Riders essay

The stage-props in Riders to the Sea are closely associated with the sea. The nets and the oilskins establish fishing as their occupation’ the white boards, the rope and the nails are meant for burial reminding us of the destructiveness of the sea.

There he studied the people who lived there, growing increasingly fascinated by their primitive, traditional way of living, along with the pagan beliefs he detected under their Catholic faith. He refers to them as "prehistorically childlike" and as "aborigines," outside of history and behind in evolution.

Freedom Riders “Freedom Riders” were a group of people, both black and white, who were civil rights activists from the North who “meant to demonstrate that segregated travel on interstate buses, even though banned by an I.C.C. Ruling, were still being enforced throughout much of the South” (The South 16).

In a more immediate and dramatic context, the term “Riders” has a particular reference to only two riders in the play. One is the doomed Bartley and the other is his spectral brother, Michael. The living Bartley rides on his “red mare” while his dead brother is carried on the “grey pony” behind.