The Sea

Significance of the Play within the Play

Bond, in scene four, uses the technique of introducing play within the play as Shakespeare put it in Hamlet. The authoritative Mrs.Rafi, presides over the event of rehearsal of a play on the subject of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was subjected to raise funds for the coastguards of the fore beach.

Mythology explains the tragedy. Orpheus was born of the union of the Muses, Calliope and Thrace. He inherited the gift of enchanting music from his mother.  Everyone got spellbound at hearing his music. Not only gods, but mortals along with the natural objects like rocks and streams were affected by his music. It was his music  cast spell on the maiden Eurydice. They got married and Hymen, the god of marriage himself came to perform the ceremony. The torch sputtered and smoked which was an il omen. Eurydice, as she was walking through the deep grass, got stung by a snake and died at the feet of her lover. Orpheus consumed himself over the loss and mourned his breath out. He decided to visit the underworld to bring her back. He reached Persephone nearby Plato, the ruler of the underworld. Then he took out his lyre and began casting spell of his music in the underworld and declared his presence to see his wife and implored for her release. All of the authorities of the underworld were intoxicated by the spell of his music and granted his wish with the condition that he must not look back during his journey from the underworld, if did, he would lose his wife once again. The couple moved towards the outer world when the anxious Orpheus turned to look at his beloved to tell they were near the outer world. In an instant, she was gone. Once again she became dead. Eurydice had no complaints for she knew that her misfortune came out of great love of her husband.

 The rehearsal scene in The Sea is one of the two comic highlights of the play.  Mrs.Rafi orchestrates the whole show but gets frustrated by them and the sound of guns. Mrs.Tilehouse clings to the appropriateness of the song, “ There is no place like home”. Mafanway objects her role as a dog. Lilly is subdued by the grief and retires. Vikar insists on introducing some comic elements in the general drama of pain. Willy’s arrival also concludes the rehearsal scene and offers relief to the audience.

Bond artistically manages to create a balance between comic and tragic elements in the play. He creates analogy among the events of the play. Jilly bursts into tears when Willy and Rose have real cause to weep. Mrs.Rafi as Eurydice is about to cross the styx, the river of tears when Rose is unable to bear the pain of Colin’s death.

The element of play within the play in The Sea is highly symbolic. The use of this technique by Bond lends maturity to the overall text and gives additional meanings to the play.

Major Themes in The Sea

Bond, an artist amidst the threats of the war and destruction, imbibes the reality of the world and tries to convey the sensibilities of the society in his plays. He is capable of showing what threats knock at the threshold of the civilization with impending evil. The Sea is replete with several such interwoven themes that over whelm the atmosphere of the play such as theme of Death and its impact, theme of Dominance, theme of helplessness, theme of violence, theme of Menace and theme of Optimism in the society.

The play opens on a beach where Colin is struggling for his life while Willy is trying his hard to do at least something to make his Friend secure in the grip of the fatal waves of the sea. On the other hand, a drunkard sings in his fit and refuses to help the wretched. Even the coastguard, Hatch, refuses point blank to offer help to the "strangers".

The rest of the play comprises of the scenes dominating the inquest of death of Colin and the consequences arising from the act of refusal on the part of Hatch. He is bankrupted by Mrs.Rafi as she terminates the business relations with him for his being “over-imaginative for a draper”. He repulses at his failure in securing business and reacts violently. Colin's death becomes the reason for arranging fund raising play to make them loyal to their responsibility.

Mrs.Rafi, the formidable lady on the forebeach, dominates the scenes of the play and becomes the centre of the action. She directs the 'Life' of the forebeach and is confident of her convictions. She manages the funeral rituals of Colin and scattering of his ashes at the cliff-top. She maintains her position by criticizing Mrs.Tilehouse for her amateur gestures and childish attitude while singing hymns to God in a voice ' louder' then hers. She emphasizes her imperious self-assurance that costumes designed by her would not be objected by the audience as she has designed them. Rose sums her saying, " the town is full of her cripples". Mrs.Rafi rules over the people as she 'Cant love them'.

