Friday 15 December 2017

How does the setting of the play Riders to the Sea make it both local and universal at the same time?

The setting of this short drama is the Aran islands of Ireland.  That sounds like a great location.  Hawaii is awesome, so why shouldn't all islands be like that?  That's not the case with the Aran islands though.  They are some of the most barren and forlorn islands of the entire country.  Life there is hard.  The people that live there are dependent on the ocean in order to earn their living and feed their...

The setting of this short drama is the Aran islands of Ireland.  That sounds like a great location.  Hawaii is awesome, so why shouldn't all islands be like that?  That's not the case with the Aran islands though.  They are some of the most barren and forlorn islands of the entire country.  Life there is hard.  The people that live there are dependent on the ocean in order to earn their living and feed their families.  This means that the sea is a great provider of life, while at the same time being dangerous enough to kill men just trying to scratch out a living.  In that regard, the setting is incredibly local and specific. 


But the setting is also universal in the sense that there are locations all over the world where men and women are struggling in a man vs. nature battle.  I could even use something as "mundane" as farming.  It doesn't seem dangerous or life threatening, but those farmers are at the mercy of the weather.  If they make their crop quota, they earn enough money to provide for their family and keep their equipment up to date.  But that same weather has the ability to destroy entire crops and bankrupt the farmer.  The drama's theme of constant hard work is universal across just about any given population.  

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