The Tinkers Wedding Analysis

No dramatist has had a stormier career or has been the subject of more heated and bitter controversy than John Millington Synge. In his dramatic works Synge, as much as any Irish dramatist of his time, captured the harsh truths, the painful lives, the soothing blind faith, the poetry of oral tradition, and the humor of the poor folk of rural Ireland at the beginning of the twentieth century. His plays, so full of truth they hurt, were always controversial events in their initial receptions and often long after. Nationalists often viewed the contents of the plays as an offence to public morals and an insult against Ireland. The Irish nationalist leader Arthur Griffith commented one of Synge’s plays as "a slur on Irish womanhood".(Wiki) Efforts

The objective of this thesis is to discuss the representation of the female characters in the controversial plays, The Tinkers Wedding, In The Shadow of the glen and The playboy of the western world by J M Synge. The reasons to discuss Synge’s plays are twofold: he was a pioneer in capturing, through his art, lives that were previously lived unrecorded and because, as the recent New York debut of “Druid Synge” reminds us, the women in Synge’s plays were the focus of his drama. The Tinker’s Wedding, Playboy of the Western World and In the Shadow of the Glen reveal the female encounter with fundamental aspects of repression that remains entrenched to this day. The progression of the analysis takes the path of portraying how the stereotype of the female is constructed, deconstructed and reestablished within the plays through main female characters. Construction of the feminine stereotype is discussed through the psychology of the female characters as well as the gender specific roles performed by them. Within the normative patriarchy of the above mentioned plays, there is an emerging matriarchy. Synge is realizing this fact and is evident in his works as he gives more voice to the women of rural regions. Neither of his women characters are passive figures. On the contrary, they actively participate in the essential incidents in his plays. As Kiberd says there is “a masculinization of women and a corresponding feminization of men”(175). This thesis intends to prove how this stereotypical patriarchy is changed and the so established matriarchy through role reversal leads to female empowerment and authority. Therefore in this work, Chapter 1 studies The Shadow of the glen and the portrayal of Synge’s heroine Nora Bruke , chapter 2 analysis The Tinker’s Wedding, focusing on Sarah Casey and her would be mother-in-law Mary Byrne and the third chapter