Representation of Society in Euripides' Medea

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Representation of Society in Euripides' Medea

During the time of Euripides, approximately the second half of the fifth century B.C., it was a period of immense cultural crisis and political convulsion (Arrowsmith 350). Euripides, like many other of his contemporaries, used the whole machinery of the theater as a way of thinking about their world (Arrowsmith 349). His interest in particular was the analysis of culture and relationship between culture and the individual. Euripides used his characters as a function to shape the ideas of the play (Arrowsmith 359).

In Medea, there was not a "traditional" hero, but a fragmentation between the two paired major characters, which is characteristic of Euripides' work (Arrowsmith 356). Jason and Medea, the initial lovers of the play, were antagonists by the play's end. Euripides sought to take the wholeness of the old "hero" and represent him divisively, thus diffused over several characters. Since Euripides chooses that his characters represent ideas, the paired antagonist Jason and Medea both represent the warlike modes of a divided c...

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