In Riders to the Sea, elements such as nets, the spinning wheel, boards, and kneading cake symbolize domesticity and the attempt to tame the sea. These elements are mentioned in the stage directions at the beginning of the play, and they are located in Maurya's house.

As the play opens, Maurya's daughters, Nora and Cathleen, are using or making these objects, or the objects are placed around the house. They are objects that symbolize domesticity and the usual activities of the women in the house. The nets in particular are means of attempting to harness the sea, though this attempt is futile. The spinning wheel is a symbol that often represents women and their roles in society, as women were most often the weavers in Celtic society. The spinning wheel is also a symbol of fate, as the wheel was associated in Roman mythology with Fortuna, or the goddess who controlled people's fates by rotating her wheel and determining their destiny.

These various elements are all mentioned at the beginning of the play in the stage directions. We need to remember that such items would automatically have helped the audience identify both with the time and the setting of the play. The various items listen both show that this is a family that is dependent on the sea, as the nets indicate, but also that they are a family that is very poor and has to do everything for themselves, as the spinning wheel, kneading cake and boards demonstrate. The tragedy that is going to unfold on this stage will therefore be one that occupies the lives of poor people who are dependent upon the sea for their livelihood and struggle to make ends meet.

It is only as the play develops that we see just how important this relationship between the sea and the characters are, and how this develops through the link between Maurya and the sea as she loses her final son to its power and strength.