Chorus In Medea

A chorus is a common element to Greek tragedy’s and in ancient theatre consisted of a group of people who provide a number of different contributions to a play, providing a historical perspective, acting as counsellors and advisors to the plays characters and at times representing various groups such as villagers or a jury. Within this essay, I will consider the main contributions of the chorus within “The Burial at Thebes”

Euripides was one of the most well-known playwrights of ancient Greece. He was known as a modern playwright because he wrote with realism, and had a doubtful way of portraying the gods in his plays. Euripides’s plays had women as the main character because he had a sympathetic way of portraying women. The women were mainly strong and are passionate in their motives for their actions. Although Euripides is well known now, during ancient Greece Euripides wasn’t an appreciated playwright. When there were play performances men would be the audience since women weren’t allowed to take part in or watch the plays. So with the focus of women in his plays, he gave them a voice, which would throw men off, mainly because they would be terrified if their wives did and said the same things. Euripides supplied a philosophical thought to the women he has written about.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a talking psychotherapy that is now commonly available through general practice as a low cost alternative treatment to antidepressant drugs. Individuals with depression, a mood disorder, are found to have low levels of neurotransmitters (Schildkraut, Green & Mooney, 1985) and were traditionally treated with selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). According to NHS statistics, SSRIs were prescribed more than ten million times in 2000, the most popular being Prozac and Seroxat. As these medicines were proving so successful, why should being able to talk to someone about the way we feel be a possible alternative?

Charlotte Bronte once said, “Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do. They suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow minded in their more privileged fellow creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags”. In the play Medea, Euripides diverged from the traditional role of Greek women through Medea’s characteristics and response to her plight. In delineating the role of women, Medea was unlike any other Greek character. Medea was portrayed

Throughout Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, it demonstrated that when power is influenced by personal ambition, it leads to downfall and characters start to realize power signifies nothing. Almost every character introduced into this play has used their ambition to try to gain power or has used their power to get where they are right now. Macbeth’s actions were guided by what the witches predicted for him, and when that word went around, Lady Macbeth was controlled by the thought of power too. The thoughts of power created conflicts throughout the book, starting with the murder of King Duncan, all the way to the murder of Macbeth. When actions are used to steal power, it leads to a destructive future.

Euripides employs the technique of dialogue between two solo actors on stage throughout Medea to dramatize the core values underlying these conversations. In particular, through the conversations that Medea holds with three different males, she shows herself to be a person of great intellect. Females were rarely valued for their intelligence because the Athenians had a "complacent pride in the superiority of the Greek masculinity" (page 641 ). Men and women were considered to have very different roles in society with men being the far superior species. Thus, Euripides uses Medea's [Note the specific claim/thesis conversations with Kreon, Aigeus, and Jason to showcase her

The duty of women portrayed in Greek society is a major subject in Euripides Medea. In old Greek society, ladies are delicate and compliant as per men, and their social position is viewed as exceptionally mediocre. Feminism is the hypothesis of men being viewed different in contrast to women and the male predominance over ladies in the public eye. Women's lives are spoken to by the parts they either pick or have forced on them. This is obvious in the play Medea by Euripides through the characters of Medea and the medical attendant. During the day and age which Medea is set ladies have exceptionally restricted social power and no political power by any stretch of the imagination, despite the fact that a ladies' maternal and residential power was regarded in the protection of the home, "Our lives rely upon how his lordship feels." The constrained power these ladies were given is diverse to present day society yet parts are as yet forced on ladies to acclimate and be a devoted spouse. Ladies have dependably been dis engaged because of their sex in present day and antiquated circumstances alike. In Corinth they are required to run the family unit and fit in with social desires of an obedient spouse. Medea, being an eternal and relative from the divine beings has a specific power in insight and guileful keenness. Being an outsider, Medea's wayward nonsensical conduct was normal in this play as she was not conceived in Greece and was viewed as an exotic foreigner. She goes over to the group of onlookers as an intense female character regarding viciousness. Some of Medea's responses and decisions have all the earmarks of being made a huge deal about as creators for the most part influence characters to appear to be overwhelming; this makes a superior comprehension of the content and the issues which are produced through the characters. Medea's ill-conceived marriage and the double-crossing of Jason drive Medea to outrageous vengeance. Medea acts with her immortal self and confer coldhearted demonstrations of murder instead of legitimize the results of her actions. Medea see's this choice as her lone resort as she has been exiled and has no place to go, "stripped of her place." To make sensitivity for Medea, Euripides

In section 18 of the Poetics Aristotle criticizes Euripides for not allowing "the chorus to be one of the actors and to be a part of the whole and to share in the dramatic action, . . . as in Sophocles." Aristotle may be thinking of the embolima of Euripides' later plays (satirized also by Aristophanes), but he is certainly wrong about the Medea. Its choral odes are not only all intimately related to the action but are also essential for the meaning of the play, particularly because here, as elsewhere (e.g. Hecuba), Euripides forces us reevaluate his main protagonist in midstream and uses the chorus (in part) to indicate that change.

