Shadow of the Glen

One-act play by John Millington Synge from 1903. It was performed in Moleworth Hall and caused a scandal as nationalists claimed the play would besmirch the honour of Irish women. The following article is still in progress. Therefore please consider it as a collection of notes for now.

Characters

Daniel Burke, an elderly farmer

Nora Burke, his young wife

Michael Dara, a youthful shepherd

A Tramp, a tramp

Plot

The play is set in a typical Irish peasant coattage where Nora sits vigil for her dead husband, Daniel. When a tramp comes to the cottage seeking shelter, Nora lets him in. She goes out to look for the shephard Michael Dara and leaves the tramp alone with the dead body. Being alone, Daniel suddenly reveals that he is actually not dead, but just pretending to be to prove that he has got a "bad wife". When Nora returns with Michael Dara and recieves a proposal by him, Dan Burke once again "raises from the death" and throws Nora out of the house. She joins the tramp and together they leave. The play ends with Dan Burke and Michael Dara sitting together and drinking whiskey.

Origin

The play is based on some motives of an Irish folktale. In the folktale a man who pretends to be dead surprises his wife with her lover and reacts very violently. While being on the Aran Islands Synge was told this story by Pat Dirane, a Gaelic storyteller. Synge has left out the effects of the story; he leaves out the enactment of the adultery and the bloodbath at the end.

Themes

In the Shadow of the Glen Synge puts the theme of freedom/vastness into a contrast to the limitedness of the characters. Here the Tramp represents freedom and Nora (at least at the beginning) stands for limitedness. The play conveys that only the vagrants are free to some extent. However, their lifestyle is not presented as a solution here, but as a temporary escape from everyday-life. Nevertheless, in contrast to the materialistic shepherd Michael, the Tramp is presented as a positive figure as he lives in harmony with nature. He is a rather differentiated figure, which is untypical for one-act plays.

This differentiation can also be found in the figure of Nora. As the central figure, she is afflicted with her husband and the monotony of the region. Her view of life corresponds to the one of the Tramp. With the figure of Nora Synge explores timeless themes such as the dire straits of an individual in a threatening scenery and the misery of an emotional and sexual dissatisfying marriage. Therewith Synge challenges the stereotype of the Irish woman. Nora is an individual and not a symbol like in many Irish stories.

Further Synge thematises the transience of life and beautiful youth as well as phantasy and imagination. In In the Shadow of the Glen Ireland is not presented as a locus amoenus, as an idealized place in nature, rather nature conveys an atmosphere of threat and danger – nature as the “men’s ultimate defeat”.

Sources

Synge, John Millington. In the Shadow of the Glen.

Fitzgerald-Hoyt, Mary. "Death and the Collen: The Shadow of the Glen". Assessing the achievement of J. M. Synge. Ed. Alexander G. Gonzalez. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996.

Owens, Cóilín D.."The Wooing of Étaín: Celtic Myth and The Shadow of the Glen". Assessing the achievement of J. M. Synge. Ed. Alexander G. Gonzalez. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996.