Chorus In Oedipus The King

This is the role that sophocles played in shaping what is theatre today; what made him such a good playwright? Was it his Views on Religion? Did he differentiate himself on his opinion of women in his plays that of other playwrights of his time? Is he originally creative or just imitating other playwrights of his days? In this paper you will find the answers to all these questions and see the impact he has on today's theatre.

Considered one of the greatest dramas of all time, Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King follows the tragic life of Oedipus, king of Thebes. Considered a Satyr play, the Oedipus trilogy is perhaps the most famous of Sophocles’ plays. Oedipus the King, is an Athenian tragedy that was first performed somewhere around 429 BC in Athens, Greece. Originally, the Greeks referred to the play as simply “Oedipus,” as that was what Aristotle referred to it as in the Poetics. Perhaps what makes this play so memorable, is Sophocles’ uses of the tragic hero as the main theme. Sophocles uses characterization and conflict to portray Oedipus as an Aristotelian tragic hero.

Throughout the tragedy by Sophocles, the king Oedipus relies on his personal glory to attain long lasting fame and balks when confronted with anything that might shatter this perception that he is the best. While both characters have done marvelous deeds in the past, their inherent arrogance, which is part of the tragic flaw of each of the characters,

Sophocles has a harsh and tragic style. He is a master at dramatic tragedies and irony. Oedipus Rex is scattered with ironic and very tragic moments. He also uses the chorus as a way to comment on a subject in the play. Foreshadows using various methods. He also uses imagery, rhetoric questions and metaphors.

Greek tragedies Oedipus the King and Euripides’ Bacchae are both timeless stories in Greek literature. The engaging plot of both is what is most rememberable however the significance of the chorus is overlooked. The chorus can be defined simply as a group of dancers and singers that participate in dramas by singing poetically and lyrically in certain pauses of the play. The music, movements and gestures of the chorus symbolically define the mood and the themes of the play as the story line develops. The flow of Oedipus the King and Bacchae are dependent on the chorus, proving their significance.

The first stanza contains a solemn and reverent tone which shows the Chorus’s respect for the gods. In Strophe I, the Chorus states that their action abides to the “laws of the pure universe” (46). Pure has a connotation of untouchable, which happens to describe the gods’ state of beings. Also, it hints that the gods have no flaws since pure means untainted, which signifies that they do not commit wrongs. This also hints that the gods’ prophecies are true, and Oedipus is denying the truth. One mythological reference they state is when they say “[the gods] Father is greater than Time” (46). This allusion hints to Kronos, the father of most of the Greek gods like Zeus and Hestia. Despite having a terrible reputation of trying to kill his children, he is also known to be impressively strong as he overthrew his own father Uranus, the ruler of the universe. Just like Kronos is powerful, the Chorus is emphasizing on the gods’ impressive statuses. The Chorus also contrasts the gods with them by saying describing the gods as “never of mortal kind” (46). They clearly distinguish gods from humans and hints that their obligations are different; the gods are not constrained by mere mortal laws, unlike Oedipus.

The Chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone plays an interesting role in the sense that, not only do they serve as characters in the story, but they also as a party able to interact with the audience. They function as a personification of Sophocles’ own opinions in the major conflict between Creon and Antigone of which authority ranks higher: man, or gods. However, as they are also characters this insertion of the playwrite’s is not jarring. By the end of the play, it is evident that the Chorus mostly on the side of Antigone.

[In Thebes, directly in front of the royal palace, which stands in the background, its main doors facing the audience.  Enter

Moving on, Choral Odes are a prominent feature in all of Sophocles plays, especially in Oedipus. Sophocles uses this group of Thebans to comment on the play's action and to foreshadow future events and to be used as a response to unseen events. He also uses it to comment on the larger impact of the characters' actions and to explain the play's central themes. The Chorus, who were almost always an anonymous collective, in many cases were representatives of the citizens of the city where the action takes place. The chorus acted as an intermediary between the actors and the audience, they were both spectator the action, like the audience, but were also affected by the action. In Oedipus, Sophocles wrote choral odes on everything, from tyranny

Much of our modern terminology, we get from Greek theatres. In ancient Greece the orchestra was a large round area in front of the stage for the chorus to perform in. The proskenion (from which we get proscenium) was a long shallow area that we would recognise as a stage. The skene was a walled area with 3 doors at the back of the proskenion, on which scenery could be painted and actors could hide behind. Ancient

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.

trying to imply through his work. Sophocles and other dramatists use "the chorus" as a notable element to portray an

Oedipus the King is a famous play written by the renowned author Sophocles and first acted out back in 429 BC. It is the second of three plays written by Sophocles that dealt with Oedipus; the first one being Oedipus at Colonus and the last one being Antigone. This play relates the story of Oedipus, a man who becomes King of Thebes while unwittingly fulfilling an old prophecy that said that he would kill his father Laios and marry his mother Jocasta. He embarks on a journey to try and find the man who killed his father, and promises to banish this man from Thebes forever. In the end, he will learn the ugly truth; he is the one who killed his father, and the woman he considered to be his wife is actually his mother. This play is a classic tragedy, considering that Oedipus’ own faults will lead to his tragic downfall at the end of the play. One of the important aspects of this play that makes it so good, although unknown to many, is the fact that this is a piece of climatic drama, which means that most of the action and of what constitutes Oedipus’ misery in the end occurred before the play even starts. In fact, the prophecy that will end up being the focal point of the play was set on Oedipus when he was a little boy, which is long before the action of the play even started. This is where the Chorus comes in handy. According the “Glossary of Dramatic Terms”, the Chorus is “a masked

Thus the Chorus represents the citizens and the audience in particular. The function of chorus was singing the praises of god and his achievements at the festival of Dionysus. The role of Chorus was to do commenting on the incidents of the play but taking no part in action. The Chorus tells about the present, past and also do commenting on future events.

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