The chorus is an essential feature of Greek classical drama. Instances of various types of dance, singing, and speech are some elements of a Greek chorus. “Composed of similarly costumed men, they performed on the orchestra located beneath the stage. The chorus stayed in the orchestra for the duration of the performance from which vantage point they observed and commented on the action of the characters.” Oedipus is a play written by Sophocles, a respected playwright, and it is “generally assumed that the main function of the Sophoclean chorus is a philosophical one; that it serves above all as the spokesman for a certain view of life.” The chorus can be dramatic in the following ways: “through the personality of the group forming the chorus and the appropriateness of their relationship to the action and the characters, through the iambic lines spoken by the coryphaeus, through physical participation in the action and through the choral songs.” The chorus is an important component of the Greek Tragedy Oedipus. Aside from its responsibility to effectively represent the people of Thebes, the chorus in Oedipus has a powerful influence over audience perceptions and emotions.

In Euripides’ tragedy Medea, he displays the Chorus’ feelings towards children; the Chorus talks about how the people who never have children live life with less troubles before stating their opinion and questioning those who thank the gods for children. The Chorus is justified in saying people who never have children live life with less troubles. The Chorus believes that people “[w]ho had never had children of their own” can “[e]njoy the advantage in good fortune,” for children are “a burden” (990, 991, 994). There are many advantages that people without children can enjoy because children are a burden to raise and care for. The Chorus explains that parents are “[b]urdend and worn with incessant worry” while trying to teach “them in health

A final cultural difference is the importance of the chorus and its use in the plays Agamemnon, Oedipus, and Medea. The chorus was not highly involved in the action of the plays. In general, the chorus’ main functions were to create a psychological and emotional background to the action through its odes. It introduces and questions new characters, as well as point out the importance of events as they occurred, to establish facts and avow the outlook of society. Finally, the chorus covers the passage of time, between events, and separates episodes (Calder 21). Within the play Agamemnon, by Aeschylus, the chorus represents the voice of wisdom of the city as well as its limitations (Novelguide). The chorus’ limitations are clear when they fail to

The first of the important minor characters we meet is the Chorus, who appear early in the play. Out of the three characters focused on in this essay, the Chorus is of the least importance to the story due to the fact that the Chorus mainly exists as a moral compass and source of information for the audience of the play. Regardless of their main purpose, the Chorus does advise Oedipus multiple times in the play, warning him of dangers to come. When confronting Creon, Oedipus accuses Creon of betraying him with no basis for accusations. In response, the leader of the Chorus says “Those who jump to conclusions may go wrong” (692). The Chorus has a clear understanding of the situation and works as a mediator that combats Oedipus’ arrogance. The mild role of importance the Chorus serves

        However, in addressing the role of the Chorus in this play, I think it is vital that one decides whether the role of the Chorus is and objective role, inserted in to the play by Sophocles and unaffected by the audiences perception, or whether the role is subjective, and the

As the famous Greek playwright Euripides once said: “Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.” Such ideas are portrayed in one of him most famous plays, Medea. This play is a fascinating classic centered on the Greek goddess Medea. Despite its recent fame, during his time, Euripides was unpopular since he used what would be considered a ‘modern’ view where he would focus on women, slaves and persons from the lower classes. In the play, Medea commits filicide, which initially appears extremely horrendous, but as the audience is guided through the play, they develop sympathy towards Medea. In order to achieve this empathy and enhance the understanding of Medea’s pride and ideals, Euripides

The chorus asks the audience to picture the armed forces and their horses and the battle scenes that took place when watching the play. And, that the events that happened took place over several years, and for the sake of brevity, many parts will have to be left out leaving many gaps throughout the story, jumping from place to place, "turning the accomplishment of many years into an hourglass; for the which to supply, admit me Chorus to this history" (li 30-32). The Chorus will help to fill in the gaps and to explain what is going on so the audience will not get lost as the play jumps around. The Chorus ends by asking the audience to be patient as they view the play. In this instance, the Chorus' function is setting the stage for the rest of the play. It doesn't reveal the plot or make any character developments. Instead, it serves as a mediator. Its function is to prepare the audience for the play that they are about to watch.