preview

Analysis Of The Tinker's Wedding

Good Essays
Open Document
This chapter examine two tinker women characters named sarah casey,who wants to be married in order to gain dignity and be viewed as respectable in the eyes of society;and her mother-in-law Mary Byrne, a drunkard who opposes such an institution. Like all of Synge’s plays, the basic plot of The Tinker’s Wedding derives from folk stories of Irish culture. In fact, the play represents a dramatisation of folk stories told In Wicklow and West Kerry. In the first essay of this prose work The Vagrants of Wicklow, a man on the side of a mountain to the east of Aughavanna, in Wicklow tells his observations about the tinkers he saw. He mentions the vigorous lifestyle and the marriage customs of the roaming tinkers and tramps. He says that one time he…show more content…
It becomes clear that she longs for gaining a proper place among the society, and marriage is a means which will bestow her this respectability. She says: “I’ll be married now in short a while; and from this day there will be no one have a right to call me a dirty name and I selling cans in Wicklow or Wexford or the city of Dublin itself” (TW II. 33-34). This speech suggests that Sarah regards her occupation of selling tin cans as humiliating, and she wants to have a decent life in society by marrying Michael Byrne. However, he does not want to marry her: “[…] [I]sn’t it a mad thing I’m saying again that you’d be asking marriage of me” (TW I. 4). Likewise, Michael’s mother does not approve of such a marriage and she says: “[…] I never knew till this day it was a black born fool I had for a son” (TW II. 34). Despite the scorn of his mother, Michael eventually decides to marry Sarah because, like a bourgeois, he has patriarchal economic reasons for tying up his woman as wife as she earns a great deal of money. She is good at selling and, unless married, she might leave him for another man. “He wants to keep possession of her sexual favors and her earning ability” (sternlicht.73). To his mother he says: “If I didn’t marry her, she’d be walking off to Jaunting Jim maybe at the end of the fall of…show more content…
It has always been regarded as the least distinguished play he ever produced. it does not please the literary critics and audience of his time, Synge achieved his aim in illustrating the lives of the tinkers. The Abbey Theatre declined the production of the The Tinker’s Wedding due to the so-called libel on priesthood. Although the representation of women in The Tinker’s Wedding was not regarded as a libel on Irish women as in other plays, the play could not escape harsh criticism. Owing to the fact that the audience of the Abbey Theatre was largely Catholic, it was feared that the representation of the priest could provoke outrage among them. Irish audiences were not ready to see a play that was in contrast to their traditional way of living. The Tinker’s Wedding has always been considered as a neglected play of Synge’s. Many critics discuss the quality of the play. According to Alan Price, for instance, it is “the poorest of Synge’s plays” (Özçeşmeci.101). Similarly, David H. Greene claims that the play is “generally labelled an ugly duckling” (Özçeşmeci.101). As it can be seen, the play received more negative criticism and little attention when compared with Synge’s other plays. Especially after the great success of Riders to the Sea, such a play did not please the audiences and the critics. The Tinker’s Wedding is of high importance as it could be regarded as a link between the one-act plays
Get Access
Related
Get Access