Character Analysis
Lychorida is Thaisa's midwife and Marina's nurse. After helping Thaisa deliver Marina during the middle of a storm at sea, she mistakenly thinks that Thaisa is dead (oops) and delivers the bad news—along with the newborn baby—to Pericles, who agrees to dump Thaisa's body overboard.
Since Marina is left without a mother, Lychorida stays behind in Tharsus to help raise her. Unfortunately, we don't get to know her well, because Shakespeare kills her off. (Okay, technically, Dionyza kills her off, but you know what we mean.) Marina totally grieves for Lychorida, so we know that Lychorida was loving and caring, right? Other than that, we don't know much about her.
So why does Shakespeare get rid of Lychorida? Isn't Marina's life lousy enough as it is? Is he trying to show us just how completely alone she is in the world?
Probably.