Theme of menace is also one of the dominating themes in the play. The hermit, at the end of the play summarizes the tragedy of the forebeach saying, " ‘You see why he draper’s afraid. Not of things from space, of us. We’re becoming the strange visitors to this world.’ He, in his fit, manages to give peep into his mind and eludes to the rat and the rat-catcher analogy to offer explanation of man and his ultimate cause of his destruction, ' man'. He asserts that people of the modern world should not wait for the travelers from the space to impose destruction, rather it is the men's activity to pave way for their own destruction in their own world of chaos , confusion and assumptions. He witnesses the departure of the young couple of Rose and Willy to escape from the danger zone.

The attempt of stabbing knife to kill the alien becomes the most violent incident of the play. Hatch fails to spurt blood out of the corpse and stabs as much as possible in order to soothe his nerve by killing Willy. He is the only man in the play who displays savage thoughts and acts violently when he attacks Mrs.Rafi with the pair of scissors. He, somehow, remains unsuccessful in settling his account with Mrs.Rafi and Willy.

Theme of identity in the world of class conflict also finds a room in the character of Mrs.Rafi. She belongs to the upper class society of the forebeach and declares; 'People are judged by what they have on their hands. They're important'

She purchases cloth for the curtain with a taste and reigns over the entire community on the crutches of her class. She dominates the scenes of the play as the people of the upper classes do. Everything associated with Mrs.Rafi becomes sensible, suitable and appropriates as she orchestrates the society on her own will.  Class consciousness and consumerism are interwoven pattern in the text of play.

The Sea displays the different structure of the society with thematic concerns. Bond is successful in his description of the characters and the underlying ideas to be focused on. He artistically weaves the themes in the texture of the play and makes it an artistic whole.

Bond's Concept of Violence in The Sea

Bond portrays the modern society coloured in the images haunted by violence. He is as artistic in portraying violence as Jane Austen in portraying manners. Violence in the society must secure the lines in the text in order to stop the brutal act , or at least making the poeple aware of the savage practice in one sense or the other.

Violence, an attribute of the animals is justified as violence among them does not threaten their own existence, while the violence practiced by human being is bound to bring destruction to their own existence. The idea, vaguely conveyed by Evens at the end of the play that they don’t need anyone from the outer space to come and destroy them, as they themselves will be equipped with the task to destroying their own species. The analogy of the rat and the rat-catcher is metaphorically conveyed to the audience or the reader. Violence in animals is advocated by their need to be fed or guard their own existence against the chances of getting preyed, but human beings on the other hand, need not to prey to maintain their own existence in terms of fulfilling their biological needs.

The society is actually a governmentality imposed on individual to act civility and remain under the influence of social structures and their sense of religionality. People not confirming to such attitude interfere with the natural functioning of the fellow being which activates aggression and repulsion. Bond displays the people who are privileged including the aristocrats, leaders and organizing groups. They do not address the issues and the have-nots adopt the way that may be arbitrary and self-justifying. The act of Hatch after attacking Mrs.Rafi and killing the corpse in place of Willy is an apt instance. ' I am out of touch. I 've tried to save you from foolishness and selfishness'

Hatch is self-justifying his act of brutality and thus, causes an unrest in the society defining his own crimes. It creates social disruption and aggression among the people of the community.

Battery at the other side of the forebeach is also a sign of violence that perpetuates a threatening circle in the atomic age for the mankind to the annihilation. Bond shows social institutions, originally developed for the protection of the mankind, become self-perpetuating. Religion, Law, Morality and social structures no more exercise influence over an individual to meet their needs. Repression generates aggression among the people and such a passion is the driving force behind social progress. The refusal on the part of Mrs.Rafi to purchase the particular cloth earlier ordered for from Hatch on the part of his impudence regarding not heeding towards the help calls in the first scene may be taken as instance. The bankrupted Hatch engages himself in the act of attacking Mrs.Rafi with a pair of scissors to overcome his complex sentiments of getting a harsh blow to his little capitalism.

