The Rising of the Moon

Presented by: Maryam Nasir

Introduction
• One-Act play.
• Written by Augusta ,Lady Gregory.
• In the year 1907.
• It is a political play which examines Anglo-Irish relations.
Lady Gregory
• Isabella popularly known as Lady Gregory
• An Irish playwright
• Promoter of Irish dramas
• She has derived her themes from Irish history, and from her keen
sense of character in daily life.
• In the creation of one-act play Lady Gregory is extremely
excellent. Some of her famous one-act plays are tragic and comic
as well. 
• Spreading the News (1904)
• The Gaol Gate(1906)
• The Rising of the Moon (1907) are classical examples of Lady
Gregory’s plays. 
• She captures the way people speak.
• She use local dialect in her play which is the distinguishing
feature of Lady Gregory’s plays.
• Established the Irish National Theatre Society in 1902 and
led to the establishment of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
• Lady Gregory produced a number of books of retellings of
stories taken from Irish mythology.
• Lady Gregory is mainly remembered for her work behind
the Irish Literary Revival.
 Summary
• The story begins on moonlit night on an Irish Wharf.
• Two Irish policemen and one Sergeant are on the Wharf.
• They are searching for a escaped Irish prisoner.
• Who has a reward of one hundred Pound on his head and the
one who catches him may get promotion.
• The sergeant finds flight of footsteps that led to the water.
• He is convinced that the escaped rebel might creep to the
water’s edge to be rescued by sea.
• Sergeant sends his police assistants to post the remaining
flyers of the escaped rebel with the only lantern they had.
• When the police officers are gone : a ragged man arrives who tries to
pass the Sergeant and towards the footsteps. When the Sergeant sees him
and on his inquiry
• He tells himself as Jimmy Walsh, a ballad singer who wants to sell his
songs to earn some Shillings.
• When the man heads toward the steps to the water, the Sergeant stops
him, insisting that Jimmy leave by way of town.
• Jimmy pretends to go towards the town but stops to comment on the face
on the poster, saying that he knows the man and tells the Sergeant that he
is a dangerous killer who knows the use of every weapon.
• The ragged man offers that he can stay with the sergeant to help him look
for the killer which sergeant readily accepts.
• The Sergeant confesses that the police work is difficult, especially for
family men, because the officers spend long hours on dangerous
missions. 
• While two were smoking pipes the ragged man begins to sing nationalistic
ballad about a legendary oppressed old Irish woman named Granuaile.
• The Sergeant prohibits the ragged man to sing such songs but Jimmy says that it comforts his
heart on such a dangerous mission so the Sergeant lets him sing.
• The man again sings about the fabled Irish martyr Granuaile , but this time he skips a verse.
• The Sergeant immediately corrects him and sings the proper line, revealing his knowledge of a
rebel song even though he is supposed to be loyal to the English rulers.
• The Sergeant admits that he has sung every patriotic ballad the Ragged Man names.
• The man suggests that the Sergeant and the escapee perhaps share the same youthful
memories; in fact, the escapee might even have been among the Sergeant’s close friends in
their younger days. When the Sergeant admits the possibility,
• The man describes a hypothetical scene in which the Sergeant joins in with those former
singing friends to free Ireland. Therefore, the Ragged Man concludes, it might have been fated
that the Sergeant would be the pursued instead of the pursuer.
• Caught up in the hypothetical scenario, the Sergeant muses that if he had made different
choices—not going into the police force, not marrying and having children—he and the fugitive
could well have exchanged roles.
• The possibility becomes so real for him that he begins to confuse his own identity with that of
the escapee and imagines himself stealthily trying to escape, violently shooting or assaulting
police officers. He is startled out of his reverie by a sound from the water; he suspects that
the rescuers have at last arrived to carry away the fugitive.
• The Ragged Man contends that the Sergeant in the past sympathized with the Irish
nationalists and not with the law he currently represents. In fact, he suggests that the
Sergeant still doubts the choice he made for the English law and against “the people.”
Boldly singing the rebel tune “The Rising of the Moon” as a signal to the rescuers on
the water and ripping off his hat and wig, Jimmy, the ballad singer, reveals that he is in
fact the fugitive himself, the man with a hundred-pound reward on his head.
• Startled and struggling with his previously suppressed sympathies for the rebels, the
Sergeant threatens to arrest the escapee and collect the reward when his younger
police companions approach. He protests that his own rebel sentiments are buried in
the past. Hiding from the nearing officers behind the barrel seat the two men so
recently shared, the fugitive calls on the Sergeant’s love for Ireland to keep his
presence secret. Quickly hiding the fugitive’s wig and hat behind him, the Sergeant
denies to his subordinates that he has seen anyone. When the officers insist that they
stay to aid their superior on his dangerous watch, the Sergeant gruffly rejects their
noisy offers and sends them away with their lantern.
• The escaped rebel gratefully retrieves his disguise and promises to return the favor
when, “at the Rising of the Moon,” the roles of oppressor and oppressed are inevitably
reversed. Quickly, he slips into the rescue boat and is gone. Left musing alone on the
moonlit wharf, the Sergeant thinks of the lost reward and wonders if he has been a
great fool.
• Exposition
The police (Sergeant, Policeman B and Policeman X) enter to the quay in a
seaport town. They bring lantern and placard about the wanted man.
• Rising Action
A man that admits as a poor ballad singer come to the quay and the sergeant
asks him to stay because he has information about the wanted man.
• Climax
Finally sergeant knows that the man is the one that he is looking for. When
his comrade came he is doubt whether he will release the man or not
• Falling Action
When the policeman B come, the sergeant let the man keeps hiding behind
the barrel because the man has the same common feeling when he is the
man’s age.
Resolution
• The sergeant regrets what he did because he lost the reward.
• The Rising of the Moon” has a great symbolic meaning.
The play is about the Irish freedom movement. The Rising
of the moon signifies the rising of the moon of Irish
freedom. The dramatist hopes for the freedom of her
countrymen from the tyranny of the British rule. The poor
Irish people will regain their liberty.