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Stoic Resignation In the play "Riders to the sea"

Hajra Majeed Malik

Department of English

January 13, 2016

Stoic Resignation In John Millington Synge's "Riders To The Sea"

(A Short Play)

While reading the tragic short play by J.M .Synge, I

came to know for the first time about the word stoicism which the

character Maurya has acquired after the death of her all male

family members her indifferent attitude and the whole Irish

atmosphere has influenced me to such a great extent that I could

not forget the whole series of appalling happenings done to the

poverty stricken family by the fate and their disparagement in

response to the calamities even though I read the play in my

intermediate English syllabus. People nowadays do not usually

have this stoic acceptance in their natural beings and they do not

stoutly accepts the crucial inevitability of death they merely

expunge the idea of death from their lives and it's just and

universal because not anyone is capable of being a stoic.

This paper deals with the unusual acceptance of fate

by the poor Irish family who lives in a hovel on a bog ,and how

Maurya and her remaining daughters become stoically resilient.

Merriman says:"“Riders to the Sea” notes numerous elements from

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Stoic Resignation In the play "Riders to the sea"

Synge learned during his travels." as Edward O' Brien suggests in

the introduction to the play 1911 version : "it must have been

Synge's second visit to Aran Island that he had the experience out

of which wrought what many believe to be his greatest play while

Synge was on Inishmaan "(7) Also the play emphasizes the

condition of the Irish culture their believes and traditions .The

naivety of the characters who have faced all the miseries without

any fault of their own.

If we come to consider its literary review David

Greene in his , "J.M. Synge: A Reappraisal" in Critical Essays on

John Millington Synge exclaims the centrality of the stoic

acceptance of the living characters and their human strength is

appraised, accordingly another writer Mary Burke in her work

Synge and the cultural history of Ireland highlights the cultural

values along with the unusual presence of stoicism within Maurya

and it is applauded very precisely in the book A concise

companion to British and Irish drama edited by Nadine Holsworth

and Mary Buckhurst they illustrated that the stoic acceptance of

fate in Maurya character is par excellent and no other dramatist can

portray a character with such sublimity of psyche and organization.

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Stoic Resignation In the play "Riders to the sea"

The play riders to the sea consist of several stoic

elements. The characters resignation to the fate is exceedingly

centrifugal in the play. The character’s has strong healing power

incorporated with the stoicism in the face of dire fate. If we come

to the acknowledgment of the element of stoicism we are taken

back to antiquity because Stoicism was a school of philosophy

founded by Zeno in Ancient Greece. A stoic is an endured pain and

hardships without showing any feelings and complaining. The idea

behind the philosophy was to acquire immunity from the pain and

suffering that assails human life in the form of human feelings.

Stoics believed human emotions to be the cause of human

suffering thus they endeavored to avoid pain and sorrow by

avoiding all emotions and feelings. All in all stoicism is “the

quality or behavior of a person who accepts what happens without

complaining or showing emotion” (Merriam-Webster.com.

Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2015). It is one of the loftiest

philosophies in western culture which J.M Synge has used in this

play. It was one of the new idealistic movements of the Hellenistic

period. As Dirk suggests that "Stoic ethics achieves a certain

plausibility within the context of their physical theory and

psychology, and within the framework of Greek ethical theory as

that was handed down to them from Plato and Aristotle."( Baltzly,
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Stoic Resignation In the play "Riders to the sea"

Dirk, "Stoicism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)Having

lost six family members of the family all the remaining members

of Maurya family Cathleen ,Nora ,Bartley and Maurya herself

,have developed an attitude of stoic resignation towards the

recurring tragedies of the death of their men by drowning at sea.sea

being the natural force has a sinister presence throughout the play .

As sea and harsh environment are responsible for the recurring

tragedies in the characters life it seems a plausible deduction that

harsh environment embodied as the force of the sea in the play is

responsible for the stoic resignation of the characters I the play.

The stage instructions shows the wind battering the

little cottage "the door Nora half closed is blown open by a gust of

wind."The play opens with the ominous absence of Michael who

has been missing at the sea for nine days . His sisters Nora and

Cathleen instead waiting for the terrible news of his death are

found going about their duties diligently from the beginning of the

play .Nora is doing outdoor chores and Cathleen is found spinning

the wheel .even when Nora brings the package of clothes to be

recognized which will confirm the death of Michael the characters

do not stop their routine duties . This continuation of routine

activities b the characters in the face of the immanent tragedy of

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Stoic Resignation In the play "Riders to the sea"

their brothers death is an instance of stoic resignation to the harsh

realities of their lives in which sailors die every day. Bartley insist

on going to Connemara to sell horses in order to earn money while

ignoring the warnings of his mother Maurya about the bad weather

,rather he says to Nora and Cathleen that they must sale "the pig

with black feet if the best price going…its hard set we’ll be from

this day with no one in it but one man to work"(24)

When considering the doctrines of the Stoics, it is

important to remember that they think of philosophy not as an

interesting pastime or even a particular body of knowledge, but as

a way of life. They define philosophy as a kind of practice or

exercise (askêsis) in the expertise concerning what is beneficial

(Aetius, 26A) Stoicism has never been ‘purely academic’ and

modern adaptations of Stoic thought seek to carry on this tradition

of self-transformation. The Stoics assign to ‘physique’ or ‘nature’

all the purely physiological life functions of a human animal (such

as digestion, breathing, growth etc.)—self-movement from place to

place is due to soul .

