Medea Internal Conflict Essay

Euripides is sympathetic to the plight of women in Greece. In Medea most of the characters are women. The male characters in the play do not seem to portray as much depth as the women featured. Jason, Medea’s husband, is leaving her for the king’s daughter. He shows himself as well versed in rhetoric and very self-serving. Creon is the king who openly admits that he is afraid of Medea and her clever ways. Even Medea’s sons seem to serve the purpose of pawns in Medea’s master plan of revenge.

In “Stereotype and Reversal in Euripides’ Medea,” Shirley A. Barlow argues that the protagonist refuses to play the customary role of an ancient Greek woman, except when it benefits her, which shows that Medea is a reversed stereotype (158). This is further shown when the Tutor states, “Take heart! You too, will, journey back with children’s help” (1015). In this circumstance, the Tutor is declaring how the children will be able to help their mother come back home, yet this is an example of dramatic irony because Medea ultimately kills her children at the end for revenge. Euripides uses dramatic irony to convey Medea’s strength and power. The characters mistakenly assume that Medea is weak, yet her will-power and desire for revenge is shown when she kills her sons. Next, Jason is expected to be strong and powerful, yet is weaker than any female. Rabinowitz also speculates that Jason’s role has feminine aspects: “Jason would seem to be the perfect example of a woman with a man” (152). For example, Jason exclaims, “I have come, however, to save my children’s lives, to keep the king’s family from making them pay for the foul murder committed by their mother” (1303-5). Jason hastily runs back to the house to save his children from a masculine

Superficially, Medea is a critique of relations between men and women, the struggle between Jason and Medea; then the struggle between Creon and Medea. However at the deeper level, Medea is a critique of the quality and state of the contemporary culture of Euripides (Arrowsmith 361). The unique symbolism is that

The duty of women portrayed in Greek society is a major subject in Euripides Medea. In old Greek society, ladies are delicate and compliant as per men, and their social position is viewed as exceptionally mediocre. Feminism is the hypothesis of men being viewed different in contrast to women and the male predominance over ladies in the public eye. Women's lives are spoken to by the parts they either pick or have forced on them. This is obvious in the play Medea by Euripides through the characters of Medea and the medical attendant. During the day and age which Medea is set ladies have exceptionally restricted social power and no political power by any stretch of the imagination, despite the fact that a ladies' maternal and residential power was regarded in the protection of the home, "Our lives rely upon how his lordship feels." The constrained power these ladies were given is diverse to present day society yet parts are as yet forced on ladies to acclimate and be a devoted spouse. Ladies have dependably been dis engaged because of their sex in present day and antiquated circumstances alike. In Corinth they are required to run the family unit and fit in with social desires of an obedient spouse. Medea, being an eternal and relative from the divine beings has a specific power in insight and guileful keenness. Being an outsider, Medea's wayward nonsensical conduct was normal in this play as she was not conceived in Greece and was viewed as an exotic foreigner. She goes over to the group of onlookers as an intense female character regarding viciousness. Some of Medea's responses and decisions have all the earmarks of being made a huge deal about as creators for the most part influence characters to appear to be overwhelming; this makes a superior comprehension of the content and the issues which are produced through the characters. Medea's ill-conceived marriage and the double-crossing of Jason drive Medea to outrageous vengeance. Medea acts with her immortal self and confer coldhearted demonstrations of murder instead of legitimize the results of her actions. Medea see's this choice as her lone resort as she has been exiled and has no place to go, "stripped of her place." To make sensitivity for Medea, Euripides

Sexism is a topic that is often discussed today since it still permeates throughout society, just as it did more than two thousand years ago. That discrimination often causes pain and suffering on the receiving side, in this case women. An example of the sexist undertones in this piece of literature comes from Creon, “You scheming source of every criminal act you have a woman’s wickedness; your daring shows masculine strength, ignoring what men say.” (Seneca 80 lines 266-268). This sentence illuminates several different facts about Greek culture and their treatment of women. First, those in power, namely Creon, who is king, believes that women are “wicked” and evil. Second, it implies that women are not supposed to ignore and protest men within the social structure, those that do object a man show that they are not womanly, they display qualities of a man, according to their culture. All of this culminates inside of Medea’s failed marriage with Jason. As a consequence of this sexism, it made it easier to simply break off the marriage and marry Creusa. Those supporting Jason could just present the claim that Medea is a crazy woman, and since they are male, perpetrating such actions is acceptable. Consequentially, breaking of her marriage with Jason is the main reason that Medea slowly spirals into suffering and

