Aristotle (384-322 B.C. believed that tragedy, as an imitation or mimesis of life as it could be, held more importance than history, which simply records the past. He considered that performance of a tragedy provided the perfect cathartic experience for an audience, leaving them spiritually purified and inspired. He felt spectators seeing and experiencing great hardship befall the play’s hero or heroine would achieve this emotional state and benefit from it.
The tragic hero, according to Aristotle, must be essentially good and be of high or noble birth. The misfortune that precedes their downfall must evoke compassion and pity. The tragic hero must experience a peripeteia. Two of the most famous Greek tragic heroes (heroines) were Medea and Clytemnestra. They share characteristics Aristotle deemed essential for the heroic character in a tragedy. They are both of high rank. Medea is a princess and a sorceress, and Clytemnestra was the de facto ruler of Argos in Agamemnon’s absence. Their tales initially evoked sympathy, but hamartia and hubris were instrumental in each woman's downfall. Both suffer significant peripety as victims of their overly passionate natures.
Clytemnestra is obsessed by the desire for vengeance over the death of her daughter at the hands of her husband, Agamemnon. While Clytemnestra's passion is for vengeance, Medea's is her unreasonable love for Jason, which turns into seething hatred.
Clytemnestra’s peripeteia begins the moment Agamemnon sacrifices their daughter, Iphigenia. Heartbroken and grieving, Clytemnestra schemes, plotting vengeance for her daughter’s death. She obsessively plans her husband’s murder for so many years that it becomes a fait accompli. Clytemnestra greets his return with fa...
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...s got to be done, -- do it without flinching. Whatever I do, my life will be unhappy. I’ll armor my heart with callousness, and take the sword in my hand...try to forget that they are my children and that I love them. I only need forget for a short time. And then I can remember all my life.” (Medea, pg. 343, 344).
Revenge is at the core of the Greek tragedies Agamemnon, the first play in the trilogy Oresteia (Aeschylus (525 - 455 BC), and Medea (Euripides (431 – 480 B.C.). The protagonists in each play are women who carry out horrifying acts of revenge on their husbands. Both characters – Clytemnestra and Medea – are at once heroines, villainesses and victims.
Works Cited
Corrigan, Robert W. Classical Tragedy, Greek and Roman: 8 Plays in Authoritative Modern Translations Accompanied by Critical Essays. New York, NY: Applause Theatre Book, 1990. Print.
To begin comparing Euripides Medea and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 7, we need to look at three components: context, characters, and themes. Both Euripides and Ovid tell the story of Jason abandoning Medea for another woman; however, they do not always share a perspective on the female protagonist’s traits, behavior, and purpose. Euripides portrays a woman who reacts to discrimination by beginning a battle to gain revenge all who harmed her, which she is prepared to follow through with even if it means resorting to the most despicable methods. Ovid, on the other hand, tells of a much less severe figure whose modest goal is only to persuade Jason to return. Despite these written differences, both of their Medea’s create trouble by acting with emotions instead of with reason, and as a result, put themselves in undesirable situations. Euripides and Ovid present two different sets of motivations for Medea's behavior wh...
According to Aristotle, tragedy requires an admirable hero with power and in a high state, but more importantly, he or she possesses a tragic flaw that leads to their downfall. This tragic flaw most closely relates to a character’s hubris, excessive pride in themselves or their judgment. But sometimes a character cannot be categorized as tragic, and one can argue whether or not the tragic character violates the requirements. In Sophocles’ Antigone Creon and Antigone serve as tragic characters in the play; however, Creon’s character exemplifies Aristotle’s theory of tragedy.
While Clytemnestra’s crime would be violent and shocking to the Argive men and to the Greek audience, her motivations for murdering her husband are not completely incomprehensible and are not without some roots in justice. After stabbing the king, Clytemnestra draws the chorus’ attention back to the other murder witnessed earlier in the play: the...
