Symbols and Their Significance in Riders to the Sea

Riders to the Sea by JM Synge, despite being a short play with a simple plot, convey a lot of emotion and meaning through symbols such as the sea, colours, and numbers that can be interpreted in all cultures and by all people. To reflect the sorrow Maurya goes through because of the deaths of her sons, a gloomy and despondent atmosphere is given in the play. The audience feels the tension and depression of the characters and events on the stage deeply. For starters, the sea, which plays an important role in the play, represents death and evil. The Sea creates a possible danger for humans, who are land mammals by nature. Despite being a beautiful part of nature, the wind gives a sense of great unknown and void due to its enormous size and fierce nature, especially during bad weather. Thus, it amounts to death over many years and in many places around the world. In the play, the Sea is a source of living for the people on the island because they catch fish and collect seaweed for survival, but it is also responsible for many fishermen’s deaths, including Maurya’s sons. Maurya suffers because of the Sea. "Synge sets the scene in ‘an island off the West of Ireland’ and the play, as seen through the eyes of Maurya, is full of the vision of life as a small area (the family) surrounded by evil (the Sea)" (Donoghue 54). For Maurya, the Sea is the evil force that destroyed her family, so she tries to keep her son, Bartley, in the safety of the house and family to prevent another sorrow for herself from occurring by trying to convince him to stay (Synge 4-5). Her endeavour, however, backfires, and she faces another grief. Through the usage of the Sea as a symbol for death, Synge states the inevitability of it, as Maurya utters at the end:

 MAURYA. […] No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied. (10)

Also, the colours red, black, white, and grey stand as portents of death that await Maurya and convey the depression that follows it. Black is mostly used for death and grief, while white is used for life and happiness. In the play, when Bartley asks for the rope, Cathleen says she hung it on the nail with whiteboards "for the pig with the black feet was eating it" (Synge 4). Here, the pig with the black feet represents death, whereas the rope that Bartley takes with him and was intended to be used for Michael's burial represents life or hope for Maurya. Also, when the negative connotations of white are considered, such as paleness, ghosts, and spirits, or its positive connotations of divinity and sacredness, it can be stated that the whiteboards that remained visible throughout the play are a representation of a shadow of death over the household. Furthermore, the red colour of the horse Bartley rides and the grey colour of the pony that follows him signify the same concept:

MAURYA. […] Bartley came first on the red mare; and I tried to say "God speed you," but something choked the words in my throat. […] I looked up then, and I crying, at the grey pony, and there was Michael upon it with fine clothes on him, and new shoes on his feet. (Synge 8)

Red is mostly accepted as a sign of danger in negative contexts. The fact that Bartley rides a red mare depicts that there is a potential danger for him, and the grey pony that is following him is the image of that danger. Grey is the colour of a fierce sea during a storm or bad weather. Since this pony is the same colour as the Sea and is carrying Michael, a victim of it, on its back, it symbolises the danger of death from the Sea. After seeing this moment, Maurya fully understands that she is going to lose her last son to the Sea and starts to accept it in her mind and heart because she cannot stop it. As a result, her soul is at peace after Bartley's death. When this combined with the fact that Maurya had six sons, it can be stated that the number of her sons stands as a symbol as well. According to Genesis, the universe was created in six days, and on the seventh day, God rested. Maurya suffered for her six sons after giving them victim to the Sea and finally gained serenity, for she lost everything she valued and had nothing else to lose. In this sense, it is possible that Synge used the number six in his play as a symbol for the rest that comes after the intensity. Briefly, in the play Riders to the Sea by JM Synge, symbols are used to depict that death and suffering are inevitable in one’s life as long as they have something to lose, and after losing everything and having nothing in the end, one can reach a state of serenity. To transfer the feeling and the idea, Synge uses the Sea as a symbol of death and evil; the colours red, black, white, and grey as reporters of catastrophe and death; and the number six as a signifier of rest after having nothing left to lose.