Confronting Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Confronting Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

The power of the sea is the main theme of the whole play. It is portrayed as both the provider of life and the destroyer of life throughout the play. It gives life by providing a way for the people eat and earn a living. The beginning of the play portrayed a sense of ambiguity as to whether the sea really took the life of Michael. Maurya describes the sea's eradication of the men of the family. "I've had a husband, and a husband's father, and six sons in this house -- six fine men, though it was a hard birth I had with every one of them and they coming to the world -- and some of them were found and some of them were not found, but they're gone now the lot of them. . . . There were Stephen, and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and in by that door...There was Sheamus and his father, and his own father again, were lost in a dark night, and not a stick or sign was seen of them when the sun went up. There was Patch after was drowned out of a curagh that turned over.()" These examples show the repetitive cycle of death to the men in her family which justifies her increase fear of losing her last son.

Through the death of generations of family members, a sense of helplessness was embraced. They all felt there was nothing they could do to stop the sea. So they accepted the inevitability of tragedy. Ronan McDonald defines tragedy "intermingle with notions of literary merit (McDonald, 2002, p 43)" When it comes to death you are helpless and you must be satisfied. In the play Maurya states; "They are all together...satisfied (Clugston, 2010)"

The characters in "Riders to the Sea" were not very rich people. They lived a secluded life in Ireland without much connection to the world. With the mention of the priest and ghost of her dead son, suggests that they were religious people. Maurya later tells of the inversion of life "In the big world the old people do be leaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things behind for them that do be old (Clugston, 2010)."