          For Bond,' All our culture , education, industrial and legal organization is directed to the task of killing people…' He asserts ' theatre is a way of judging society and helping to change it; art must interpret the world and not merely mirror it'

Bond clearly installs the theme of violence and the sentiments causing violence in the individual in his plays. He interprets the acts of violence as off shoots of some psychological or emotional rejection. He places the individual between the forces of his own sentimentality and harsh realities of his existence.

Significance of the Title of the Play

The Sea is an apt title for the play as the setting of the play is forebeach situated at the East Coast of England. The inhabitants of the locality have much to do with the sea there. They share their livelihood, their fears and their customs with the sea surrounding them. It is the source of bread and butter for most of them and is expected to be the way for the traders and sailors.

Bond colours sea with its characteristics like Hemingway does. It eludes to the life in the same sense. It is unfathomable, deep and mysterious. It manages it moods of ebb and flow, calm and storm. It creates as well as it kills. Life of a man is just like the journey of the sea. It may end with the destination at hand or it may end in disaster. Colin's ends his life in the bony arms of the waves while Willy succeeds in striving for his breaths. The dead body of Colin is turned up but after the funeral rituals, the ashes are again conveyed to the air and water over the cliffs of the sea. It kills, and it receives at the same time.

Sea seems to be most intimate with Evens, the hermit who resides on the fringes of the waves. He lives alone on the beach and knows the temperament of the sea. He knows the changing behavior of the sea. He stills gets confused as the behavior of the sea is unpredictable. He is approached to comment on the possible turn up of the dead body of Colin, but he remains irresolute to predict. He tells Willy where the body of Colin is likely to turn up. Similarly, the attitude of the community lives by the sea is unpredictable. The behavior of the people remains suspicious and mysterious. Mafanway says," In the town you cant get away from the sea".

The very opening scene of the play, we see Willy crying for help to save Colin's life. The play ends with the last scene on the beach where Evens sketches link between life and death in his peculiar way. He considers the sea as the source of life. Hatch celebrates the fatal aspect of sea as it protects the town by drowning the invaders from the outer space. He also suspects sea for providing a secure landing for the people like Willy and Colin.

Bond talks about his play in response to The Tempest by Shakespeare. He says, ' Yes the play is strongly influenced by Shakespeare's Tempest. I even have it start it with the storm too'.

He develops the analogy of the storm in the sea with the storm in the draper's shop. It occurs with the refusal of Mrs.Rafi to purchase the cloth she orders earlier in the play. The storm in the sea drowns Colin while the storm in the draper's shop drowns Hatch in all aspects. Sea symbolizes the society and the actions that occur in the play. Colin 's attempt to escape from the storm is evident in his trying to get his jumper off over his head so that he could swim better, but he drowned like that. He tried to escape but failed. Same attempt can be metaphorically cited by Hatch when he tries to escape and in the attempt, he gets clutched in the situation and drowns as well. Whatever he does to save the ailing situation, he, like Colin, gets stranded and meets his end. Colin ends up his life struggling in the sea, and the same sea receives his ashes after his funeral procession.

Bond, in his peculiar style, portrays sea in his play as a character, influencing the lives of the people associated with it in one way or the other. The sea is coloured mysterious and deep as life itself.

‘The Sea’ as a Black Comedy

Bond is much conscious about showing the victims of the sectionalized society. He introduces satirical comedy in The Sea. He explains, " My play is pointedly about sane and insanity, and the town represents the entrapment".

It would not be justified to title The Sea as comedy. Although the events support come comic scenes in the course of the play, yet it would be difficult to attribute the play as comedy. Jane Howell rightly points out ,"it comes from Evens in the storm.But it seems so improbable. I don’t think as audience can laugh at it". It has also been labeled as Black Comedy.

