T.S. Elliot's Use of the Chorus in Murder of the Cathedral

In Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot uses the chorus for a variety of reasons - mainly to speak for the ordinary people who were caught up in hardships that they did not bring upon themselves but were burdened by because of temporal power. The chorus narrates to the audience by summing up the past, bringing the situation into the present, and they express their fear for Becket’s fate. Their hysterical, pleading voices enhance the dramatic effect by creating a total atmosphere of doom and helping the audience focus on death and martyrdom. The “poor women of Canterbury” (11) were associated with life and death. They had no power and their intuition of danger foreshadows the coming death of Thomas Becket.

Traditionally, women are seen as intuitive, protective, weak, forgiving, and life-giving. T.S. Eliot considered women to be the epitome of the oppressed people in Canterbury. Eliot needed the chorus to provide foreshadowing and to raise the excitement level, thus he chose women for their intuition and protectiveness. Since women are life-giving, they could well be associated with nature. The fragility of women well represents the helplessness of the soc

iety that was in desperate need of a martyr. Eliot employed women as his chorus because the character traits typically found in women perfectly suited the role of the chorus, which was to represent society.

After the chorus is done with their song, the priests enter the scene and discuss the return of Thomas Becket. The priests repeat some of the things that the chorus previously said, such as: “seven years since the Archbishop left us” and “king rules or barons rule” (13) to give the notion that they also experienced the feelings and thoughts of the common people. This allows the audience to understand that everyone was a victim of temporal power, even the leaders within the church.

After Thomas’s sermon about the true meanings of Christmas and martyrdom, the chorus begins the second part of the play just as they begun the first part. They repeat some of the things that they had said in the very beginning of the play such as references to the “sea” and the “owl” (54). The women say that the “time is short” and “waiting is long” (54). Again, they express their notion that death is coming and all they can do is wait.

Some topics in this essay:
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