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Allusions
Dialect
Explanation and Analysis—Irish English Dialect:
In Riders to the Sea, Synge attempts to capture the everyday realities of the people living on the Aran Islands, a place where he spent years doing research on the culture and customs. One of the ways he does this is by giving his characters an Irish English (or Hiberno-English) dialect. The following passage—in which Nora tells Cathleen about the bundle of clothes the young priest gave her—shows a few different stylistic strategies Synge uses in order to capture the dialect:
We’re to find out if it’s Michael’s they are, some time herself will be down looking by the sea […] The young priest says he’s known the like of it. ‘If it’s Michael’s they are,’ says he, ‘you can tell herself he’s got a clean burial by the grace of God, and if they’re not his, let no one say a word about them, for she’ll be getting her death,’ says he, ‘with crying and lamenting’.
Related Themes:
