In many ways, Maurya is a tragic hero. In Greek drama, a tragic hero is someone destined by the gods to a tragic fate; try as the hero might, there is nothing he or she can do to alter this fate. When the play opens, Maurya has already lost her husband, father-in-law, and four of her six sons to the sea. Only Michael and Bartley are still alive among her sons, but Michael is already...
In many ways, Maurya is a tragic hero. In Greek drama, a tragic hero is someone destined by the gods to a tragic fate; try as the hero might, there is nothing he or she can do to alter this fate. When the play opens, Maurya has already lost her husband, father-in-law, and four of her six sons to the sea. Only Michael and Bartley are still alive among her sons, but Michael is already lost. At the beginning of the play, before Michael's fate is known, Nora says that according to the priest, "Herself does be saying prayers half through the night, and the Almighty God won't leave her destitute...with no son living." Despite the priest's faith that God will not take away all of Maurya's sons, Michael's body washes ashore, and Bartley is thrown by his horse into the ocean. After Bartley dies, Maurya says, "They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me." In other words, she understands that the sea was bent on taking all her sons and the other men in her life and there was no resisting this fate; however, now that she has suffered extreme loss, she has nothing left to lose. Her tragic destiny marks her as a tragic hero.
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