In the Shadow of the Glen

by J.M. Synge

Excerpt from In the Shadow of the Glen
Scene. - The last cottage at the head of a long glen in County Wicklow.
(Cottage kitchen; turf tire on the right; a bed near it against the wall with a body lying on it covered with a sheet. A door is at the ether end of the room, with a low table near it, and stools, or wooden chairs. There are a couple of glasses on the table, and a bottle of whisky, as if for a wake, with two cups, a teapot, and a home-made cake. There is another small door near the bed. Nora Burke is moving about the room, settling a few things, and lighting candles on the table, looking now and then at the bed with an uneasy look. Some one knocks softly at the door.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Irish Literature, Ireland, Classics, Theatre, 20th Century

Library Binding

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

Edmund John Millington Synge (pronounced /sɪŋ/) was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre. He is best known for the play The Playboy of the Western World, which caused riots during its opening run at the Abbey theatre. Synge wrote many well known plays, including "Riders to the Sea", which is often considered to be his strongest literary work.

Although he came from an Anglo-Irish background, Synge's writings are mainly concerned with the world of the Roman Catholic peasants of rural Ireland and with what he saw as the essential paganism of their world view.

Reviews

[Heba]

مسرحية ظلال الوادي من الأدب الأيرلندي، ما أن وصلت لنهايتها حتى تذكرت مقولة " سارماغو" :
" فالأحزان الكبيرة ، الإغواءات الكبيرة والأخطاء الكبيرة هى على الدوام نتيجة بقاء المرء وحيداً فى الحياة "
وهذا لا يعني أنك منعزلاً عن الآخرين ، أبداً...
فقد تكون برفقة أحدهم ومع ذلك تقتات الوحدة على روحك تكاد تفتك بك....

[Viktor · Rating 3 out of 5]

y’all won’t read this play anyway so might as well spoil

imagine playing dead to find out ur wife is cheating (you find out she is) to then kick her out of the house AND THEN feckin toast to her leaving with THE LITERAL MAN she was going to cheat on you with. kinda insane to put it like this but yea it be like that sometimes

not much in this tbh, one thing that was refreshing tho was to see a beggar not being depicted as a bad guy for once but as just kinda a guy being there, confused at what’s happening, and eventually taking away the woman towards a ‘better’ life

[Colin Cloutus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very quiet, eloquently written first play of Synge. In (the begrudgingly required) comparison to Yeats' "home plays," Synge scales down on the mysticism and nationalism in favour of a subtly written critique of late 19thC. Irish-Catholic marriage norms; people seem to be treating it as feminist stance, but the fact Dan goes to the absurd length to fake death to expose his doubts of his unloving wife's past makes it equally relevant to the fates of married men, regardless of wealth, and he even comes to an understanding in the final image: drinking funerary whiskey with the man he would've just beaten.

Some lines in this read like prose-poems:

Come along with me now, lady of the house, and it's not my blather you'll be hearing only, but you'll be hearing the herons crying out over the black lakes, and you'll be hearing the grouse and the owls with them, and the larks and the big thrushes when the days are warm; and it's not from the like of them you'll be hearing a tale of getting old like Peggy Cavanagh, and losing the hair off you, and the light of your eyes, but it's fine songs you'll be hearing when the sun goes up, and there'll be no old fellow wheezing, the like of a sick sheep, close to your ear.

A great introduction to J. M. Synge

[Fedelm · Rating 4 out of 5]

(In the) Shadow of the Glen, like Synge's other plays, goes against the highly idealized portrayal of the Irish in other Irish literary revival literature (such as Cathleen ni Houlihan). In fact it was very controversial for supposedly portraying Irish women as disloyal instead of "virtuous": Cathleen ni Houlihan was a metaphor for Ireland itself, and to portray an Irish woman as a bad wife was offensive to some and in those cases gave rise to "no true Scotsman" type of arguments (in this case, no true Irish woman). In this play, elderly farmer Daniel has just died and his much younger wife Nora is alone with the body in her house when a homeless man wanders by; she tells him that she had made a mistake in marrying Daniel, who was "cold," and lived an unhappy life. She also goes out to spread the news of her husband's death and returns with an acquaintance, young shepherd Micheal (or Michael), who then proposes to her.

Like his other works that I read so far, Synge based this play on stories he heard while visiting the Aran Islands (in western Ireland, which is known for being more "traditional" and one of the few places where Irish is the first language). This play, however, takes place in County Wicklow where Synge also spent time.

*spoilers follow*

A bit of comedy occurs when Dan reveals himself to be alive (this may remind you of a certain other play by Synge) and apparently testing his wife's fidelity. But I disagree that the play portrays Nora in a negative light. The closest to "disloyal" she gets is when she proclaims her regret over marrying Daniel, and then when she leaves her husband (and this happens against her will) at the end of the play. However, adultery is not implied and she only leaves after Daniel repeatedly orders her to do so (after threatening to beat her no less). Furthermore, she in fact refused Micheal's proposal (even though she thought herself a widow), and Micheal himself is portrayed as rather greedy -- yet, Daniel is angry with Nora anyway and is friendly with Micheal. I would say that Nora and the tramp, who offers Nora his company in homelessness, are the more sympathetic characters. They are both victims of poor economic conditions in early 1900s Ireland, and Nora of the lack of power and agency of women in their marriages and their lives. More recent criticism (by Oona Frawley) more accurately compares Nora's departure to "eviction," which the Irish would surely have understood well. On the other hand, it's also implied that Nora is finally free by leaving her life of loneliness and isolation.

