From what we have already read, Medea is a play that has different ideas, and conflicts which we haven’t read yet. Until this point, we have read about Greek females who perform actions out of the love they have for their husband or family members. However, Medea is a female who performs a gruesome action because she wants “revenge” on her husband who she thinks betrayed her for another woman. The author of Greek Tragedy, Simon Goldhill, told us that Greek tragedies often held gender conflicts while portraying females as a threat to the society. Medea is a prime example of Goldhill’s statement. Since Jason left Medea, Medea could not live knowing her husband is remarried to another woman. She becomes a threat to him and his new family because …show more content…
After she left her home to move to Corinth with Jason, she found that she no longer had a home or family in Corinth. Medea states “When I came here with you, I betrayed my home and my country. My loved ones at home have learned to hate me; the others, whom I need not have harmed, I have made enemies to oblige you” (Hadas, 1981, p.49). I believe that Medea could be seen as women who sacrificed her life and self-image to perform the womanly roles by moving and leaving her own home for her husband. In those actions, she is showing her family identity. On the other hand, she can also be seen as an individual because she is leaving her princess title and family to move to a different city for her husband. However, when we talk about the play specifically, I strongly believe Medea is a woman who should be identified as an individual. She shows nothing but self-interest when she decides to kill her former husband’s mistress, King Creon, and her own two children out of anger against Jason …show more content…
Jason, the formal husband of Medea, remarried Creon’s daughter, which caused the conflict throughout the play. I would identify Jason as a scared male, who only remarried for the sake of his own family. Jason claimed “I wanted first and foremost, was a good home where we would lack for nothing, and secondly, I wanted to bring up the children in a style worthy of my house” (Hadas, 1981, p.50). I would classify Jason as a community or family man because he stresses to Medea, that the reason for remarrying was for her and their family. He didn’t decide to remarry because he was no longer in love with Medea but because he didn’t want his family to have to live poor anymore. In the Ancient Greek times, it wasn’t unusual for a male to have two families. Jason was doing what he thought would be best not only for him but for his children and wife, and only a family/ community person would do such thing. According to the Leader throughout the play, he strongly stresses to Jason that “You have acted unjustly in betraying your wife” (Hadas, 1981, p.51). However, I strongly disagree with the leader. I believe Jason was doing what he thought was best for his family. He put his image before his family and acted as the bad guy, in hope he can bring more to his family. Jason was looking for a better lifestyle for his family because he believed they deserved more, and to me, that is a just,
In Euripides Medea, Medea is the morally ambiguous character. In part, Medea can be seen as good because she wanted to live with Jason and her two children in Corinth as a family and enjoy a happy life. So it is understandable that Medea becomes devastated and an emotional wreck after Jason leaves her for the princess. He claimed by marrying the princess, he could bring the children up in a well-being and make more royal children. Medea became a distressed. Hateful, and a bitter woman at Jason. Medea mentioned, “we women are the most unfortunate creatures.” Medea acknowledges that the women don’t have much choice in the marriage and if they want a good life, they need a man to control them. And that woman would be much better off if they had
Medea unlike the other two females was a murderer. She murdered her own brother, Jason's wife, Kreon, and her own children. She was also a sorcerer who used her power mostly for evil.
In Medea, the society is similar when it comes to men versus women. Barlow states that the “[h]usband have complete physical control of their wives,” which is similar to the society in Bacchae (Barlow 159). Medea is mistreated by almost all the men that she encounters within the play. Jason betrays her and leaves her to marry Creon’s daughter. Creon wants to banish Medea and her two sons from his land (Medea 272-273). When Creon is banishing Medea from his land he has no h...
While both women do wrong by the law of man, and Medea against the law of the gods, they do it for different reasons. In the beginning Medea kills many people and monsters with little or no concern of the consequence. When the story deals with modern times Medea kills out of pure revenge and spite for Jason. She plots for weeks to kill Jason’s new bride and poisons her, and then before she leaves the country she murders her two sons, she had with Jason, before she rides off in her bright white chariot.
Ironically, Medea’s actions are similar to a man when she takes charge of her marriage, living situation, and family life when she devices a plan to engulf her husband with grief. With this in mind, Medea had accepts her place in a man’s world unti...