The most explicit example of stoic resignation is

found in the character of Maurya. The play reaches its climax in

Maurya's stoic resignation to her plight ,when she learns of the

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confirmation of Michaels death and the news of Bartley's death.

Maurya presents a calm front to these twin tragedies on top of the

previous deaths of her four sons ,husband and father in-law.

Maurya expresses her feelings of peace at being rescued from the

vicious cycle of life and death and the death of her last son. She

feels safe from the anxiety which the roaring of the sea caused her4

every time she heard them crashing on the rocks in the night as it

made her afraid of her sons safety. While attending to the funeral

rites of her sons she says: "they are all gone now ,and there isn't

anything more the sea can do to me..it's a great rest i'll have now

and great sleeping."(42-43)she in these lines pathetically counts the

deaths of all the male members of her family who are all perished

in the brutal sea .She also felt at ease with the thought that her last

son Bartley too would be buried decently this reaction of Maurya

at the death of her last remaining son is an instance of her stoic

resignation ,later towards the ending of the play she accepts death

as the essential episode in the universal cycle of life ,thus adds

with strong stoic stance that: "no man at all can be living forever

and, we must be satisfied"(45). Her tears dried up after crying and

lamenting over the incessant deaths of her loved ones. The last epic

speech of Maurya describe the destruction of her family men ,as

the old women tells of past tragedies ,this shows the audience that
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their presentiments and fears were justified ,it shows the struggle

with the elements of death most dramatically ,it presents the

ancient ritual of community in the face of death ;it shows the stoic

resignation and the dignity of a woman Their account of the human

soul (mind) is strong. Though they speak of the soul's faculties,

these are parts of the commanding faculty associated with the

physical sense organs (Aetius, 53H).the over whelming grieves

have infused a strong sense of endurance in her heart and essence.

The handling of Stoic ideas in the context of

Christian orthodoxy required a certain delicacy. While it was

agreed by nearly all that God was not a material being, the state of

the human soul was a more controversial matter. The characters in

the play find no consolation in religion but they do have belief in

religion and prayed to \god for the lives of their loved ones as also

in the play their religious belief is depicted as Nora says in the play

: Didn’t the young priest says" the almighty God won't leave her

destitute… with no son living "(19).Here we find an instance of the

faith in God and religion that Irish people were praying dedicatedly

for their survival but God is not aiding or listening to their prayers

and thus it is leading them towards their weak devout credence

.The life of the people is presented as being archaic in many

respects. It is true that the characters are shown to be Catholics, but

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the beliefs of ancient times are seen to be very much alive: black

hags and spirits haunt the seas. As Merriman suggests:"Ireland has

struggled greatly with its transition from Paganism to Christianity

and many of the Pagan beliefs were still strong during the time

Synge wrote this play."

The power of the plays tragic potential lies in its

mingling of tragedy with the stoicism of the four characters on

stage Nora ,Cathleen ,Bartley and Maurya. Albert Camus says in

his essay The Myth of the Sisyphus: "An artist lends more strength

to a tragic character the more he is careful to embellish it. If he is

sensible ,the revulsion he inspires will be overgenerous." Sisyphus

was the erudite and most far-sighted of mortals. But Sisyphus

teaches the higher devotion that contradicts the gods and heave

rocks, similarly the stoic attitude of Maurya's character is

responsible for the pathos of the play and often she is compared to

Medea and Antigone the Greek Heroines of classical tragedy

,because her downfall was as tragic and dreadful as of these

women.
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Stoic Resignation In the play "Riders to the sea"

Works Cited

Baltzly, Dirk, "Stoicism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014

Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).Web.

<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/stoicism/>.

Burke ,Mary. 'Tinkers': Synge and the Cultural History of the Irish
Traveler. Oxford UP, 2009.Print.

Camus, A. The Myth Of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Tr. Justin

O'Brien. New York: Knopf, 1955.Web.

Greene, David. "J.M. Synge: A Reappraisal" in Critical Essays on

John Millington Synge ,Ed .Daniel J. Casey,. New York: G. K.
Hall & Co., 1994.15-27.Print.

O ’Brien , Edward J. , ‘Introduction’ to Riders to the Sea by J.M.

Synge, John W. Luce and Company : Boston,1916, pp. VII-lll.

Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N. 1987, The Hellenistic

Philosophers 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

[Vol. 2 contains an extensive bibliography of scholarly books and

articles.]

." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. 12

Dec.2015.Web.

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stoicism>
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Stoic Resignation In the play "Riders to the sea"

Merriman, C.D. J.M. Synge. The Literature Network. Jalic Inc.

2005. 24September, 2013.Web.

<http://www.online-literature.com/synge/>

Holsworth ,Nadine .Luckhurst ,Mary. A Concise Companion to

Contemporary British and Irish Drama. ed .London: John Wiley &

Sons publication.,Ltd,2008.Print.

Synge, J.M. Riders to the sea .Boston: John W .Luce&

Company,1911.Print

Synge, J.M. Riders to the Sea. 1904. 24 September, 2013.Web

<http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/miscun/IrishResources/r

iders.htm>