Animal and Color Personal Symbols

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4.4 Animal and Color

4.4.1 Grey Pony and Red Mare In Riders to the Sea, Maura has a vision in which she sees the apparition of Michael her dead son riding on the back of a ‗grey pony‘ behind Bartley, which may symboliz e that ‗pooka,‘ herself, carrying Bartley to the ‗Otherworld‘. According to legend, pooka is a shape shifter fairy and most commonly takes the form of a sleek black horse with a flowing mane and luminescent golden eyes. Pooka, sometimes, is depicted in the Irish folklore as a white horse and is known as the harbinger of doom, Indicating bad luck on the way. So, the gray pony behind him symbolizes the death which is continuously following Bartley. Michael‘s ghost is riding on the gray pony who pushes Bartley into the sea and ultimately kills him. Maur a‘s vision of Michael riding on the ―red mare‖ is a symbol and hint of Bartley‘s death. Maura is now sure that Bartley will die. Mauraa describes this fearful vison which she saw on the beach to her daughters: Maura: ―I went down to the spring well, and I stood there saying a prayer to myself. Then Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the grey pony behind him.‖ [she puts up her hands, as if to hide something from her eyes] . . . Maura: [a little defiantly]. ―I‘m after seeing him this day, and he riding and galloping. Bartley came first on the red mare, and I tried to say ‗God speed you,‘ but something choked the words in my throat. He went by quickly; and‗the blessing of God on you,‘ says he, and I could say nothing. 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, 1903:49 Another Celtic mythological figure, goddess Epona pronounced eh-poh- nuh, can also be associated with Maur a‘s premonition of her son‘s fast approaching death 34 because of seeing the ‗pony‘ and the ‗mare‘ near the spring well. Epona is specifically identified by her horse symbolism Miranda, 1998: 204 and like other mother goddesses, is often linked ―with the images of death‖ Monaghan,2004: 158. In her images, the goddess is usually depicted either riding side - saddle on a mare or between two ponies or horses. It may be significant that the one pony is male and other female, a detail which enhances the fertility symbolism in Epona‘s imagery. In Synge‘s Riders to the Sea we see one male ―grey pony‖ and the other being female ―red mare‖. Goddess Epona is also associated with death and regeneration beyond the grave and this is shown partly by the context of some of her images and partly by symbolic details. One of the several images of Epona depicts the goddess on her mare, leading a mortal to the Other world. At one level, this symbol may be interpreted as the key to the stable door, reflecting a straightforward horse association. But in wider perspective, the key may also symbolize the entrance to the afterlife, the ‗Otherworld‘ Also, the colour symbolism is very prominent to the theme of the play. First, the red mare and the grey pony. Red obviously symbolizes life or the vibrant flow of life. But Bartley is riding the red mare. So, the question arises that how does Bartley then face a disastrous death. The point here is that Bartley is indeed riding the red mare but is followed by the grey pony. Here it is a composite symbol: red cannot be treated in isolation but red followed by grey symbolizes that life would be usurped by death chasing it. Needless to mention, the colour grey symbolizes death, which is associated with death in Ireland. 35 4.4.2 The Pig with Black Feet In Riders to the sea, every detail means something. There is the pig with the black feet. Black obviously symbolizes evil, and the reference to the pig with the black feet presages evil destiny for the Maura household. The pig is in mythology sacred both to the moon-goddess who rules the sea and to the death-goddess, for it is an eater of corpses. The pig with the black feet is an ominous symbol which by biting on the rope symbolizes the shorting of life by death. Cailteen: coming down ―Give it to him, Nora; its on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it. ‖ Bartley : working at the halter, to CATHLEEN ―Let you go down each day, and see the sheep arent jumping in on the rye, and if the jobber comes you can sell the pig with the black feet if there is a good price going. ‖ Maura : ―How would the like of her get a good price for a pig? ‖ Synge, 1903: 41-42 In Riders to the Sea , we see Cathleen informing her brother, Bartley,about a ‗pig with the black feet‘ eating the rope meant for the funeral of her dead brother, Michael. In the play, the pig, is heard eating the rope which was meant for lowering down Michael‘s coffin into the grave. This symbolically means that Maura, the mother provider, attempts to prevent Bartley from going to the sea to avoid his death. In the Riders to the Sea , the pig brought ill- luck with it because of its ominous black feet and this reminds us of Maura using ominous words for Bartley and in perplexity taking the ‗turf‘ out of the hearth. 36 4.4.3 Black Birds In the beginning of the play that the language of the women begins now to place their protagonist in worlds other than natural. As they attempt to express the power of the sea over their lives a pattern of imagery emerges which connects it with the pagan, the mytical and supernatural; and these worlds provide the imaginative colouring which can transform, to some extent, the bleakness of the cycle of loss. One part of this pattern is made manifest in the ―black hags‖, which brood over the play and over the deaths of the menfolk. In the first version of Riders to the Sea, the cormorants are called the ―black birds‖ which is symbolized as death. In his revisions Synge weights the play more heavily towards the mythical and the supernatural. In the first version too, the cornorants had a functional part to play, for they are instrumental in the death of Patch. Cailteen: counts the stitches Its that number is in it. Crying out Ah, Nora, isnt it a bitter thing to think of him floating that way to the far north, and no one to keen him but the black hags that do be flying on the sea? Synge,1903 : 46 The picture is too realistic and limited in its inference, for the black birds remain black birds which can be identified from the Aran Islands, despite the obvious intention to make them emblems of death. In detaching them from the actual incident of Bartley‘s death, as Synge does in the final version, and transforming them into ―black hags,‖ he gives them a more all pervasive importance. By providing them with a more distant sky he makes them more symbolically powerful, for they become almost the embodiment of pagan deities. The black birds do not appear in the final 37 version of the play, it i s used in the early version to show the Synge‘s intent with the mythic and supernatural feeling.

4.5 Figure