Not as tragic or depressing as Riders to the Sea, not as funny as Playboy of the Western World, but just as complex a one-act play with plenty of social commentary, symbolism, influence of folklore, dialect, and portrayal of mood, atmosphere, and landscape.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nazdravanul Occidentului by John Millington Synge

Not thrilling- just 6 out of 10



This is a comedy with plenty of dark tones.

A young man comes to a village where he is hailed as a kind of hero, for ....killing his father.

- A pretty weird premise, isn’t it?

I am not sure if I lack the sense of humor, but at first glance I did not find the murder, even more so of the father, to be funny.

However, the devewlopments do point to ridiculous aspects in people’s lives.

The fact that the young man had the guts to face his father does advertise a kind of gumption that the villagers fall for.

Especially the women.

A young woman and a widow, both attrcative are very interested in the killer who is looked upon with high regard.

There are some complications, because the young woman, a girl actually- is promised to another man.

The priest pof the place is very keen to see this marriage done as quickly as possible.

In the midst of some awkward praise and admiration for a murderer, which may seem ridiculous if not exactly funny, there is a surprise.

A man comes looking for the son who kicked him in the head.

Instead of relief- after all, we are not dealing with a killer, the widow is dissapointed to find that she knows no murderer.

She is even mocking the supposed criminal

- You said you killed your father

- -...

- We were looking in the newspapers to read about the crime

- And...

- Your dead father came looking for you

There are some humorous lamentations-

- I should have killed my father earlier- look at these two handsome women fighting over me

After the intial embarassemnet, a kind of explanation is in order

- I hit him with a shovel and he pretended to be dead

The widow comes up with a plan, in order to keep her prospects bright

- If he comes back to the village, we will say he is crazy

And indeed, the old man comes back and starts to talk, but the widow interferes with her version of the story:

- This man is insane, he came to me earlier, saying that he was hit by an army officer

- Now he changed his story

There is an unexpected turn and end to this story.

I am not sure if it is moralizing, or the author is trying to use satire and prove a point.

As aforementioned, an outrageous aspect is the thrill that the locals feel and show when they meet with a paricide.

That may turn against them near the end.

But otherwise, this short play is rather forgettable

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play sensationalizes a European folk-tale and fashionable fantasy. This is the story of the elderly husband who pretends to be deceased so as to seize his youthful wife with her lover. Synge had heard a version of this story in Irish from old Pat Dirane, a sightless man in the Aran Islands, and he had recorded it in his diary.

The fundamental situation in the play is nonsensical because not even the dreamiest Nora would in actual fact blunder a living husband for a departed one; and the comic catastrophe comes when old Dan Burke leaps out of bed in his night-shirt.

Simultaneously there is more than charade in the play. There is bathos and depression in Nora’s isolation and craving for a life of greater prosperity and enthusiasm than can be found in the deserted glen, where there is “nothing but the mists rolling down the bog, and the mists again and them rolling up the bog.”

In this play Synge is beginning to find an idiom to go with his dramatic purposes, a speech that has blush and tempo.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one act play by J.M. Synge, also known as The Shadow of the Glen takes place in an isolated hut in which a tramp encounters a dead body of Dan Burke and his widow Nora. Except it seems that there's some life left in the corpse, who sits up with a powerful thirst.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seems to have the same start as Playboy of the Western World but without getting quite as absurd.

[Stephen A. Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short one Act play, with four main characters (an old farmer, his wife, a young farmer, and a tramp). The setting is a remote cottage (at the end of a glen) in County Wicklow. The cottage is home to the older couple. A tramp knocks on the door and is welcomed inside. Thereafter begins a series of events and conversations that have life changing implications for all.

[وائل المنعم · Rating 2 out of 5]

مادة المسرحية أفضل من صورتها النهائية، فالشخصيات والحبكة والأحداث كان من الممكن أن تظهر بصورة أفضل بكثير، ولعل محدودية حجم المسرحية عامل في هذا ولكن اجمالا تشعر وانت تقرأ أن هناك شيء ناقص يحول هذه المادة لعمل أفضل.

[Lucie · Rating 3 out of 5]

read only In the Shadow of the Glen

[Ahmad El-Saeed · Rating 1 out of 5]

حاجة مقرفة فعلأً والله

[Will Schmitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally an old play with just 4 characters!! Love the Irish-ness of it all!

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tramp seeking shelter in the isolated Burke farmhouse finds Nora tending the corpse of Dan. Nora goes out to find Michael, and Dan reveals to the tramp that his death is a mere ruse. He plays dead again when Nora and Michael return, but leaps up in protest when Michael proposes to Nora. Dan kicks Nora out to wander the roads, and she leaves with the tramp, who promises her freedom.

This was kind of a sad play, I'm not sure I get why the guy pretended to be dead. However, I see it as a commentary on the unfairness of marriage toward women in Ireland at the time.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being the shortest text (bar poetry) for my upcoming Irish Writing module, I flew through THE SHADOW OF THE GLEN with the greatest of ease and enjoyment. The fast pace, humour and intriguing characters made this short play one which is full of life and energy. The only pitfalls I came across were occasional struggles with the register of the characters, and the wider contextual issues to which the play is referring, which will be something I will be able to read further into and gain a deeper understanding of during the course of the module.

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see why this play pissed off Arthur Griffith. It's not nearly as good as Riders to the Sea or Playboy of the Western World, but it's still a pretty good play.

[Michael P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe not Synge's best, but very interesting on the first time through. The language is wonderful even if I find the plot a bit fey.

[Slávek Rydval · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jednoaktovka z pohoří Wicklow o rádobymrtvém manželovi, jeho manželce a tulákovi.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Synge is a smooth writer. Easy to read and understand.