Character of Ragged man. Or, Sketch the character of The Ragged man of the play "The Rising of the Moon" by Lady Gregory.

               Answer: Dramatist Lady Gregory's famous one act play "The Rising of the Moon" is a political play deals in revolutionary movement of Ireland against British rule. In this play a Ragged man is introduced who is a rebel for freedom. He is is an interesting as well as a mysterious character.

               Police is searching for him to arrest for revolutionary movement activities against British rule, but he is very much keen to meet his friend by the seashore. So he takes disguise of a poor ballad singer. He is is so adept in makeup that the Sergeant cannot recognize him. Also he is a singer too and can sing ballad songs that have an appealing tone to melt anybody's heart. He is very brave and so overcoming the fear he comes near the Sergeant and begins to converse with him. He is so careful that after spending a long time with Sergeant, smoking singing and sitting together, he has been able to hide his real identity from him and the Sergeant cannot doubt or recognise him. But at the very end of the play he reveals his real identity only to show his bravery, his insistence to free his own land from British. Patriotism can make man very powerful in mind, careless for life and he is the real example. He knows that the Sergeant is also a native man of Ireland and so the ragged man takes a chance two rouse patriotism in Sergeant's mind. And he becomes successful to do that by his heart-touching patriotic songs, friendly behaviour. It is notable that a police officer like this Sergeant who is very careful to his duty, gets changed totally and betrays his own department. He not only helps the Ragged man to flee away but also lies to his own two policemen. For this, all credit goes to the Ragged man.

                So from the very beginning of the play we observe the Ragged man as a clever, true leader, psychoanalyst, die-heart country lover and real hero. He is grateful too as he does not forget to express his gratitude to the Sergeant who helps him. He is very much optimistic about the fact that one day Ireland will get freedom and then he will pay back Sergeant's debt. Thus our playwright has superbly turned an ordinary character into an extraordinary one.