Euripides' Medea Essay

Euripides infanticidal re-imagining of the Medea myth continues to arouse controversy more than a millennia since it was penned in the fifth century BC. A key reason it does so is because of the way in which Euripides challenges and offends what are still, even in the 21st century, traditional notions of motherhood. As such, Euripides infuses his work with a great deal of ambiguity about Medea’s tragic downfall. Medea finds herself with extraordinary amounts of power coming about from not tolerating others and therefore dominating those around her. Medea dominates others to be in a position of power, when that position of power is taken away from her she reverts to harming anyone who opposed her. Medea’s cunning and cleverness, that leads her to dominate others and making people do what she wants. Medeas control of situations comes from a

Medea written by Euripides portrays a prodigious revenge plotted by a lover due to the unforgivable betrayal demonstrated by her husband. In ancient Greece, with a male predominant culture, Medea has established herself as a character of true courage and bravery due to the massacre she executed at the end of the play. Love, marriage, betrayal, revenge, and cunningness are revealed in the play as Medea conspires against Jason. Euripides speaks about these different characteristics of human nature portrayed by Medea to show the readers that the cunningness and shrewdness of Medea, plays an important role in the main characters’ lives as she prepares to avenge her anger on her husband.

In the Greek tragedy, Medea, by Euripides, most readers would characterize Medea as being selfish, cruel, and a cold-blooded murderer. This characterization is due to the extreme actions she took to seek revenge on her husband for betraying her and their children. As the story opens with the nurse telling of the betrayal towards Medea and her children by her husband, Jason, it is very easy to feel sympathy towards Medea. She betrayed her family and followed her true love to an unknown land, and now she has been deceived by him. Medea’s words, early in the story, strongly express her broken heart. “Aaaah! Oh, horrible, horrible, all that I suffer, my unhappy struggles. I wish I could die” (105-106). She feels shamed by Jason. He allowed his desire to marry into royalty cause him to betray a loving, faithful wife. Even though the betrayal of her husband has caused her great heartache and to act emotionally unstable, readers can also portray Medea as being passionate, intelligent, and caring.

Furthermore, the theme and character analysis go hand in hand, Medea’s manipulation shows how vindictive she really is. As she cannot comprehend losing her husband to another woman, jealousy and vengeance are all that is on her mind. She rationalizes, “To pay my husband back for what he has done to me,” (p. 696). The pain of losing the one man that she has gone to great lengths to have has clouded her judgment. Another

Playwright, Euripides, composes the tragedy, Medea, on the bases of the myth of Jason and Medea in around 400 BC. Medea portrays the position of women within that time period in Greek culture. The Greeks did not see women as equal citizens within the time period of Medea’s composition. The Greek culture considered women as submissive servants, whom did not have a place in politics. Women in that period of history were greatly dependent of their husbands. The author, Euripides, capitalizes on this social inequality through his characters. Medea expresses this inequality by saying, “It is a bitter thing to be a woman.” (Act I, 226) She then compares both genders using analogies within her expression of rage. Medea, the protagonist and focal character within the play, struggles with her sanity as a result of her husband, Jason’s many betrayals. Focusing on her ultimate goal, Jason’s demise, she vows to get revenge on all of those who are the cause of her to suffer great emotional pain. “Death is my wish, For myself, my enemies, my children. Destruction.” (Act I, 44-44) Having become twisted due to her consumption of rage due to the manipulation, betrayal, and other sufferings inflicted by her own husband, Medea invokes her revenge, which in the end deprives Medea of her home, sanity, and children.

