interesting or engaging

Select one poem from this week’s assigned readings, and identify at least three elements in the poem that you found interesting or engaging (e.g., form, language, content, and/or other literary elements).

Then, assess how these elements affected your response to the poem, in its entirety.

(e.g., Did these elements affect your opinions on (or reaction to) the content of the poem?  Did they cause you to focus on one aspect of the poem over others?)  

Assignment Requirements

 

• Length: Your paper should be two to four double-spaced pages in length (excluding title and reference page)
• Sources: Support your reflections with textual details and analysis from at least two scholarly sources.
• APA: Your draft must be formatted to APA (6th edition) style.
  • Separate Title Page: Must include an original title
  • Separate Reference Page
  • Proper Citations: All sources must be properly cited, both within the text and in a separate reference page.
• Elements of Academic Writing:  All academic papers should include these elements.
  • Introduction with a thesis statement
  • Supporting paragraphs
  • Conclusion

 

The paper must be two to four pages in length (excluding the title and reference page), and formatted according to APA style. You must use at least two scholarly resources (at least one of which can be found in the Ashford Online Library) other than the textbook to support your claims and subclaims. Cite your resources in text and on the reference page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

READING:

 

 

 

Riders to the Sea

 

J. M. Synge (1903)

 

PERSONS REPRESENTED: Maurya (an old woman), Bartley (her son), Cathleen (her daughter), Nora (a younger daughter), Men and Women

 

SCENE: An island off the West of Ireland. (Cottage kitchen, with nets, oil–skins, spinning wheel, some new boards standing by the wall, etc. Cathleen, a girl of about twenty, finishes kneading cake, and puts it down in the pot–oven by the fire; then wipes her hands, and begins to spin at the wheel. Nora, a young girl, puts her head in at the door.)

 

NORA: In a low voice.

 

Where is she?

 

CATHLEEN: She’s lying down, God help her, and may be sleeping, if she’s able.

 

Nora comes in softly, and takes a bundle from under her shawl.

 

CATHLEEN: Spinning the wheel rapidly.

 

What is it you have?

 

NORA: The young priest is after bringing them. It’s a shirt and a plain stocking were got off a drowned man in Donegal.

 

Cathleen stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out to listen.

 

NORA: We’re to find out if it’s Michael’s they are, some time herself will be down looking by the sea.

 

10

 

CATHLEEN: How would they be Michael’s, Nora. How would he go the length of that way to the far north?

 

NORA: 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.”

 

The door which Nora half closed is blown open by a gust of wind.

 

CATHLEEN: Looking out anxiously.

 

Did you ask him would he stop Bartley going this day with the horses to the Galway fair?

 

20

 

NORA: “I won’t stop him,” says he, “but let you not be afraid. Herself does be saying prayers half through the night, and the Almighty God won’t leave her destitute,” says he, “with no son living.”

 

CATHLEEN: Is the sea bad by the white rocks, Nora?

 

NORA: Middling bad, God help us. There’s a great roaring in the west, and it’s worse it’ll be getting when the tide’s turned to the wind.

 

She goes over to the table with the bundle.

 

Shall I open it now?

 

CATHLEEN: Maybe she’d wake up on us, and come in before we’d done.

 

Coming to the table.

 

It’s a long time we’ll be, and the two of us crying.

 

NORA: Goes to the inner door and listens.

 

She’s moving about on the bed. She’ll be coming in a minute.

 

30

 

CATHLEEN: Give me the ladder, and I’ll put them up in the turf–loft, the way she won’t know of them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she’ll be going down to see would he be floating from the east.

 

They put the ladder against the gable of the chimney; Cathleen goes up a few steps and hides the bundle in the turf–loft. Maurya comes from the inner room.

 

MAURYA: Looking up at Cathleen and speaking querulously.

 

Isn’t it turf enough you have for this day and evening?

 

CATHLEEN: There’s a cake baking at the fire for a short space

 

(Throwing down the turf) and Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes to Connemara.

 

Nora picks up the turf and puts it round the pot–oven.

 

MAURYA: Sitting down on a stool at the fire.

 

40

 

He won’t go this day with the wind rising from the south and west. He won’t go this day, for the young priest will stop him surely.

 

NORA: He’ll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety and Colum Shawn saying he would go.

 

MAURYA: Where is he itself?

 

NORA: He went down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week, and I’m thinking it won’t be long till he’s here now, for the tide’s turning at the green head, and the hooker’s tacking from the east.

 

CATHLEEN: I hear some one passing the big stones.

 

NORA: Looking out.

 

He’s coming now, and he in a hurry.

 

50

 

BARTLEY: Comes in and looks round the room. Speaking sadly and quietly.

 

Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara?

 

CATHLEEN: Coming down. Give it to him, Nora; it’s on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.

 

NORA: Giving him a rope.

 

Is that it, Bartley?

 

MAURYA: You’d do right to leave that rope, Bartley, hanging by the boards (Bartley takes the rope). It will be wanting in this place, I’m telling you, if Michael is washed up tomorrow morning, or the next morning, or any morning in the week, for it’s a deep grave we’ll make him by the grace of God.

 

60

 

BARTLEY: Beginning to work with the rope:

 

I’ve no halter the way I can ride down on the mare, and I must go now quickly. This is the one boat going for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will be a good fair for horses I heard them saying below.

 

MAURYA: It’s a hard thing they’ll be saying below if the body is washed up and there’s no man in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price for the finest white boards you’d find in Connemara.