The role of the Chorus in The Medea

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The Chorus in Greek terminology is a group of dancers who participate in parties, dramatic performances and public events. The choral song is the predominant part of the play and the monologue is later added in, they are the subordinate characters, or the background and the important parts are left for the main character, in this case Medea. The Chorus, a group of Corinthian women, has quite a unique and an important role in the play by narrating and summarizing the story.
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The fact that the Chorus and Medea are female manifests a similarity between them; the Chorus can see everything, however, they do not intervene with the play. They pity and sympathize with her because they are both women and they both, as women, share the suffering of the injustices of women, this establishes a bond between them as is shown on lines , the phrases “” Already shows the empathy between Medea and the Chorus of women, their sympathy leads the audiences to interpret the play leading to their sympathy and the acceptance of Medea taking revenge on being the victim of her husband’s betrayal to another woman.

They help Medea plan her revenge on her own by keeping quiet this is shown on lines 259-263 “this much then is the service I would beg from you: If I can find the means or devise any scheme to pay my husband back for what he has done to me – him and his father-in-law and the girl who married him- just to keep silent.
” Apart from narrating and commenting, the Chorus sets about advising Medea.
Throughout the play they are on the side of Medea, however when she explains how she will murder the her targets, the Chorus responds negatively by telling Medea to stop what she is going to do on lines 811-813, “since you have shared the knowledge of your plan with us, I both wish to help you and support the moral ways of mankind, and tell you not to do this thing. ” The language used by the Chorus is very important because it is very poetic and also contains powerful imagery such as lines 835-845, where the Chorus talks about Cypris – god of passion and desire. And also hinders the audience’s perspective of the play.
The Chorus unveils Medea in a way that makes the audience watching the play sympathize with her and if the Chorus was not present, then the standpoint view of the play and the reflection of it would be according to how the audience sees it and not how Euripides wanted it to be. The Chorus is crucial to the play because the audience is watching the actions of Medea through the Chorus’ perspective and the Chorus’ comments to the whole play, and in my point of view, the Chorus is what makes the moral out of this play as we see at the end of the play, when the last scene ends with the Chorus finishing off.

Shannon Fletcher

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