It is said by many scholars that
Synge has a leaning to dramatize the Irish peasant life. For example, in The Aran Islands, he “presents the islanders
as naive and charming primitives” (Leder, 207) whose lives are “largely and
happily unspoiled by contact with the modern world” (Leder, 207). Together with
depicting the Irish peasant life, Synge’s another tendency is to show “the
early twentieth-century Irishman’s quest for identity” (Sherwood, 1181). It is
obvious that there are some obstacles for Irish people in life, such as poverty
and identity-crisis, that Synge wants to draw attention to. However, there
remains a question that leads us to Synge’s approach to the man’s place in the
universe. Although Synge’s main interest is to deal with those obstacles,
special to Irish people, it is also a question that the universe, as a whole,
is or is not a preventative power for people, if Synge is accepted as a
naturalist. Therefore, the aim of this paper is primarily to focus on his play Riders to the Sea from the point of the
paradox that all naturalists has: Is it whether the power of the universe or
the free will that constitutes the plots of our lives, and conclude that the
play is itself an embodiment of that paradox.
What is Synge’s sense of man’s place in the universe? Where
does he put a rural family in Riders to
the Sea and to emphasize what? According to Miller, naturalists’ sense of
man’s place in the universe is not too different from that of their
contemporary, Friedrich Nietzsche (20). In Nietzsche’s philosophy, man is the
will; and in a world of unethical determinism, man must control matters by
himself and is to be the center of forces to orchestrate the universe into
samples of values; the man of merciless will can turn his life from a fading
one to a willed one, which would help him escape into a paradoxical freedom
(Miller, 20). By evaluating the faith of a rural family, especially the event
that Maurya, the mother figure in the play, has lost her sons in Riders to the Sea, it can be concluded
that Synge had shared the same perception of the universe with Nietzsche.
However, Synge’s reaction to that universe is different than Nietzsche’s. Synge
is more passive and detached. For instance, the tangled perception that Synge
adapts for the powers of the outer world can be evaluated. In the play, nature
is shown as a substantially dominant force that determines and surrounds the
life and human perception. Synge tries to say that nature is a powerful master,
taking the glimpses of living out of the earth and abandoning the deprivation
even more down and out. Maurya is an example of the weaknesses of human beings
as she has lost eight men to the unbeatable power of natural forces. Her
reasons to live are taken out of her hands and she is left to her fate.
Therefore, Synge sense of man’s place in universe can be said to be an
understanding that get the control of human beings forcibly and gives it to the
powerful hands of nature.
Another question that must be taken into consideration is
that; do Synge’s characters make their own choices, or is it the universe that
forces them to make such choices? In other words, are they heroes and heroines,
or simply the victims of the universe? For instance, Bartley does not listen to
his mother’s advice and appears to be really determined about going to the sea.
Is there another fate that sets forth the other way, if he stayed at home? As
one can understand, he tries to create his own faith in the universe by making
his own choice. In this sense, Bartley can be said to be a hero who makes his
own choices. However, the audience see that he is not able to escape from the
faith that universe created for him; he dies as his brother did. Under which
circumstances and reality does Bartley make his choice? It is obvious that, as
Hardy was said to have the same opinion, man’s power of willing is “only his
embodiment of a tiny part of the vast energy of the Immanent Will” (Miller,
21). Therefore, Synge can ben seen as a strong believer of the idea that the
universe is above all of us and it is the irresistible power of natural forces
that prevent us from being totally free-conscious beings on the earth.
On the other hand, although Synge might be accused of being partial to man, of taking the
responsibility from man’s shoulders and putting it upon the universe. Yet, there
are also clues about Synge’s reliance upon the free will as he seems to have
the idea that “a man’s will is apparently under the control of his mind and
this means that if the other powers around him are in a momentary equilibrium,
he can act freely” (Miller, 21). However, in Riders to the Sea, there is not a balance that enables the
characters to be subject to their free will rather than the universe. They are
simply victims of the nature. Therefore, the reflection of Synge’s idea in Riders to the Sea is that the
responsibility completely belongs to the universe, rather than man’s power of
creating his own destiny. The paradox that it is whether the power of the
universe or the free will that constitutes the plots of our lives is, to some
extent, solved in Synge’s play Riders to
the Sea, as it appears that the responsibility belongs to the universe,
rather than man’s conscious.
In conclusion, being a perfect one-act
tragedy, Riders to the Sea can be
read by taking the dramatic Irish peasant life, the identity search of the
marginalized Irish people, and most importantly, the paradox of free will and
natural forces into consideration. It is showed that Synge’s understanding of man’s
place in the universe can be said to be mostly depended on the nature. Although
his characters are trying to be free of their faith, there is always an incline
towards the path of the faith and this incline makes them the vulnerable
victims of the universe, as it is seen in the play. It is Synge’s success that
he deals with the concrete environment of the Irish peasants and as well as one
of the most important and constant problems of mankind.
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