England engaged in hunting the defeated Highlanders after the
Battle of Culloden, a play like "Campbell of Kilmhor," in which we
sympathize with the ill-fated Stewarts, cannot end happily. If
they had yielded under pressure and betrayed their comrades, we
might have pitied them, but we could not admire their action, and
there would have been no strong conclusion. In "Riders to the
Sea," where the characters are compelled by bitter poverty to face
the relentless forces of storm and sea, and in "The Biding to
Lithend," we expect a tragic end almost from the first lines of
the play. We recognize this same dramatic tensity of hopeless
conflict in many stories as well as plays; it is most powerful in
three or four novels by George Eliot, George Meredith, and Thomas
Hardy.

One of the best ways to understand these as real stage plays is
through some sort of dramatization. This does not mean, however,
that they need be produced with elaborate scenery and costumes,
memorizing, and rehearsal; often the best understanding may be
secured by quite informal reading in the class, with perhaps a hat
and cloak and a lath sword or two for properties. With simply a
clear space in the classroom for a stage, you and your
imaginations can give all the performance necessary for realizing
these plays very well indeed. But, of course, you must clearly
understand the lines and the play as a whole before you try to
take a part, so that you can read simply and naturally, as you
think the people in the story probably spoke. Some questions for
discussion in the appendix may help you in talking the plays over
in class or in reading them for yourself before you try to take a
part. You will find it sometimes helps, also, to make a diagram or
a colored sketch of the scene as the author describes it, or even