Discuss the role that Nora and Cathleen play in the development of the plot and theme of Riders to the Sea

Nora and Cathleen, two daughters of Maurya, are part of the structural design of the drama Riders to the Sea. They are sharply contrasted as individuals. Cathleen manages the household, but Nora merely carries out Cathleen's orders. Cathleen is experienced; Nora is inexperienced. While Cathleen is busy doing household work, Nors liaises with other islanders. But they strike us as parts of the play rather than as contrasted figures.

Nora and Cathleen play a very important part in the action of the drama. Their conversation at the beginning provides background information about the play. Their conversation makes the audience know that Maurya is sorrowful and that Michael's dead body has not been found for nine days. They have examined the packet, given by the young priest, to see if it belongs to Michael. They are sympathetic to their mother, so they conceal the packet so that Maurya cannot see it. Thus, they provide the prologue to the play.

Nora plays a significant role in the play as a window into the world outside. While Maurya is prostrate with grief after Michael's death and Cathleen is busy doing domestic chores, Nora serves as a link between her family and the world outside. It is to her that the young priest hands over the bundle of clothes recovered from a dead body in Donegal. The priest told her that Michael could be said to have gotten a clean burial if the clothes belonged to him. He also told her how the dead body was found. She met Eamon Simon, Stephen Pheety, and Colum Shawn.

and heard them say Bartley was sailing over to the Galway fair. Nora's role is functional in the play in identifying Michael's The shirt is too nondescript to afford much help; it is the clothes.

plain stocking knitted by Nora, which proves to be decisive: "It's Michael, Cathleen, it's Michael; God spare his soul, and what will herself say when she hears this story, and Bartley on the sea?"

Like the chorus, Cathleen and Nora represent the collective wisdom and characteristic attitude of the community to which they belong. When the anxious mother argues with Bartley and appeals to his emotions to prevent him from going out to sea,

Cathleen points out, "It is the life of a young man to be going out to sea." When it is discovered that they have forgotten to give Bartley bread, she predicts disaster: "It's destroyed, he'll be surely" and comments that no person can act sensibly in a house where an old woman will be talking for ever. Nora shares Cathleen's fear and remarks, "And it's destroyed; he'll be going till dark night, and he has eaten nothing since the sun went up.

Like the Greek chorus, they are both commentators and participants in the action of the drama. They identify the clothes of Michael drowned in the sea and assure their mother of a decent burial for Michael. They watch the arrival of Bartley's dead body with detachment. While Maurya is involved and self-absorbed, she is detached and calm. Both of them comment on the mother's state of mind in their own ways and fail to determine the real cause of their mother's calm grief.

Cathleen and Nora represent the lives and activities of the women of the Aran Islands. Women cook food, knead the cake, spin the wheel, and have to use fuel economically. They do the men's jobs in the absence of the male members. They have faith in the priest, but they cannot get rid of their fears of the sea. Thus, they help in providing background on the socio-economic and religious life of the islands.

Riders to the Sea Broad Question

However, Nora and Cathleen are individualized. Cathleen is older and more mature. Nora plays the subordinate part of her elder sister. But it is Nora who finds out the dropped stitches and recognizes the stocking of Michael. When they know the terrible truth of Michael's death, Cathleen laments that there is no ceremonial and formal burial of the dead body, but Nora breaks out in a more passionate and personal outburst:

"And is not it a pitiful thing when there is nothing left of a man who was a great rower and fisher but the bit of an old shirt and a plain stocking?"

Both Cathleen and Nora perform some choric functions, but their role is not choric. Unlike the chorus, they remain part of the action, sorrowing for their brothers and providing for Maurya in her sorrow. Their actions in the play echo those of the Greek Fates.