as to absorb the sense of humor and all
characters therein are the works of imagination. Hence, he has been extolled as “a silent, an aloof, a listening
man”(Tandon 56).

Synge did not write his play in verse but his prose has a rhythm and harmony, which gives it the effect
of poetry. He had included idioms of local people at suitable places in this drama which was endowed with
full of similes that figure-out speeches silently to enhance its beauty and harmony. Further, the language
seems to merge with the life and emotions of the simple, poor, suffering women in rural areas. He took some
of his plots from stories he heard in the Aran Islands, and the people there gave him impressions for the kind
JETIR1906V70 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 498
© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162)

of world he wanted to create in his plays. He had chosen a peasantry background and peasant idioms to create
something new in drama portraying the events in a voyage. His characters are not real and yet poetic. While
appreciating the writings of Synge, T. S. Eliot says, “The plays of John Millington Synge form rather a special
case, because they are based upon the idiom of a rural people whose speech is naturally poetic, both in
imagery and in rhythm.”(Benson 12). For that reason, his language can be better called Anglo-Irish.

Synge had succeeded in creating a tremendous momentum within the single drama, Riders to the Sea,
which has been one of the few celebrated one-act plays in English Literature. In this tragic masterpiece, the
sea plays the critical role of fate and a family of people, who are certainly real actors of this play, struggles in
vain against their fate but is powerless to resist and act against the supernatural force. It is sometimes said that
Synge, who has strong faith in the Greek Philosophy, has considered fate as the cause for all human
sufferings. In this drama, the sea symbolizes destiny or the will of the Gods, which never appears on the stage
but outside it roars hungrily for its toll of human lives. Its victims are the men of the island but the chief
sufferers are the women who are left destitute after all the men have been drowned.In this play, Synge has
introduced only four characters- Maurya, her two daughters, Cathleen and Nora, and her last surviving son,
Bartley. It has only one theme of destruction caused to man by the sea. It deals with the shadow of Michael’s
death on his mother and sisters and closes with the death of Bartley.

In the real scenic background of this play, a peasantry of Aran Island bordering the sea was destroyed
by the giant tides of sea. Even though the victims of the tragedy are the several men-folk of Maurya’s clan, the
real sufferers in the play are Cathleen, Nora and above all Maurya. When the play opens, a son of Maurya has
been reported as having been drowned in sea. Maurya has been waiting for Michael’s dead body to be washed
ashore and she has even made arrangements for a coffin for Michael’s burial. The reported death of Michael is
certainly a big disaster for this peasant family which is one of the well-known families in the community of
Aran Island. However, the three women are shown as facing this particular misfortune with stoical calm.
Michael’s death was not due to any fault in his character or to any error of judgments; he just got drowned in
the sea perhaps because of a storm on the sea. No references are made to any human error or any misdeed
committed by any human being. Nature acted spitefully in snatching away Michael from his family and nature
represents fate.

Incident of Michael’s death is just opening of this play, but the entire tragedy in the play centres round
the death of Bartley. Bartley is preparing to go to the main inland in order to sell a couple of horses at cattle
fair. Now, his decision to go to the mainland does not imply any wrong-doing on his part, neither any
misjudgment nor any error. After all, a man has to pursue his avocation, whatever it may be. Since Bartley
belongs to a family of peasant fishermen, there had been a custom that the males of this family have to
confront the sea relentlessly either for fishing from sea or for going over to the mainland to sell their
agricultural produce or horses. Further, Bartley needs cash for the family and so he must go to the mainland to

JETIR1906V70 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 499
© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162)

sell the horses. It is the need for money that makes him tell Cathleen that she should sell the pig with the black
feet in case a good price is offered for it.

When Bartley was leaving from the house, Cathleen and Nora realized that he had left without food.
Cathleen asked her mother to walk quickly to meet him by the well, to give him bread and the neglected
blessing. Maurya accepted, picked up the walking stick belonging to the drowned Michael and went to look
for Bartley. With sadness in mind, she taught herself “In the big world the old people do be leaving things
after them for their sons and children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things behind for
them that do be old.” In the meantime, the girls hurriedly retrieve the bundle of clothes to examine them more
closely. They matched the flannel shirt with one of Michael’s that had been left hanging on a hook and then
discovered that Bartley had taken that shirt to wear, as it was newer than his own. Nora took the stocking from
the bundle, counted the stitches, and recognized her own work. Once more, they hide the clothes from their
mother, thinking that she will be in a better frame of mind when she returns, having had an opportunity to give
a blessing to Bartley.

The young Priest decides not to stop Bartley from going to the mainland, because the Priest realizes
that men must go about doing their jobs. Bartley goes on his trip and is drowned in the sea. Consequently,
Maurya, the mother who had just sent her first son to burial ground and not come out of tears yet, has lost her
last surviving son. What man should be blamed for it? The responsibility is neither that of Bartley whose
intension is earning money by selling horses nor that of any other human being including the priest for not
stopping him in his task. It is just that the man is drowned in the sea. The sea is the unbeatable and unexpected
villain.