The rehearsal scene is also one of the comic highlights of the play. It is a wicked parody of the worst kind of village amateur theatricals. The scene is comically structured by the conventional comic principle of constant interruptions. Mrs.Rafi, the formidable, tries her best to inspire her cast, but is frustrated at the congruity of situation. Mafanway refuses to do the 'dog role' in the play. Jilly is driven emotional and she bursts into tears. The Vicar fails to concentrate on delivering his lines and requests Mrs.Rafi to improvise some comic episode in the scene. The ultimate rehearsal scene is brought to end by sound of the guns and the sudden arrival of Willy. Rose appears in the play directed by Mrs.Rafi and performs her role of Eurydice saying, "I am queen of this dark place. My heart burns with a new cold fire". Such a comment is ironic as the dialogue of the play refers to her own reaction to Colin's death. All the gestures by the performers in the rehearsal scene display the ludicrous hollowness of their lives. Their mechanical behavior of condolence is more than what they actually feel for Colin. Moreover, the feelings of grieves are much inclined towards the wretched condition of Rose as compared to the death of Colin.

Bond installs exaggerated comic style to expose the ridiculousness of the values of the people along with their unnaturalness of behavior. The comic atmosphere is maintained when Mrs.Rafi leads Thompson by ear while Hollarcut watches the scene from a safe position behind the counter, ducking his head down. The arrival and the departure of the people at draper's shop is nothing else but to produce the effect of aimlessness in their lives.

In the seventh scene, the funeral service on the cliff-top disintegrates into utter confusion and chaos with the sudden arrival of Hatch. Colin's ashes,already dropped, scattered and swept by Mrs.Tilehouse with her handkerchief. Mrs.Rafi throws handfuls of them in Hatch's face. Hollarcut gets beaten blue with the music sheet on the piano. The overall impact of the scene is no doubt funny, but is emphasizes the desperate effort of Mrs.Rafi to control the much organized event. The funeral service is brought to an end by the sounds of the guns by the battery at the other side of the sea.  Hatch's lunatic behavior on seeing his victim alive is another comic sequence. He utters, " still alive, still alive" in a frenzied way. His assumption that he has saved the people from foolishness produces comic effects. He says," no one can help you now" is equally foolish as he is the only person who is a constant threat for the people of the forebeach.

Mrs.Rafi's speech in the end is critical which claims sympathy for the her. She is afraid of getting old. She is exposed and the mask she wears is dropped by her confession of being rude. She talks of her life having been wasted. Bond comments, " I think what she says about herself is ultimately unacceptable". The Sea is a black comedy and could hardly hope for a better cast.

Mr. Bond shows some decent comic touches which are milked to the last droplet. the comedy is two-dimensional. It is more to expose the follies of the character rather than just producing laughter among the audience. It can be said that the events are to give comic relief to the audience in the general drama of pain where the society is exposed.

Critical Analysis of Mrs. Rafi Character

The Character of Mrs. Rafi is the portrayal of a typical upper middle class lady that would exert her pressure on the lower strata of society bullying them to do her errands. Primarily, she seems to have adopted the punitive and authoritarian role in the society she lives in. Since the play is about the conflict between the established forces of society which don't let individuals get free, hence, Mrs. Rafi stands for the exploitative side of the society while the characters like Hatch, Mrs. Tilehouse, Mafanwy, Jilly, Vicar etc. are under her influence. She doesn't want to lose control over the characters in the play. She rather believes that she is needed by these people: "Sometimes I think I am like a lighthouse in their world. I give them a sense of order and security." Despite all the criticism we may have on the negative side of her authoritarian role and punitive measures which not only bankrupt stupid Hatch but also destroy his social life, she is the bridge and discipline of the small town she lives in.

What makes Mrs. Rafi a pure aristocratic woman is her aesthetic sense. She is very fond of art and music. She does not like shoddy articles, ordinary gloves and curtains. She wants something different and unique. However, she is a clever customer. She says to Hatch: “Your catalogue is full of interesting items but none of them are in your shop. You offer only shoddy! How can you affect a discriminating and rewarding class of client?”

