Q. What impression do you form about Nora and Cathleen from the story riders to the Sea in 150 words.
Answers
Nora is the younger daughter in the family; her role in the play is to be a voice for the church. At the beginning of the play, she tells her sister Cathleen what the young priest told her when they are trying to figure out if their brother Michael has been drowned. The priest says to tell their mother that Michael has "got a clean burial by the grace of God." Nora repeats the priest's words to her sister, who later repeats these words to her mother.
Later, after Nora figures out that her brother Michael has been drowned and that her brother Bartley is likely to be drowned, she says of her mother, Maurya, "Didn't the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn't leave her destitute with no son living?" Nora trusts what the priest says and believes that God will not leave her mother without any sons (though this is eventually her mother's fate). In the end, it is Nora who hands her mother the holy water to sprinkle on Michael's clothes. Nora is the character in the play who is most closely associated with religion and the Catholic church.