The Sea by Edward Bond Themes
The Sea is a tragicomic play that was published in 1973. It was written by the famous British playwright, Edward Bond. This play has some major themes that show various negative outcomes of social evils like class-consciousness, hypocrisy, and violence. You will learn about these themes in detail in today’s article. In this way, you can understand how Bond skillfully showed the harmful effects of various social evils in the play.
Themes of The Sea:
The following are the major themes that I found while reading the play, The Sea:
Unfair Social Control by the Upper-Class:
In the play, Mrs. Rafi’s character shows the unfair social control of the upper class. She proudly dictates what she expects from others like her family, friends, and other townspeople, and the people usually don’t resist her because of her upper-class authority. For example, Mrs. Tilehouse many times tolerates her rudeness most probably because of her higher financial condition despite the fact that Mrs. Tilehouse is neither poor nor her servant. Besides, Mrs. Tilehouse is a friend of Mrs. Rafi too, but Mrs. Rafi still doesn’t let any chance go to waste of degrading her in front of others.
Then, Mrs. Rafi even wants Rose (her niece) to accept her advice given in an unkind way regarding Rose’s future that Rose resists initially. Although Mrs. Rafi advises for her betterment that Rose should move on in her life with Willy after Colin’s death, her tone while advising her is very authoritative and shows little regard for her feelings. Mrs. Rafi said if Rose had any sense, she would not refuse to move on in life with Willy. This is a very unkind way of advising a girl who’s suffering because of her fiance’s death.
Resilience for a Better Future:
The major characters, Rose and Willy, go through the tragedy of Colin’s death in the play but choose to move on in life with an optimistic approach for their future. Willy, who’s tense because of the violent nature of the world, town’s insensitive nature (especially when shown during the play’s rehearsal) and Hatch’s negative mindset, becomes more hopeful of seeing positive changes with constructive contribution in the oppressive world after hearing Evens’ philosophical thoughts. Evens encourages Willy to believe that the world’s oppressive nature can be improved with moral improvements and better understanding that might be possible to achieve if Willy leaves the town and strives to find answers to his questions by moving to a better place.
Indifferent Sea, Negative Mentality, and Madness:
Well, there are various instances of the indifferent sea, negative mentality, and madness in the play.
For example, the sea acts as an indifferent force for the townspeople that they regard as highly useful as it is the source of wonderful elegance, income generation, and soothing effect. Due to the sea storm, Colin drowned and died. However, the sea kills everything it comes across without any malice during a storm unlike human beings. The sea is shown as indifferent to human life not because of being evil but because of being naturally indifferent to human or non-human life. Besides, the same sea storm that caused the tragedy for the major characters in the play reflects the chaos in the hearts of the townspeople too due to the oppression, lack of knowledge, and hypocrisy.
Then, the negative mindset of Hatch and his friends (Carter, Thompson, and Hollarcut) shown in various scenes highlights how negative thinking makes people illogical and superstitious. Their mindset is the outcome of insufficient education (most probably) and negative thinking.
Lastly, the madness of Hatch is shown in various scenes to highlight various consequences like how one’s insanity can cause the death of a person even indirectly as happened in case of Colin’s death who was really in danger at the beach. He drowned because Hatch didn’t help Willy in saving him despite being the coastguard. Instead, Hatch created a false story of alien invasion and regarded Willy an alien spy. He thought because of his mental disorder and superstitious behaviour that aliens like Willy intended to invade the town. Bond wants to tell his readers through this character how a person’s negative thinking, illogical doubting, and mental disorder can make him a major source of tension for his society.
Conclusion:
So that is all what I have to share with you regarding the themes of The Sea. I hope you found the content useful. And if you really find it useful, then please share the content with others. In this way, they can also know about the thematic analysis of the play.