Mrs. Rafi is both blunt and diplomatic. Mostly we find her blunt and straight forward in her words. In fact, Bond wants to portray the real mentality of the so-called upper class. They are king and considerate, when their own advantages are concerned, otherwise, they are very sharp and ruthless.

Mrs. Rafi is a village dictator. She is a dictator by virtue of the supreme upper middle class. She dictates to each and every one. She bullies everyone; it is her behaviour that drives Hatch mad. She humiliates Hatch. She selects her curtain material then rejects it. She administers a great control over Mr. Carter and Hollarcut. She bullies Mafanway and also does not care for the feelings of Rose. She never let anybody slip through her controlling fingers.

She is the one that manages the coast guard fund and voluntary people are deployed on the coast so that lives of the people could be saved. She arranges social gatherings and raises incomes for the payment of those coast guards which include Hatch, Hollarcut, Evens etc. So, she has a positive role to play in the society she lives in. In the second last scene, Mrs. Rafi says that she is getting old and people always expect her to behave the way upper class should i.e. rebuking, scolding, directing their course. She says that she is "so tired of them". She has an extreme kind of sense of superiority complex. She considers herself superior to all, she even does not show respect to clergy, vicar. Religion has no deeper appeal to her and finds its truths illogical. “I am afraid of getting old. I have always been a forceful woman. I was brought up to be. People except my class to shout at them. If I were a catholic, I’d have terrified them.”

She has got artistic taste and loves to perform annually on the town theatre. All this seems not only the satisfaction of her aristocratic nature but also a sympathetic charity towards the coast guard fund of the town. She is supported by the other influential people of the town. They do rehearse the play in her house. Again, even during rehearsals and assigning of roles as well as modifications in the costumes or the adjustments of the minor characters, she appears commanding with authority. She directs and orders with none to disobey her. She likes to sing the song "there's no place like home" though it is not in the script but she would because she likes it and it is popular too. She is directing the characters for the performance of the play and rebukes Mafanwy who finds it difficult to pretend swimming when he is actually walking. 

Character Portrayal of Willy Carson

          Willy Carson by no means a heroic figure who can be ranked with the heroes of great tragedies. However, he can be compared with any hero of tragi-comedy. He is heroic in many respects. He is very sympathetic and kind. He feels the loss of the death of his friend like a true human being.  He does not feel fear from Hatch and his companions. He remains straightforward throughout the play. He deals with Rose in highly mature way. Willy seems to hover on edge of the main action rather than being directly involved in the centre of it. Willy’s role has been overshadowed by Mrs. Rafi and Hatch. They are vital characters as compared to Willy. Still Will’s role is not of less significance.

However, a careful estimate reveals many qualities of head and heart in Willy Carson. He is portrayed as a true friend. He remains optimistic and has no romantic dreams about life. He is and ingenious man; he hits the nail on the head. He makes Rose feel him as her good companion in the given circumstances. He is lucky as he is saved from sea storm and also from Hatch’s knife.

          Willy is a young man who slowly comes to know the horrors around him. Though he is not a heroic figure, yet forced by the circumstances, he tries to understand life. ‘He isn’t consciously searching for anything. Therefore, he tries to make compromise with living.” Though, Willy is overwhelmed by cynicism and despair, yet he survives, and Bond expresses though him his conviction that society can be changed. His reactions inevitably involve a reaction of the world as: at the end of the play, he is seen moving out of his irrational world. His action is a rejection of his present, but it also signifies the chance for a better future.

          Willy’s appearance in scene ii is limited to one brief conversation with Mrs. Rafi and Mrs. Tilehouse. There is no evidence of the fact, how the events of the first scene have affected him. Furthermore, Mrs. Rafi’s world is not conducive to open the expression of personal grief. It is only when he visits Evens at his hut on the beach; he gives vent to his feelings: “Willy sits down on a box and starts to cry into his hands.”

