Social Change and Government Structure: Titus Andronicus and Medea
881 Words4 Pages
Titus Andronicus and Medea are both Greek tragic plays. They show the changes in society and the structure of Greek and Roman government. Medea portrays the role of all women in Corinth and she sheds light on the truth about corruption in Greece. Titus Andronicus is a typical war hero, he does everything to bring pride to Rome. Titus kills his son for going against him and Titus’s daughter, Lavinia is raped and her tongue is cut out and her hands cut off. The pain Lavinia encounters destroys Titus and his reputation. Civilization in Medea and Titus Andronicus is distorted by the notions of gender, monstrosity, and identification.
Gender plays an important in any society. The role of women in society has been tested and Medea is the one who wants to attempt to change the way women are seen and perceived. When Jason leaves Medea, she is devastated and outraged. She turns on the city and kills the King, Princess, and even her own two kids to get back at Jason. Medea is not seen as a threat to the city because of her role as a women of Corinth, but in the end she will cause devastation and an uproar in civilization. Medea tells Jason “To turn me out, to get yourself another wife, even after I had borne your sons! If had still been childless I could have pardoned you for hankering after this new marriage. But respect for oaths has gone to the wind” (489). Medea is angry with the choices made by Jason, she does not see that his choices are to help his family not to reject them. Medea being a strong willed women will turn her anger on her city and cause havoc and disrupt civilization and the order in Corinth. In Comparison, Titus’s daughter has no voice she is silenced because she is a women who has no necessary input so she cannot spe...
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... an act and the true monster be hidden within civilization with the face of a wife or a war hero.
Civilization is corrupt because of the acts of the people among it. The lives of those among the chaos are turned upside down because the push for change in the role of women, the monstrosity amongst society, and peoples identities or change in identity. Corinth and Rome becomes destroyed not in landscape but in civilization and the structure of society. Both Medea and Titus Andronicus has similar struggles with gender, murder, and speaking the truth of the Greek and Roman people. Greece and Rome face tragic occurrences which puts their civilizations in ruins.
Works Cited
Euripides. Medea. Medea and Other Plays. Trans. John Davie. New York: Penguin, 2003. 51-87. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. Ed. Russ McDonald. New York: Penguin, 2000. Print.