samson agonistes
... This shows to be true through the character of Samson from Milton’s drama, Samson Agonistes. ... Samson blindly sits in jail able to do nothing but think of how he how he has failed as a warrior: Retiring from the popular noise, I seek This unfrequented place, to find some ease- Ease to the body some, none to the mind From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone But rush upon me thronging, and present Times past, what once I was, and what am now. ... Samson feels regret and knows that there is nothing that he can do to fix what has been done. ... Samson continues on, in his opening soliloquy, to express his feelings on being blind: Then had I not been thus exiled from light, As in the land of darkness, yet in light, To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried; but O yet more miserable! ... The chorus enters the play confirming Samson’s discomforting situation. The chorus is not an actual person in the play but a voice that Samson calls his friends; this shows the beginning of Samson losing his sanity. ... The chorus, I believe, is used to show Samson’s insanity; he does not know if there are really people there or not. All Samson can rely on now is what he hears, and being put in this type of traumatic situation the mind can do strange things. Samson carries on with the chorus about the events that happened to put him in this situation, all the time the chorus answers with an arguing reply. The conversation is used as a venting tool for Samson, letting him try to justify his reasons for marrying Philistine women twice. The chorus never actually scolds Samson for his actions as many may do for leaking sacred secrets to women of opposing cultures, but only argues.