The Themes Of Emotions In Medea By Euripides

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Emotions from a betrayal range from person to person, anywhere from being distraught to having a feeling similar of the heart being tightly squeezed and then being ripped out of its spot and thrown on the floor. Medea in the beginning displays her emotions by being a hot mess, crying her eyes out and wailing for the whole world to hear, or at least the characters around her. While many characters do not have names other than what they are, Euripides has them as minor characters to help give the audience and reader’s details that back then, had to be explained when used in a play. In the first paragraph, the Nurse uses direct observation when she states, “For Jason hath betrayed his own children and my mistress. Here she lies fasting, yielding …show more content…

With her observation she has noticed that Medea is literally wasting away since she has learned about her husband’s marriage, never moving her eyes from the ground. It is also at this point that readers get a hint of foreshadowing as the Nurse says, “And she hates her children now and feels no joy at seeing them; I fear she may contrive some untoward scheme; for her mood is dangerous nor will she brook her cruel treatment; ….for dreadful is her wrath” (Lines 14-18). The Nurse speaks about the way she has seen Medea look at her children. Since this betrayal came from their father, she despises them in a way as she no longer feels joy or happiness seeing them. With worry, the nurse explains what she thinks Medea will create, a scheme, to get revenge in a way that might either hurt her children or the husband and his royal bride. Eric Jaffe confirmed in an experiment to understand Revenge that “the idea that simply seeing an offender suffer restores an emotional balance to the universe.” Jaffe throughout his studies and experiments that revenge is about fulfilling a certain need that the person who was betrayed has inside and the outcomes and feelings of the after mass differs from person to …show more content…

Yet, while the Nurse is worried about how emotional Medea is, enough to almost call her unhinged, she defends Medea against the Attendant. The Attendant is surprised of Medea’s actions and calls out, “What! Has not the poor lady ceased yet from her lamentation?” (Line 28). The Attendant is wondering why she is still crying and why she has not stopped grieving. The nurse then starts to defend Medea, “NURSE: Would I were as thou art! The mischief is but now beginning; it has not reached its climax yet” (Lines 29). The nurse defends Medea’s action in grieving by saying that it’s not even halfway done, but later on she also says, “O children, do ye hear how your father feels towards you? Perdition catches him, but no he is my master still; yet is he proved a very traitor to his nearest and dearest. There is no way that my mistress will vent her anger in some small way” (Lines 41-42). The Nurse, towards Medea 's children, reminds them how horrible their father is, as he left their mother helpless, a traitor to them and their mother, she also vents out her worry over the actions that Medea would take, from the knowledge she has acquired by being with Medea for so

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