Loyal Disobedience - A Social Tract of Euripides in Medea and Helen

The ancient Greek world does not look favorably on women. Women are seen as docile, unintelligent, and domestic. Placed socially below men, they are locked into tending to household duties and to their children, and can not go out without a man. Women are not expected to be educated or participate in political discussion, with the exception of knowing just enough to be able to be entertaining at a dinner party and not embarrass her husband. Lacking in political and social rights, women do not have many chances to hold a political or social lime light, and are expected to stay in the background while the men took the forefront. However, there are a handful of texts in Greek literature that showcase the opposite, and put female lead

Women were very important to the Greeks, and they showed this value in many ways. In The Odyssey Homer shows us the different ways women were looked upon through female characters, such as Penelope, Naussica, and Anticlia.

Euripides was one of the most well-known playwrights of ancient Greece. He was known as a modern playwright because he wrote with realism, and had a doubtful way of portraying the gods in his plays. Euripides’s plays had women as the main character because he had a sympathetic way of portraying women. The women were mainly strong and are passionate in their motives for their actions. Although Euripides is well known now, during ancient Greece Euripides wasn’t an appreciated playwright. When there were play performances men would be the audience since women weren’t allowed to take part in or watch the plays. So with the focus of women in his plays, he gave them a voice, which would throw men off, mainly because they would be terrified if their wives did and said the same things. Euripides supplied a philosophical thought to the women he has written about.

In both “The Odyssey” by Homer, and “Medea” by Euripides loyalty is an important aspect, and while both Penelope from “The Odyssey” and Medea remain faithful and dependable to their loved ones, their loyalty was tested by different circumstances and lead to different outcomes. Although both Penelope and Medea expressed their loyalty towards their spouses, their outcomes where different: Odysseus appreciated and expressed loyalty back to Penelope, while Jason betrayed Medea’s loyalty in hopes of gaining power. Penelope was loyal to her husband, Odysseus who had vanished for twenty years. Many believed he had perished and wished to take his place, during his absence many suitors began reaching out and asking for Penelope’s hand in marriage.

Studies concerning the lives of women in classical Athens have sparked much controversy because, despite the apparent fascination with femininity manifested in art and drama, we have no evidence voicing the opinions of the actual women themselves. This presents a

Helen puts men under the influence and rejoins the group as if she has done nothing to change them. She forces the men’s hands all for the hero of the moment, Telemachus. Penelope is the “widow” of Odysseus. After his “death”, suitors fill the halls of her palace in hopes of becoming her husband and ultimately the new king of Ithaca. Penelope does not want to remarry because she still has a great love for Odysseus.

In many literary works from the times of the ancient Greeks, women have played a relatively minor role. This is due to how women were viewed in this particular culture. In the stories the Odyssey and Orpheus and Eurydice, the female characters are examples of how women were expected to behave during the time period.

In “The Trojan Women,” there are four enduring women who dominate the play and only two men who say anything at all. Moving us with their rants and dramatic reactions, these women engulf the audience in overwhelming grief and irresistible pride. Euripides emphasizes these four women to help us understand one of his main themes. Hecuba with her pride, Cassandra with her virginity and uncanny wisdom, Andromache with her misery and heartache, and Helen with her powerful, seductive reasoning all represent superior illustrations of feminism throughout the play.

Women’s role in Greece can be seen when one first begins to do research on the subject. The subject of women in Greece is coupled with the subject of slaves. This is the earliest classification of women in Greek society. Although women were treated differently from city to city the basic premise of that treatment never changed. Women were only useful for establishing a bloodline that could carry on the family name and give the proper last rites to the husband. However, women did form life long bonds with their husbands and found love in arranged marriages. Women in Athenian Society Women are “defined as near slaves, or as perpetual minors” in Athenian society (The Greek World, pg. 200). For women life didn’t

In Ancient Greek society men had total control over women. Women were the property of their father until they were traded for marriage, at which point they would become the property of their husbands. In order to justify this system, men perpetuated the idea that women were weak and emotional, unable to fend for themselves; they needed a man to control them. However, women were also expected to be strong supports for their men. They would stand up for their husband in his absence, help solve his problems, provide emotional support and watch over his home. This duality defines the characters of Jocasta, Antigone and Penelope.

Charlotte Bronte once said, “Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do. They suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow minded in their more privileged fellow creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags”. In the play Medea, Euripides diverged from the traditional role of Greek women through Medea’s characteristics and response to her plight. In delineating the role of women, Medea was unlike any other Greek character. Medea was portrayed

Marriage – the union of two imperfect souls to form an affectionate and beautiful relationship – is exceptionally intricate and delicate. Two different people with different insights come together to form a harmonious bond. Power, or control, is a chief concept that can “make or break” the affiliation. Distribution of the ruling is frequently divided into males versus females. This partition leads to many conflicts and tribulations. In the catastrophic Greek play Medea, by Euripides, the liaison between Medea and Jason demonstrates how both males and females assert power in the relationship and how incorrect usage of this supremacy leads to dilemmas.

The stories that as a whole make up the body of ancient Greek mythology have treatedthe complex subject of women in various ways. Although women are generally considered to beweak and subordinate to their husbands, there exist some examples of strong, even heroic womenin certain myths. Such “extraordinary” women include Deianeira, Phaedra, Medea, Penelope,and Clytemnestra, among others. This discussion of women will focus on the latter two,comparing and contrasting them and addressing the ways in which the former is often considereda “good” wife and the latter a “bad” wife. The comparison of Penelope and Clytemnestra willultimately show that, in certain ways, the line between “good” and “bad” wife is rather blurryand the distinction between husband-killing monster and devoted, faithful wife is not as clear-cutas one might expect.The major works in which Penelope and Clytemnestra appear are Homer’s Odyssey andAeschylus’ Oresteia, particularly the Agamemnon. One of the first things to notice about theseworks is that they were both written by men, for men. Given the ancient Greek context, this is arather obvious observation, but it deserves to be pointed out because it should be expected thatmen would have a biased view of women. Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days describe thecreation of Pandora, the first of “the race of women”, as a gift and punishment from the gods.While she is made to “look like a goddess immortal, / having the lovely, desirable shape of a

Masculine attributes in Euripides' time were more along the lines of being valiant, heroic, noble, dominant (over women,) politically powerful, assertive, and competitive. The 19th Century white British male was also expected to be domestically and politically dominant, stiff upper lipped, virile, authoritative, somewhat

Euripides employs the technique of dialogue between two solo actors on stage throughout Medea to dramatize the core values underlying these conversations. In particular, through the conversations that Medea holds with three different males, she shows herself to be a person of great intellect. Females were rarely valued for their intelligence because the Athenians had a "complacent pride in the superiority of the Greek masculinity" (page 641 ). Men and women were considered to have very different roles in society with men being the far superior species. Thus, Euripides uses Medea's [Note the specific claim/thesis conversations with Kreon, Aigeus, and Jason to showcase her