Standards that women are held accountable and judged for while men it is acceptable for this behavior. In Medea 's situation, to prove her love to Jason she did whatever she needed to do to be with him and did not let anyone step in her way. She gave birth to two boys which would continue Jason 's bloodline however, that was not enough for Jason as he left Medea for his new Glauce. Jason 's main priority was to gain higher social status that leads to title, money, and land as well as having children as his legacy. Within Sappho she states, “Why am I crying? Am I still sad because of my lost maidenhead?” (Sappho, 36). After losing her virginity, she lost insight of her vision which she wanted her future to be as she received mistreatment from society including her relationship with her lover changing. In that result, within their situations they were incapable of maintaining their relationship with their lovers as well as love and sex not being enough to endure life
In the story of Medea, the author, Euripides, addresses the topics of foreignism and female roles in the ancient Greek society. In the play, Medea, a foreign born woman, marries Jason, a Greek man, and moves to Greece to be with him after leaving her homeland with death and devastation. Then, when their marriage fails, Medea lashes out against Jason, causing her own exile and murdering her children, to which she has no love connection, and Jason’s new wife in the process. The main character, Medea, confirms many of the alleged Greek prejudices against foreigners and creates some prejudices of her own in return. Medea’s foreign roots and misconceptions, as well as her familial and societal atrocities,
As she is "Faced with her husband's cold pragmatism, Medea responds according to her nature." Euripides really stresses the "otherness" of Medea's nature: she is "of a different kind", described in terms of nature and animals: she is "a rock or wave of the sea'", "like a wild bull", "a tiger". Yes, she is a little dangerous, but she is driven by her hear; that vital force which distinguishes the body from the corpse and has been crushed by Jason's betrayal.
The tragic play Medea is a struggle between reason and violence. Medea is deliberately portrayed as not a ‘normal woman’, but excessive in her passions. Medea is a torment to herself and to others; that is why Euripides shows her blazing her way through life leaving wreckage behind her. Euripides has presented Medea as a figure previously thought of exclusively as a male- hero. Her balance of character is a combination of the outstanding qualities of Achilles and Odysseus.
Medea, a princess and sorceress, was from a small island in the Black Sea called Colchis. She met her husband Jason when she used her powers to help him secure the Golden Fleece. It was during this time that she fell in love with him and decided to leave her family and home so that she could be with Jason. The fact that Medea was willing to leave all that she knew for Jason is very brave. Women in Medea's time were normally given away to the men that they married. Medea, on the other hand, married Jason because she wanted to. That was a large risk for her to take and many women probably looked at it as a liberating and heroic act.
Women have always been disempowered due to their gender in modern and ancient times alike. In Corinth they are expected to run the household and conform to social expectations of a dutiful wife. Medea, being an immortal and descendant from the gods has a certain power in intelligence and sly cleverness. Being a foreigner, Medea’s wayward irrational behavior was expected in this play as she was not born in Greece and was seen as an exotic creature. She comes across to the audience as a powerful female character in terms of violence. Some of Medea’s reactions and choices appear to be blown out of proportion as authors generally make characters seem larger than life; this creates a better understanding of the text and the issues which are developed through the characters.
This mutual suffering between Medea and the Chorus raises issues such as the treatment of women at the time when this play was written. When Medea married Jason, she married herself to him for life. She was expected to be totally obedient and to accept whatever her husband willed. For her to look upon another man other than her husband would have been totally unacceptable. Whereas Jason marries another woman while he...
... takes matters into her own hands and doesn’t wait for a man to handle things for her. Also, her internal conflict that is visible throughout the entire play signify that she actually thinks for herself, and is strong enough to need to make serious decisions on her own, regardless of her gender. All of this goes back on the traditional Greek society, and helps make Medea into a play that is ahead of its time. With Euripides challenging the notion of misogyny, he creates Medea to show how powerful and dangerous a woman can be in a story, even though it was never heard of in the modern eras.
Medea is a tragedy of a woman who feels that her husband has betrayed her with another woman and the jealousy that consumes her. She is the protagonist who arouses sympathy and admiration because of how her desperate situation is. I thought I was going to feel sorry for Medea, but that quickly changed as soon as I saw her true colors. I understand that her emotions were all over the place. First, she was angry, then cold and conniving. The lower she sinks the more terrible revenge she wants to reap on Jason.
Although Medea killed and did things that people felt were wrong it is evident that through out the play that along with her other characteristics, she was a caring and loving person. The first time we are shown this is when we discover everything she did for Jason. If she did not love him she would not have done those things. We are also shown that Medea can be a caring person by the love that she had for her children. Although she killed them in the end during the play she was a mother to her children, she showed affection to them, and she did think twice before she killed them. It is because Medea was a caring and loving person that she did what she did. Her feelings were hurt and her heart was broken; and she did what she felt she had to do to hurt Jason for hurting her.