John Millington Synges Romantic Vision of the Aran...

John Millington Synges Romantic Vision of the Aran Islands When John Millington Synge made his way to the western most islands of Ireland he was in search of inspiration for his writing. The fruit of his journey was the fame-winning book entitled â€Å"The Aran Islands†. Synge had many purposes for this book, but one of the most compelling was his desire to write an anthropologically geared account of the people and lifestyle of what many believed to be the last bastion of true Irishness. However, Synge’s anthropological work could not avoid the strong Romantic tendencies that influenced his writing. In my opinion it is Synge’s Romanticism that makes his account more believable.†¦show more content†¦In Part One of the book he begins by relating the image of the Aranmor countryside as he walks through it for the first time. He states: I was wandering out along the one good roadway of the island, looking over low walls on either side into small flat fields of naked rock. I have seen nothing so desolate. Grey floods of water were sweeping everywhere upon the limestone, making at times a wild torrent of the road†¦ Whenever the cloud lifted I could see the edge of the sea below me on the right, and the naked ridge of the island above me on the other side†¦ (Synge 2) The most vivid aspect of this passage is the diction, which Synge uses to describe the island’s environment. More than once Synge uses the word â€Å"naked† to refer to the rock. He also builds further that image by calling the land â€Å"desolate† and â€Å"wild†. Synge also makes an important play of the colors of the Aran Islands. He uses the images of grey and black quite often throughout the book. At one point he states that everywhere he turns he finds, â€Å"†¦the same grey obsession twining and wreathing itself among the narrow fields†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Synge 46). By describing the island thus he helps the reader build the image of the Aran Islands as something quite distinct from the lushness of the Irish mainland. The contrast between the environment of the islands and the mainland is important for Synge to establish,