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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Synge’s writing style in Riders to the Sea is simple, poetic, and dialect-heavy. It is simple in two different senses. First, while some playwrights include highly detailed staging requirements and stage directions, Synge keeps his instructions quite minimal. For example, when describing the set-up on stage, all he writes is “Cottage kitchen, with nets, oil-skins, spinning wheel, some new boards standing by the wall, etc.” By including the “etc.,” Synge implies that he trusts the director of the play to build off of his vision. The stage directions throughout the play are also, for the most part, simple and direct, such as “She goes over to the table with the bundle” and “She looks round at the board.” Again, Synge trusts the director and actors to decide what sorts of emotions or movements to express with these vague actions.
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