A Comparative Study of ‘Absurd
Woman’ Maurya from J.M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea and Albert
Camus’ ‘Absurd Man’ Sisyphus from The Myth of Sisyphus
Zinat Renesa
ABSTRACT
When questions like if God exists then why there
is so much pain and injustice in the world, why the good people
suffer and bad persons live happily, if there is the existence of
God then why He is not protecting us from dangers remain unanswered
and we receive the silence, the indifference from the universe is
exactly when absurdism arises. ‘Absurdism’ according to Albert Camus
means a futile and meaningless life, it arises when there is a
conflict between our continuous search for meaning and the multiple
questions that we ask but there is no one to give us answers and
clear our doubts.
This paper attempts to analyze the character of Maurya in J.M.
Synge’s play Riders to the Sea (1904) from the perspective of Albert
Camus’ philosophy of ‘Absurdism’. This work mainly focuses on the
character of Maurya, compares her to Sisyphus from Camus’ book The
Myth of Sisyphus (1942) and tries to find the similarities between
them, to learn from what perspectives can Maurya be considered as or
is the female counterpart of Sisyphus or how is she ‘The Absurd
Woman.’ Though the main focus of this paper is on Maurya, the other
characters in the play would also be studied from the same
perspective of ‘Absurdism’ and to compare them with the rest of the
people of the world who are the ‘Non-Aran Islanders’ thus making
this study a universal one. Sisyphus is the base of our study.
Primary focus is on Maurya and other characters are also studied
deeply without whom the research work shall remain incomplete.
Keywords: Sisyphus, Maurya, the Absurd, Absurdism, existence of God,
repetition, acceptance.