This small incident lays the ground for the vital conversation between them in the last scene. In scene iii, Willy is self-absorbed and relatively withdrawn. Willy is now capable of being objective about Colin. Rose continues to romanticize both Colin and her own position, and her stance is entirely negative. She says; “I can’t bear to lose him.” Will tries to console Rose in these words: “If you look at life closely it is unbearable. What people suffer, what they do to each other, how they hate themselves…. You should never r=turn away. If you do, you lose everything. Listen to the howls of the flames. The rest is lies.” This is Willy’s strongest speech in the play. What Bond shows is Willy and Rose learning together to live in the real world. Wily and Rose have to create their personal maturity. The couple have to find their own strength by learning the problems of their lives and society. They find strength in the process of learning.

To sum up the discussion it may be assumed that Willy is a strong character that goes through great changes in order to find his personal reality in a hostile world.

Hatch inhabits a world which is as illusionary as that of the play rehearsed in Mrs. Rafi’s room.

The play of Orpheus arranged by Mrs. Rafi is significant as it symbolically reflects Rose, Colin and Willy in the given situation. The play is also an attempt to show supremacy of art over life and it also reveals some of the absurdities of social and religious people; but it is based on illusions and the world inhabited by Hatch and presented in the play from Mrs. Rafi is illusionary. These two illusionary extremes; one in the real world and the other in dramatic arts presents utter madness on part of Hatch and Mrs. Rafi. The illusionary world of both Hatch and Mrs. Rafi’s Orpheus is the result of paranoia.

Bond shows madness and violence resulting from paranoia and illusions as one and the same thing in The Sea. Bond shows this message through the character of Hatch who is mad and is always paranoid by some alien attack and this madness of Hatch makes him violent when he attacks Colin’s dead body and cuts it into pieces. Therefore, madness leads to violence and violence to annihilation of the world. Thus, the world inhabited by Hatch is illusionary, fictional, and not based on facts.  What finally drives Hatch mad is not so much his sense of the unjust way that his society is organized, as the fact that he is forced to suppress his feelings about the real causes of these injustices -his aggression is directed not at Mrs. Rafi but at alternative scape­goats.  As a result, his views border on the fascist; although this is not made explicit in the play, in interview Bond has made the point very directly: ‘There is no doubt but that Hatch is a Hitleresque concept on my part.’ While Willy works steadily, towards a view of his world, that allows grounds for hope and opti­mism, Hatch’s inability to reach an intellectual understanding of his situation culminates in the futile intensity of his knifing of the corpse washed up on the beach. The significant point is that all this results from the illusionary world inhabited by Hatch. The same is the situation with Mrs. Rafi’s Orpheus; the arranged by her in her room in which a dark and illusionary world is presented.

In scene, four Bond switches back from the beach to the unnatu­ral climate of the town. With imperious authority, Mrs. Rafi pres­ides over an event which — characteristically – represents a triumph of art over life – the rehearsal of a play on the subject of Orpheus and Eurydice, to be given by her group of local ladies in aid of the Coastguard Fund. The irony that this play within a play is on a theme which, according to one critic, contains strong cor­respondences with the remainder of the play (one only needs to substitute Colin, Rose, and Willy for Orpheus, Eurydice and Pluto) cannot be completely ignored. But thematic ironies of this kind are infinitely less important than what Bond shows in direct stage terms — the juxtaposition of Willy and Rose with the arid inanities of the rehearsal.

The rehearsal scene is one of two comic highlights in The Sea. It is a wicked parody of the worst kind of village hall amateur theatri­cals. By the standards of, say, Early Morning, the comic effects are quite conventional- the scene is structured on one basic comic principle: the idea of constant interruption. As Mrs. Rafi struggles to inspire her cast, she is frustrated by a combination of external circumstance and individual recalcitrance. Mrs. Tilehouse questions the appropriateness of Mrs. Rafi’s star turn- a solo ren­dering of ‘There’s No Place Like Home’. Therefore, the world in Mrs. Rafi’s plays is also illusionary; like Hatch, she is also seeking refuge into her own self-created world of illusions. Like Hatch who is afraid of foreign invasions, she is escapist and paranoid by her old age creeping and eclipsing her personality, the revitalization of which, she wants to see in the art. Again, the illusionary world of Mrs. Rafi and Hatch is evident as the same in nature but different in medium of expression.