Aeschylus begins by portraying Clytemnestra as Agamemnon’s faithful wife brought only to a murderous rampage by the news of her daughter’s murder, but indeed she was stricken with the curse of jealousy and had a yearning so strong to maintain power she killed the father of her
Medea and Antigone are two stories of women fighting back for what they want, or what they feel is right. These stories take place in ancient Greece, around the time of its rise to power. Medea and Antigone are both strong, sometimes-manipulative characters but have different moral settings that control what they do.
In the play "Medea", Medea faces the harsh reality of infidelity. Her husband Jason has left her for a princess. Medea, like any normal woman today would want revenge. The difference between them is that the normal woman would not commit the crime, while in fact Medea does. After what feels like an eternity of planning and vowing revenge she devises a plan to murder the woman who has stolen her husband as well as her husband and their two children. She feels betrayed and has every right to. Imagine in that time that it was a crime to commit adultery, but because Jason had left his wife for a princess it was plausible which left Medea livid.
Euripides created a two-headed character in this classical tragedy. Medea begins her marriage as the ideal loving wife who sacrificed much for her husband's safety. At the peak of the reading, she becomes a murderous villain that demands respect and even some sympathy. By the end, the husband and wife are left devoid of love and purpose as the tragedy closes.
Medea and Lysistrata are two Greek literatures that depict the power which women are driven to achieve in an aim to defy gender inequality. In The Medea, Medea is battling against her husband Jason whom she hates. On the other hand, in Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the protagonist Lysistrata plotted to convince and organize the female gender to protest against the stubbornness of men. In terms of defining the purpose of these two literatures, it is apparent that Euripedes and Aristophanes created characters that demonstrate resistance against the domination of men in the society.
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.
Revenge is a desire by human nature. Someone does something to you that you don’t like you would want to proceed with taking revenge automatically. Revenge is an emotion and a demand for justice. Women have the desire to seek revenge far more than men. Women will go far as they wish as for men will let conflicts slide off their backs. An example of this is shown in the play Medea, Medea retaliates at a far greater impact than her ex-husband, Jason. Medea played the role of being a woman that is ex-wife and a mother that is faced with seeking revenge throughout the play. She is a woman that definitely acts one way, and turns her back and acts a different way. At the end of the play, it was revealed what type of person she truly was. Although Medea sought to have a process of vengeance on Jason that consisted of her determination to have a set plan to stay in Corinth,
The Greek tragedy Medea is a tale of a woman scorn and the wrath that follows. The story is one of outright deceit, crippling revenge and questionable justice. It is typical of Greek tragedies in its simplicity, but atypical in the way it justifies horrific revenge. Medea is one of Euripides' most enduring plays. It and only a handful of others have survived the several thousand years since their conception.
Aristotle, a philosopher, scientist, spiritualist and passionate critic of the arts, spent many years studying human nature and its relevance to the stage. His rules of tragedy in fact made a deep imprint on the writing of tragic works, while he influenced the structure of theatre, with his analysis of human nature. Euripides 'Medea', a Greek tragedy written with partial adherence to the Aristotelian rules, explores the continuation of the ancient Greek tales surrounding the mythology of Medea, Princess of Colchis, and granddaughter of Helios, the sun god, with heartlessness to rival the infamous Circe. While the structure of this play undoubtedly perpetuates many of the Aristotelian rules, there are some dramatic structures which challenge its standing with relevance to Aristotle's guidelines, and the judgment of Medea as a dramatic success within the tragic genre.
"Another possible theme of Medea may be that at times a punishment of revenge should justify the crime - no matter how severe. Only a person in such a situation (and greater beings) may know what to action to take in this position."(essayworld)
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.
Agamemnon was a bad person. He took war prizes, disrespected people’s property, and elevated himself to the level of a god. Clytemnestra was good person. Taking her gender out of the equation, she was a good ruler, spouse and parental figure. Clytemnestra recognized her flaw of womanhood, Agamemnon never realized his selfishness, not even in death. In conclusion, Clytemnestra was the tragic hero, not her better half.