Role of Chorus in Murder in the Cathedral

Role of Chorus in Murder in the Cathedral

The word ‘chorus’ is derived from the Greek word Choros that implies a dance accompanied by singing. It came to be incorporated at the festivals held in the honor of Gods, especially to honor God Dionysus and eventually it became an important part of Greek drama. The chorus acted as a mouthpiece of the dramatist which had a powerful impact on the audiences. The insight of the drama was stated by the chorus and hence the drama was universalized. The chorus expressed the anxieties , fears, and judgment of the average citizen marking their opinions as verdict in history. This is precisely how chorus becomes a critic of the drama. It can exemplify the past ,can pass a judgment on present and throw light on the future. In Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, 272 lines out of total of 1443 lines are given to the chorus which forms nearly 19 percent of the play.

In his early life, Eliot’s treatment of women in his writings was unsympathetic. He was even labeled by some of his readers as a ‘misogynist’. However, down the lane when we consider his later works, we find that Eliot has produced women in a brighter outlook. To justify this statement, I take the example of his consideration of women characters to form part of the chorus in Murder in the Cathedral. The women chorus putting their feminine traits of emotion and subtleness brings out the subject of martyrdom of Thomas Becket. The women chorus seems to seize the opportunity to question the dominance of logos, the point of reference of truth which is the ‘man'. The text is largely male-centric as the setting dates back to medieval times. At the outset of this drama, we get a sense of the rigidity of male hierarchy in the society of the twelfth century England, where the female counterpart takes the position of the ‘other’. Her status therefore in the twelfth century society makes the audiences of the play assume her position to be of limited scope. The logocentricism is felt through the dialogue of the second priest who goes on to address women as foolish, immodest, and babbling. To counter this explicit patriarchy, the speech of the women chorus starts with the first person pronoun, hence giving way to the assertion of female writings. The necessary allusion can be made here to the concept of écriture féminine by Hélène Cixous in "The Laugh of the Medusa" (1975), where she asserts "Woman must write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies". Her point lies in subverting and transcending the male discourses or the phallocentric system of writing by écriture feminine writing whereby the women write in the first person and hence create their own language free from male hegemony.........................................................................................................................

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Milan Tomic

Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.

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