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.
Literary Devices
Foreshadowing
Riders to the Sea is heavy with foreshadowing, or the practice of hinting at future events in literature or drama. The foreshadowing is felt even by the characters, as they are steeped in lingering superstitious culture. Even from the opening of the play, images like the white boards in the cottage foreshadow death, since white boards were used for coffins, and the women keep them in the house because they suspect Michael is dead. Instead, Michael’s burial is in the sea, and Bartley dies, leaving the women with cause to use the boards still. Bartley also switches out his own flannel for his dead brother’s before going to sea, foreshadowing his death. The foreshadowing in Riders to the Sea works alongside the family’s superstitious beliefs; they are hyper-aware of each hint at a possible death, and they do what they can, like providing blessings, to fight those foreshadowed losses.
Imagery
Imagery plays an important role in the play through both stage props and dialogue. The stage props (See: Symbols & Motifs) provide imagery to foreshadow the events of the play; the nets entrap the household as well as provide a living through fishing, and the white boards, meant for Michael’s possible burial, foreshadow both Michael’s and Bartley’s deaths.
The characters, however, provide some of the imagery through their conversations. The sisters speak of the weather, painting a picture of the outer landscape and its dangers for the audience, despite the fact that the play takes place completely in the cottage. In Maurya’s monologue, imagery comes to the fore as she recalls her son, Patch, being returned to her after his death. She describes the cloth laid over him, the men and women accompanying the body, and the water dripping from the body and its cloth covering, creating a trail of liquid down the path to the cottage door. Imagery is important for Riders to the Sea because it gives the audience a sense of the landscape outside the staged cottage, helping them feel what life on the Aran Islands is like.
Language and Dialect
Dialect is an important aspect of characterization and setting in Riders to the Sea. John Millington Synge spent time living among the inhabitants of the Aran Islands, learning their culture and listening to their language with a keen ear. They often spoke Irish, but they also spoke the Hiberno-English dialect, which is a dialect of English that has been heavily influenced by the Irish language through both vocabulary and grammatical structure.
Synge is skillful at representing the Hiberno-English dialect, which contains a unique grammatical structure and includes syntax such as, “We’re to find out if it’s Michael’s they are,” “Herself does be saying prayers half through the night,” and “It’s a long time we’ll be, and the two of us crying” (72-73). Synge’s use of Hiberno-English—particularly his respectful, rather than exaggerated use of it—helps create a sense of authenticity for the audience, carrying them into the story through such attention to detail.
Related Titles
By John Millington Synge
