Riders to The Sea- Summary

1. Riders to The Sea- Summary Maurya has fallen into a sleep. She is certain that her son, Michael, has drowned, even though she has no proof. She had been constantly grieving for nine days. Cathleen, her daughter, is doing household. Nora, another daughter arrives. She quietly slips into the kitchen with a bundle that had been given to her by a young priest. In the bundle are clothes taken from the body of a man who drowned in the far north. They were sent to Maurya's home, hoping that she would be able to identify the body.

2. Riders to The Sea- Summary • Maurya begins to look as if she is going to wake up soon, so the daughters hide the bundle until a time when they are alone. • Maurya awakes, afraid of losing her only remaining son Bartley. • She Keeps in mind that she has already lost five sons and a husband to the sea. • However, Bartley proclaims that he is going to venture over to the mainland that same day, in order to sell a horse at the fair, despite knowing of the high winds and seas.

3. Riders to The Sea- Summary • Maurya begs Bartley not to go, yet he insists despite her pleas. • Maurya bids him gone without her blessing. • The sisters tell Maurya, that she should go out and search for Bartley in order to give him lunch that they he had forgotten to take, and while at it, give him her blessing. • Maurya agrees to go, and once she is gone, the girls open the bundle • They find that they were indeed Michael's clothes, but at least they have the comfort of knowing he got a respectable Christian burial

4. Riders to The Sea- Summary • Maurya returns even more flustered and terrified before. She has seen a vision of Michael riding on the lead horse behind Bartley. • She expected that Bartley will die at sea. • The girls then show her Michael's clothes, and she exclaims that the nice white boards she had bought for Michael's coffin may now be used for Bartley's instead. • As she says this, the neighbors (women) enter, their voices raised in what the play calls a "keen", or wailing lament for the dead. • Men follow the women, who bring in the body of Bartley, who is dead. He has been knocked off a cliff into the surf below by the horse he was leading. • The play ends with Maurya's fatal submission as she says, "They're all gone now and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me."

5. Riders to The Sea - Structure • A symphonic structure • Consists of three accelerating movements. • The first is the thesis, the second is the antithesis and finally is the synthesis. • 1. (Thesis) is the expositionthat is a type of expectation and presentation of forces. • It is the expectation of Michael’s fate, • A struggle between the fear of Michael’s death and the hope of being alive. • (who wins ?)

6. Riders to The Sea - Structure • The two struggling forces in this movement are: Maurya, who is a symbol of life (a life- giving force), and the Sea, which is a symbol of death and destruction (a life- taking force). • 2. (Antithesis) is a form of resistance ( the complication ): • the mother resists Bartley’s intention of sailing into the sea • Resists the idea of Michael’s Death. • Resisting the idea of losing all her men

7. Riders to The Sea - Structure • This movement is repugnance between the same two previous forces: hope and fear (Maurya and the sea). • Triumph in this round, once again, is for the destructive force (the sea). • 3. The third movement (synthesis) is the resolution of the dramatic action. It represents the resignation and acceptance. • Here, Maurya shifts from resistance of death and objection against cosmic principles to acceptance of God’s Will and total submission to that will. • In the first two movements, she was not able to find harmony with the outside world because she didn’t have the harmony inside • (Maurya asks God to grant mercy on the souls of her husband, sons and all people). • At the end of this movement, Maurya accepts the fact that no man can live forever, and we as human beings should be in harmony with ourselves.