It is very largely true that the real enemy of Maurya and other members of the community on this
island, is not the sea as such but fate or destiny which in this particular case makes use of the sea as its agent.
The sea is not at all the fate but natural piece of elements that supports the lives in the Island and it becomes
hostile to Maurya’s family when the fate recruits the sea as its agent to destroy the family. If truth is to be
revealed, the seas as the natural thing does not destroy Maurya’s family but the fate, when it comes to action,
makes it as the cause of destruction. It is in this way that Riders to the sea reminds of ancient classical tragedy
in which man was fore-doomed to suffer. In the context of fate, this tragic drama is more remembered like
Oedipus drama wherein nothing could save the King Oedipus from meeting the tragic end of death which had
been prophesied for him beforehand. Even if the life of Maurya and Oedipus are biographically quite
different, in the operation of fate Maurya’s life reminds the inconveniences in the life of Oedipus Rex because
of fate.

In this play, the anti-hero is the sea itself and the entire play narrates the conflict between man and the
sea. T. R. Henn says:

JETIR1906V70 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 500
© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162)

“The conflict is between sea and humanity, singly and collectively. The human opponents are
on three levels: Bartley who must sell his horses at the fair, his sisters who seem to have a
sacrificial prophetic function, like Antigone and Ismene, Maurya who speaks the great elegies
for the dead not only of Aran but of the world. The sea is the tyrant–god full of mystery and
power, the giver and taker of life, the enemy and challenger of the young; it is pre-existent evil
and good.” (Benson 47)

The sea may here be interpreted to mean other natural forces also, all those natural forces which destroy
human happiness and human life.

As the literature addressed to society, there are three dramatic unities in this play. The first unity is the
unchanging locale of the action of Maurya’s tumbledown cottage which stands high on rocky plain exposed to
the storms of the sea, which pays high intensity and concentration to draw the attention of readers. The second
unity is the unison of time that favours the incidents, which is another notable facet in the Riders to the Sea. It
begins with a hushed mourning over the identification of the clothes of frowned Michael, followed by a brief
debate on the advisability of Bartley’s sea voyages, his setting out and the speedy arrival of his corpse on the
sea-shore. The third unity, as in a Greek tragedy, the unity of action is also observed in Riders to the Sea. The
whole play is between the two death events. Bartley preserved the ropes of Michael and wore the dead
brother’s shirt. The notion of Bartley’s doom reminds Maurya of the other deaths she suffered in the past. Her
instinct calls up the past of the family and links it up with the present and future when Bartley wore his
brother’s shirt. One cannot expect a chorale in a one-act play like Riders to the Sea, yet Maurya herself
performs the task usually taken by a chorus in a Greek tragedy. Maurya, the central character has the
additional function of presenting the tragic doom of the whole family pitted against the vindictiveness of the
sea which has snatched away from her everything.

Synge has depicted in this play that the sea the architect of Maurya’s cruel fate. Maurya’s men folk are
poor fishermen who cannot earn much wealth to enjoy livelihoods and most often droned in the sea, but
people of all ranks and classes are drowned in the sea. The hungry sea devours the rich and the poor, kings
and nobles, as well as poor fishermen and sailors. The poet Shelley was drowned into the sea. The suffering of
the mother would be the same whether Bartley is a poor fisherman or a rich prince.The sea has already
devoured Maurya’s father-in-law, her husband and four of her sons. Her fifth son was drowned nine days back
and before the curtain falls her last son is also killed by the sea. The cup of her sorrow is full. She stoically
resigns herself to her fate. She is calm now because the sea cannot do anything worse than this. She says,
“they are all gone now, and there isn’t anything more the sea can do to me”(43). Having seen the body of
Bartley, the mother Maurya kneeled by the corpse and though resigned to her fate -having lost six sons to the
sea - triumphantly announces, “There’s no more the sea can do to me. . . . it’s a great rest I’ll have now, and
it’s time surely. . . . They’re all together. . . . No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied.” of

JETIR1906V70 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 501
© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162)

Bartley. Cathleen asked the men to make a coffin, but they found that there are no nails for making a coffin,
denoting the family’s great poverty.

Without doubt Riders to the Sea is not at all a tragedy of characters and nobody in the play is to blame
for what happens; this is wholly a tragedy of fate. The sea is an archetypal symbol and has a universal
significance. The hostility between man and the sea has been going on the earth since times immemorial. The
fate takes all people alike but at different times and conditions for everyone. Fate does not happen to Maurya
because she is poor because it is independent of caste, ranks and social status. Things, which have happened to
Maurya and her family, may happen to people of high status, rank and position. A queen will have the same
feelings of Maurya if the dead body of her last surviving son is brought before her. So, incidents like
Maurya’s tragedy may happen to anybody at any time due to the action of fate, which is the central theme of
this short play.

Works Cited

Benson, Eugene. Modern Dramatist–J M Synge. Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1982 reprint.
Synge, J M. Riders to the Sea, Rama Brothers India Pvt. Ltd, . New Delhi, 2008 reprint.
Tandon, Neeru. Perspectives and Challenges in Indian English Drama. Atlantic Publishers and Distributers,
New Delhi, 2006 reprint.

JETIR1906V70 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 502