The Troubled Irish Mother Figure in J. M. Synge s Riders to the Sea and Tom Murphy s Bailegangaire

The aim of this paper is to examine the mother figure in Riders to the Sea (1902) by John Millington Synge and Bailegangaire (1984) by Tom Murphy. The mother image will be related to the traditional figure of Mother Ireland. The two writers motives in presenting such figures will be analyzed . The paper will investigate the playwrights use of the art of story-telling as a technique effective in exploring the depth of the mothers traumas. The study will also shed light on the innovative sort of language used by the two playwrights and seen as one of their contributions to the theater. It is hoped that the study will help offer a better ground to understanding especially Murphy’s work due to the relatively underdeveloped state of his criticism and interpretation.