Character of the Ragged Man from Lady Gregory's "The Rising of the Moon"

The Ragged Man: Symbol of Struggle and Revolution Spirit  in Lady Gregory's "The Rising of the Moon"

The Rising of the Moon by Lady Gregory is a play concerning Irish revolution and an effort to arouse Irish nationalism through an appreciation of Irish literature and speech. The ragged man is no other than distinguished patriot, at Irish rebel who has absconded from the prison. In a disguise of poor ballad singers he appears on a seaside. In a secret plan he is plotting to escape in a boat to a safety place. To hide his face he is wearing a wig and a hat. The parson is so clever that he succeeds his real nature to an experience intelligent police man without vast suspicion. The ragged man would have to wait at the sea-side until the fellow friends or reveals come on the harbor in aid of him. He dupes and misleads the sergeant by clever tricks even though he continues his physical gesture of talking singing and smoking.

A fellow feeling or sympathy seized the atmosphere, is at first aroused by the poor ballad singer and defines the purpose of his coming here that some of his ballads are to be sold to the sellers to earn his bread. He even charms the sailors by his song. But the sergeant is more dutiful and the ragged man does not find any safe passage to the Jetty going down the steps. The sergeant is each time takes him by the shoulder and pushes him out. The rebel now finds more tricks to play.

Now the poster packed on the barrel is loudly readout by the man and declares that he knows the parson concerned. As the man is dangerous with violent Weapons, muscles and the thousands tricks for being frightened the sergeant allows the rebel to stay on the Quay.

The next articulation the ragged man pursues over is with his songs and words of patriotism. The musicality of his words so animates the sergeant that he befriends himself in the feelings of patriotism which was larking inside him. Finally, the sergeant recognized the ragged man as a rebel and yet allows escaping as being a friend of ordinal.

The character of a ragged man is not only charming owing to his good qualities of an orator, musician and patriotism but being a true leader and brave of heart. He is a good insight at human character. He readily finds out the latent patriotic feeling of sergeant and by hook and crock he succeeds to convince the sergeant for his save passage. This firmness, strength, versatility, a greatness of leader can be well recognized in The Rising of the Moon.

Ardhendu De

Spreading the news, [and] The rising of the moon : Gregory, Lady, 1852-1932 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/spreadingnewsand00greguoft