Riders to the sea as a one-act play

 Synge’s superb mastery in handling the form of one-act play to embody his
unique tragic vision with minimum requirements is very much evident in the
drama. Instead of a one-act play limiting Synge’s scope, he has created a play
with tremendous tragic impact, a deeply moving tragedy.

 This short play was Intended to provide relief at the end of the performance of
serious tragedies. He has saved time by mentioning the past tragedies but not
actually described them in detail

The structural compactness in Synge’s drama reminds us of the same in the Greek

tragedies. 

 Replica of the Greek Satyr plays particularly in respect that both can be enjoyed

without too much expense of effort and time due to its brevity.

 Focus and concentration, not elaboration. B y the very compulsion of the form of
the one-act play, Synge has to avoid all sorts of superfluities and unnecessary
details. He has strictly adhered to the principles of compression, condensation
and compactness.

 Its concise structure parallels to the five stages of a narrative plot: the beginning,
the middle and the end: the exposition consists of a conversation between
Cathleen and Nora, the introduction of the conflict, the rising action and the
catastrophic climax followed by the mother’s elegiac blessings of the living and
the dead and her stoical resignation to the will of God; this gives the play an
extraordinary stature of universal significance.

 Brevity in plot construction, characterization and dialogue is the hall mark of a

successful one-act play. Synge has avoided subplot, multiplicity of characters and
unnecessary happenings.

 The whole action is concentrated on a poor fisherman’s cottage. The setting

remains constant- the action of the play never moves away from the tiny cottage
kitchen, and hence it is easier to enact.

 Not too many complicated characters- Maurya, Cathleen, Nora, Bartley, the
young priest, an absentee character and a few keening women. 

 Unity of atmosphere and of impression with no digression sustains the

unrelieved pathos by concentrating on a single scene in a cottage.

 It identifies a particular situation or incident charged with immense dramatic

possibilities and revolves the action around it to deepen the plot and make it
more interesting.

The dismal setting with ropes and white boards for the coffin, the constantly
weeping afflicted mother, the hushed voice of the two daughter and the presence
of number-symbols give uniformly a dark hue to the atmosphere. There is a
sense of pathos created with an overwhelming sense of doom haunting the
reader from the very start.