“Medea” is written in the utmost simplistic English phrases, despite which, several underlying aspects were initially overlooked as they were presumed insignificant. However, the presentation thoroughly examined these aspects providing the imperative cultural background of the era and essentially enhancing my understanding of the play. In addition to broadening my understanding of Ancient Greece beliefs and lifestyles, they implored Euripides’ predominant theme of the play which questioned the oppressions and injustices placed upon women. He explores this through Medea’s ultimate contradiction to societal beliefs of women. 
 To begin with, the group presented a new insight into the justification for Medea’s behaviour and the irony of the

With the threat of her impending exile, Medea formulates a vengeful plan against her masters. After Jason violates their marriage vows, Medea searches for the justice of love. This type of justice “was probably upheld both by religious feelings and by

In the drama "Medea" by Euripides, it a great movie has discussed about the love, passion, fear, and the most important is revenge in life. It makes the reader and the audience have a feeling of sadness, disappoint, angry, contradictory, betray about the unhappiness power of love with the impassioned turned into the furious hatred in life and society. Throughout the drama, the revenge is necessity for all the women in the Ancient Greece. So all the women in Ancient Greece were treated as weak and they did not have any chance to express their opinion or even to choose what is better for them in life. Besides that, the main character Medea was begins her marriage being an ideal wife for Jason, and she sacrifices herself to him, she leaves her

Medea by Euripides is a tragic tale about a woman who is betrayed by her husband, Jason. Medea was a very diverse character that possesses several characteristics, which were unlike the women of her time. As a result of these characteristics people acted differently towards her. Medea, was a revengeful, intelligent and an emotional person. In the story, Medea uses all these traits to have everything her way.

Female heroism becomes a significant component to Medea’s character development as well as the entirety of the tragedy. Medea is a female as well as a foreigner and to the people of Corinth, she is unsuitable to remain in their land, and therefore has no support nor no rights as a citizen. Because of this, she is presumed to be a true female protagonist in a male dominated society. Medea defends herself as well as portrays female struggles in Ancient Greek society. The purpose of women during these times were to endure and take pleasure in providing their husbands with intimacy and children. Nonetheless, Medea withstands her heroism and states that she would rather undergo a war than to give birth. Her fearlessness takes a form in which

Euripides’ Medea is a tragedy focused on a woman who feels that her husband has betrayed her with another woman and the revenge she bestows on them. Medea's passion is the motivating factor for her revenge. Beginning with the killing of the bride to be, and the bride's father, to the killing of her two children and by leaving her husband depleted and miserable she succeeded in her revenge. The theme of this play is best represented by the saying, “what goes around comes around.” There are many reasons as to why Medea seeks revenge on the ones who have wronged her.

In Act one, Nurse introduces Medea and claims the unequal treatment of women in Greek society. Addressing that Jason “calls the old bond a barbarian mating, not a Greek marriage” (Euripides 9), later the chorus speaks on the wretched women in Corinth who suffer from the unfaithful actions of men. In Medea’s soliloquy, she rages on the fact that she was submissive and obedient to Jason under the dowry system. The audiences can infer that women in Corinth had little power in a marriage that controlled their lives. The unique dowry system prohibits women’s freedom in the choice, establishes many sexual and marital inequalities. All these restrictions put the “good and submissive” wife under their

Medea is a play featuring a title character who is a very unusual woman. Brad Levett’s essay “Verbal Autonomy and Verbal Self-Restraint in Euripides’ Medea” exemplifies the thoughts of three authors after discussing how Medea relates to a Greek hero that was invulnerable in all of his body except for one minor spot and/or the play resembling a Greek tragedy that narrated the fate of a warrior after memorable battles. These scholars believed that Medea “comes into conflict with that part of herself that would have been viewed as more feminine, most obviously her love for her children” (54). This is because at the end of the play Medea murdered her children to get revenge on her ex-husband who had betrayed their

Medea was never a woman with happy and positive thoughts. She did not care for her

The play that Euripides tells of a woman named Medea put forth many views on the relationships of men and women in the Greek society. These relationships are seen as the dominant man with a woman by his side, committed to him fully. Medea sees these relationships not necessarily as a good thing, but as a situation in which a woman may truly be burdened by the expectations of her. Medea states early on that, “We women are the most unfortunate creatures.” (Line 231) She states this because she feels and knows that women don’t have much control over their own lives. She seems to accept this role at times in the play, but towards the end, Medea changes her ways and rebels.