Euripides used the character, Jason, to show how atrocious women were treated. At the beginning of the play, Medea was shot by cupid's arrow which made her fall in love with Jason. Her falling in love with Jason was not her fault so she didn’t

Medea’s actions in the tragedy are demonstrated in women everywhere. In her case, she is intrigued with the idea to poison her husband, his new wife and her father, and both sons. Although the actions of other women are not as serious as killing, Medea represents the sacrifices women make in order to find a lover, affection, or love. Medea had given up so much for her husband, Jason, to the point where she had no one since she had betrayed her family for him, abandoned all her friends, and conformed to this new lifestyle her people are not used to. In Medea’s time, the women back then were assumed to have children and look after them,

Medea, a distinct character conveys strong message across the audience and allows them to reconsider the legal rights of women. Not in the modern era but in the ancient times, recognition of women was a major dilemma for the society. Other than that Euripides tries to justify Medea's evilness by providing reasons and by letting Medea express her love for Jason. She chooses vengeance over law, this doesn't only show the dignity of Medea, it also presents the deep emotions of hers which conquered her mind and forced her to commit an unforgivable crime. After all she did for Jason, she only asked for his loyalty and integrity.

Medea accomplished that by giving birth to two children for Jason. As the play slowly unraveled, it plainly displayed that she was faithful towards her husband, but being an ideal Greek wife was not her factual nature. She was independent and her qualities made her different from the Corinth women. In the opening sequence, the nurse introduced Medea as a frightening woman when someone wronged her. “Her temperaments are dangerous and will not tolerate bad treatment. For she is fearsome. No one who joins in conflict with her will celebrate an easy victory”, the nurse presented (page 2, line). From this, the reader can envision how ordinary other Greek women were. How they didn’t have a mind of their own and were defenseless towards those shabby treatments from men. These women were submissive and didn’t have any control over their lives. However, the protagonist Medea did. She took matters in her own hands when her husband betrayed her.

Medea was a barbaric woman who fell in love with Jason who went to her land to obtain the Golden Fleece. She was so in love with him that commits many crimes for him. She first killed his brother then Pelias. That love for Jason was like a poison. When she founds out that he was marrying another women all that love that she fells for him came into hatred. As the nurse mentions in Euripides’s Medea, “For her part, she complied with Jason in all things. There is no greater security than this in all world: when a wife does not oppose her husband. But now, there’s only hatred” (16-20) “Since Jason has betrayed them” (Euripides ‘Medea. 22). Well Medea was blinded by loved and all she wants to do is to obey him. At the beginning it was not possible

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.

At the start of the play Medea stands an abandoned woman, the man she loved whom she sacrificed everything for including the lives of her brother and father is leaving her for another woman. We can see Medea’s anger strikes when her greatest desire, but to see Jason suffer. Medea

She especially questions the system after Jason, her ex-husband, betrays her. For this, Medea is a symbol for the majority of silenced women. It was found dishonorable for women to do much of anything in that time period, so questioning these ways was dangerous, making Medea differentiate as an emblem showcasing ideas of feminism, even back then. Medea showed her queries of the male power to many people.

Claimed to be a play by a feminist tragedian, Euripides’ Medea is ultimately strife with themes of otherness and penultimately, stereotypical ancient Greek gender notions. Medea, who is from Colchis, an island considered to be barbarous by the Greeks, falls in love with the Greek hero, Jason of the Argonauts. Together they adventured, creating enemies. After settling in Corinth with their sons, Jason accepts a proposal from Creon, the king of Corinth, to marry his daughter, Glauce, “as marriage is imposed on women by masters” (Pucci, 66) Now, Medea is the other woman.

As Bernard Knox and others have shown, she also is a woman whose behavior and motivation are cast in a male rather than a female mode and follow the male heroic code of honor and revenge. Medea thus comes to embody the problem of defining the nature of woman; and the female chorus is left just as puzzled as the everyone else.