Home, the Asylum, and the Workhouse in The Shadow of the Glen

Abstract

This essay analyses J.M. Synge's construction of domestic and institutional space in his debut play The Shadow of the Glen. The Richmond Asylum and Rathdrum Union Workhouse, the two institutions of confinement which are mentioned in the play, are seen as playing important roles in constructing a threatening offstage space beyond the cottage walls. The essay reads Nora's departure from the home at the end of the play as an eviction into this hostile environment, thereby challenging the dominant interpretation of The Shadow as a woman's choice between her home and the road. By drawing on historical research and Synge's travel writing to delineate contemporary attitudes towards the asylum and the workhouse, the essay aims to provide a deeper understanding of the play's dynamics of place.

Synge on vagrancy: labour, workhouses and the feeble-minded

“…James Little has argued that because of the "dire reputation of state institutions such as the workhouse […] the Tramp's final speech to Nora is not a Yeatsian enticement to fairyland, but words of comfort to a despondent woman". 62 Little is correct, and due to her new appellation of 'feeble-minded', she will think twice about seeking state-sponsored provision in the Union in case she is imprisoned in the workhouse. Instead, she will resort to the life of what the state called "professional tramps", in which she will be "hiding herself away till the end will come, and they find her stretched like a dead sheep with the frost on her, or the big spiders, maybe, and they pitting their webs on her, in the butt of a ditch."…”