- What is the significance of the information the Nurse gives the audience?
- How does it influence our impressions of Medea’s character before we see her?
- How does The Chorus develop the detail and themes outlined in the Prologue?
- What dramatic effect is created?
- How does Medea characterise her suffering to the audience in her initial address?
In the prologue, the nurse gives the audience lots of detail to begin to contextualise the play and some of the characters, including events that have taken place to reach the place where the play starts. The information she gives holds great significance because she introduces the main character, Medea, and explains her backstory about moving to this new place and being left by her husband for Creon’s daughter, while still having two sons with him. It influences our impression of Medea’s character greatly before we see her because it creates this image of her being volatile and quite emotionally unstable after she has been left by Jason. The chorus continues this by speaking their opinion on Medea and her behaviour in response to what happened, they are quite disapproving in that they think the pain she is going through is not worth it.
Medea’s monologue and introduction confirms all the themes that have been previously outlined because she reveals and explains her suffering and pain to the audience. She begins by addressing the women of Corinth and explaining gender roles in marriage at the time and highlighting the patriarchal nature of society at that time, which still applies today. This creates a connection between her and all the women she is speaking to because they can empathise with each other’s pain and similar experiences with marriage. In this explanation, she announces that men become the “possesors of [their’ body” when they get married, which means they own them. However, if they do not like it, they leave – which is what Jason did to Medea. Therefore, this leads her to her next point about how she is worse off than all the women she is talking to because they still have a husband, whereas she is left with her two sons who she doesn’t like as they symbolise her painful ending with Jason. She does this in order to explain to the chorus that she wants revenge for what Jason has done to her as she justifies the pain and sacrifices she made for the marriage, which he left. Medea also creates a semantic field of death and pain and she continuously says that she wants to die. It really emphasises to the audience, the chorus and the women of Corinth that she is undergoing great suffering which they will not understand. Thus, the chorus responds by saying her revenge and behaviour is just as they see the and get a glimpse into her deep-rooted pain and hurt.
