The tragic protagonist Maurya in J. M.
Synge's one-act play “ Riders to the Sea” Maurya, as portrayed by I. M. Synge (1871-1909) in ‘Riders to the Sea’ (1904), is truly an unforgettable character who wins our admiration by her unusual power of endurance, by her capacity to withstand her misfortunes, and by her dignified behaviour at a time when she has suffered the most painful bereavement of her life. she resembles the great traditional protagonists in her heroic power of endurance and the spiritual transcendence over her suffering.
She is often compared to Meda and cleopetra. Maurya, is a peasant woman belonging to the Irish fishing community of the Aran Islands. In the social status, Maurya is thus distinctly different from the towering classical protagonists such as Oedipus, Agamemnon and Antigone, all of whom are highborn. Maurya appears to be a passive and helpless victim in the hands of the destructive sea.In Maurya's case, no profound question seems to be raised about the intricate relationship between human will and predestination. In Riders to the Sea, Maurya at first appears to be a weak and helpless victim as he has lost her husband and four of her six sons in the sea.
She is crazed and disoriented by the disappearance of her fifth son Michael, missing at sea for nine long days. When the play opens, Maurya is feeling sorrow-stricken because of the reported death by drowning of her son Michael. But Maurya has not been stricken by grief, as we find when she comes into the kitchen from the inner room of the cottage. Maurya is strongly opposed to Bartley’s undertaking the trip to the mainland. She tries to dissude him from going, and gives two reasons why he must not go.
In the first place, he may be needed in the house to help in making a coffin for Michael in case michael’s dead body. Secondly, there are indications that a storm will soon blood on the sea, and Bartley should not take risk in crossing over.