It is Hatch and Mrs. Rafi who have harbored some unknown fears in their minds, which constantly torture their soul and mind. Obviously, there is no world for such people. The world is built for the sane people like Rose and Willy. That is why, Hatch is shunned and Mrs. Rafi frowned upon by all.  Hatch appears in six of the eight scenes; the prominence Bond gives to this character underlines the importance he attaches to keeping Hatch’s failure to cope with the social pressures exerted on him constantly in the audience’s mind. There is no call for him to be involved in scene five (the rehearsal of the play Mrs. Rafi and her ladies are putting on), but far more telling is his exclusion from the last scene; clearly, he can have no part in the rational delibera­tions between Willy and Evens about the state of the world and Willy’s best course of action.

In Short, Bond ends on a question mark here because Willy must now reconcile the advice given to him by the old hermit, Evens, with what he has seen in the conduct of Mrs. Rafi and Hatch. Mrs. Rafi’s Orpheus drama – a play within a play – is fraught with more problems than Prospero encounters in presenting his masque for the benefit of the young lovers, whilst Mrs. Rafi’s attempt to stage-manage Colin’s funeral misfires as spectacularly as Prospero’s wedding celebra­tion. It is Evens, the wise old seer — quoting from the Chinese poet Li Po – imparting his knowledge to Willy who more completely fulfils the function of the magus Prospero. In the final scene of the play he obliges Willy to observe the condition of the world with such a depth of rational analysis that the young man is encouraged to build on the founda­tions of his philosophical propositions. This also reflects back on that the world of Mrs. Rafi and Hatch is illusionary and escapist as contrast to the actual worlds possessed by Evens, Willy and Rose. 

Dramatic Significance of the Sea

Bond, in The Sea, tries to display the ability of the human beings to survive the worst. He maintains the balance in the minds of the characters on the fringes of optimism. He focuses on the small town on the coast beach of England as presents it as a battle ground over which the victims of an oppressive and morally impoverished culture wander in mad distraction. Bond confines himself in three elements in the play: The world of Mrs.Rafi, the paranoia of Hatch and the maturity and understanding of Willy.

The dramatic pattern of Bond emerges from above quoted elements with a perfect distribution of main characters through the eight scenes of the play. Willy occupies the stage throughout the play except scene five where Mrs.Rafi and Hatch have confrontation. In scene two, Willy comes to the shop after the business attempt by Hatch is made on Mrs.Rafi while other meetings between Hatch and Willy comprise of encounters on the beach. Hatch occupies his exposure in six out of eight scenes. Bond deliberately attaches importance to map out his failure in confirming to the social pressure exerted on him. Hatch is missed in the fifth scene and the last scene of the play.  His exclusion from the last scene justifies his absence in the rational deliberation between Willy and Evens.

At the climax of the play, the funeral procession, Mrs.Rafi and Evens appear in the company of each other just once in the play. The rest of the scene at the cliff top is teemed with encounters among the characters, ending with a turmoil and confusion regarding the lunacy of Hatch. Almost all of them become a part of a fight which goes on between the lunatic elements and the social patterns, declaring the triumph of the people over the fanatics and their exclusion from the society.

All the three elements discussed were presented in different mood and tone by Bond. The emphasis was given on several occasions nestled among the events of humour and intensity. Bond is of the view that any production should reflect the comic nature of the play as a whole. He says, “I simply cannot reconcile myself to a life that will ultimately end in violence and chaos”. If The Sea starts violently and noisily, it should end with the profoundest sense of tranquility. Bond clearly declares, “ you mustn’t despair. You mustn’t be afraid. You must be conscious of the dangers but nevertheless be conscious of your strengths”.