The Chorus In Medea Essay

In the play Medea, the enchantress Medea seeks revenge on her husband for marrying another woman and abandoning her. Like most Greek plays, the chorus is used to guide the audience’s opinions and feelings. Euripides uses the chorus to influence the audience’s the perception and sympathy of Medea throughout the play. In the play, the chorus, consisting of a group of Corinthian women, originally supports Medea’s desire for revenge, but its view changes as the play progresses. At the beginning of the play, the chorus supports Medea due to the unequal treatment of women in society, but when Medea plans to kill her children, it is no longer sympathetic to her cause.
At the beginning of the play, the chorus desires to console Medea after they hear her
Medea decides to kill Jason’s new wife by poisoning her coronet. She claims that “women [are] useless for honest purposes, / but in all kinds of evil [they] are skilled practitioners” (29). The chorus responds by bitterly stating: Streams of the sacred rivers flow uphill; Tradition, order, all things are reversed: Deceit is men’s device now, Men’s oaths are god’s dishonour. Legend will now reverse our reputation: A time comes when the female sex is honoured: That old discordant slander Shall no more hold us slander (29)
The chorus interprets Jason’s actions as more deceitful than the disloyalty that is often attributed to women causing all roles to be reversed. The treatment of women in society is one of the primary factors that contributes to the chorus’ support of Medea. Near the end of the play, Medea decides that the only way to fully obtain revenge on Jason is to kill her children. The chorus begins to beg her to reconsider her actions be by pleading: How will Athens welcome You, the child-killer Whose presence is pollution? Contemplate the blow stuck at a child, Weigh the blood you take upon you, Medea, by your