Medea

For Medea must fall in love with Jason and then she will use her great skill with magic to help Jason acquire the fleece. Because of Hera’s hatred towards Pelias Medea’s life is now destined for extreme agony, shame, and guilt. Her love for Jason causes her to tear away from her loving parents and dishonor her father by helping his enemy. Hera’s plan to avenge Pelias also flood Medea’s head with thoughts to keep her from straying from Hera’s plan. Unfortunately for Medea her decision to help Jason was not her own and was a careful thought out plan by Hera. Her life would never again be the same. Even though Jason promises to love her always and promises that she will be his wedded wife, he breaks this promise as soon as she become old and he is given the opportunity to marry royalty. Medea decisions were not in any way wise but if it were not for the arrows of Eros she would have had better judgment on the stranger. Medea’s behavior in this story shows that of loyalty and confusion in her heart. She is in agony because she can not conceive as to why she feels so much love for a stranger and does not wish to dishonor her father by doing so. But then she is constantly

The mistreatment that both receive from Jason and Agamemnon despite all that they do for them contributes heavily to their vengeful actions as well. Medea used her magical powers, defied her father, and killed her brother to devote herself to Jason, is still treated coldly and is neglected by Jason, who abandons her and their two sons and leaves her for Creon’s daughter. She realizes that “to annihilate the past is not possible: but its fruit in the present” can be used at her disposal to fulfill vengeance (Medea 1.364-5). She decides to channel the woe she

In Medea, a play by Euripides, Jason possesses many traits that lead to his downfall. After Medea assists Jason in his quest to get the Golden Fleece, killing her brother and disgracing her father and her native land in the process, Jason finds a new bride despite swearing an oath of fidelity to Medea. Medea is devastated when she finds out that Jason left her for another woman after two children and now wants to banish her. Medea plots revenge on Jason after he gives her one day to leave. Medea later acts peculiarly as a subservient woman to Jason who is oblivious to the evil that will be unleashed and lets the children remain in Corinth. The children later deliver a poisoned gown to Jason’s new bride that also kills the King of Corinth.

From the beginning of the play the conflict between good and bad where Medea and Jason are concerned has been ambiguous. Both characters have done terrible things in order to attain what they want. Nothing could stand in the way of them including Medea’s father, whom Medea betrayed and to pile on the grieve she kills her brother and drops parts of him into the sea so as to delay her father thereby ensuring that Jason and his Argonauts could fulfil their quest to attain the Golden Fleece. When Jason betrays Medea and walks away from their marriage we immediately identify him as the villain, yet the reader fails to understand that during that time when this play was written it was still socially acceptable for the man to walk away from his marriage provided he gives back the dowry he attained from the wife’s father. In this case Medea did not bring any such items so it was even easier for him to leave her so as to empower himself. It was Medea’s role as a woman belonging to that age to accept Jason’s decision however she feels betrayed that he would break a vow made in front of the gods, and apparently she was not a regular woman even by the standards of that time as she had an intellect that could rival that of scholarly men. So to exact her revenge she destroys everything Jason loves leaving him to regret ever betraying the marriage.

Her act of revenge is supported by the Chorus who feel that “to punish Jason will be just.” Significantly, this notion of support encourages Medea to believe she is correct in punishing Jason and continues to believe her operation of revenge is justice. Each murder that emerges within Medea conveys the true nature of her behaviour. The theme of violence is continually repeated thus it depicts how consumed she is by revenge.

Medusa was a victim and not a villan. Medusa was not born an ugly, cruel lady with snakes as hair and eyes that turned people into stone, she was cursed. Even worse, Medusa was not punished for her own wrong doing. Medusa’s life was completely changed after something horrific happened to her. In this story, Medusa is not the villian, nor the monster many see her as today. Medusa was a girl who was missunderstood.

Medusa means "sovereign female wisdom." In Sanskrit it's Medha. Medusa was originally a Libyan Goddess, worshiped by The Amazons as their Serpent-Goddess. She was considered the destroyer aspect of the Great Triple Goddess also called Neith, Anath, Athene or Ath-enna in North Africa and Athana in 1400. BC Minoan Crete. She can also be connected to Africa where she had a hidden, dangerous face, and her hair was represented as resembling dread locks. Libyan Amazons believed that no one could possibly lift her veil, and that to look upon her face was to glimpse one's own death as she saw yours.

Once she learns that Jason has married another woman, Medea's personality turns completely around. The strong loving wife turns into a barbarian huntress in search of revenge. After plotting and changing the course of her revenge a few times, she perpetrates an attack that will certainly kill the new bride. Her method is focused on the woman, but it may or may not affect others around her target. Medea knows that the poisoned dress and head adornment will be lethal to Jason's bride, but she cannot possibly know what will come of Jason, their children, or the king. Her rage knows no bounds and she sends Antigone and Ismene on with the poisoned gifts. Weigel describes the revenge of Medea in his critique of the writing: "Jason becomes entangled with a force that crushes his dignity and detachment, that tears his successes to tatters. At the end he is in exactly the same position as Medea. Both are bereaved of mate, children, and friends. Both are free to grow old without comfort. And both are utterly empty inside, except that Jason is now filled with the same burning hatred that possessed Medea" (Weigel 1391).

Commonly considered one of Euripides greatest pieces, Medea is an insightful depiction of how a woman’s love for her husband, churns into a gruesome revenge scheme against him. This tragedy illustrates a tale of a woman who challenges Greek societal norms. In the era that the story takes place; women are often seen in submissive roles. However, the play’s main character, Medea, challenges their customs through her actions against the Kingdom of Corinth and Jason.

Ever since she found out she had been betrayed by Jason, she has had “no pleasure left” in living. The only purpose left in her “cruel” and “accursed” life is to “strike dead” Jason, Creon and Glauce. Medea ends up killing Creon and his daughter but doesn’t make any attempt to kill Jason. To “perish his whole house” and “work revenge on Jason for his wrongs to [Medea]”, Medea plans to kill her two son as “it is the supreme way to hurt [her] husband”. Although Medea feels sad as shown by her “dewy eyes” and “these tears”, the audience are positioned to feel less sympathetic towards Medea due to her murderous actions towards her “own little

Medea is the tragic story of a woman desperate for revenge upon her husband, after he betrayed her for another woman’s bed. It was written by Euripides, a Greek playwright, in 431 B.C. Throughout the play each character shows us their inconsistent and contradicting personalities, in particular, Jason and Medea. The play opens with the Nurse expressing her anxiety about Jason betraying and leaving Medea for another, wealthier, woman. Our initial reaction is to feel empathetic towards Medea, who has been abandoned so conveniently. But towards the end of the play, when Medea takes revenge on

Is the killing of anyone ever justified? Is the life of one individual more important than another? In Euripides, Medea, Medea kills the princess of Corinth, the king of Corinth, Creon, as well as her own children. Are her actions the actions of an insane, distraught person or those of wise, foreign, barbaric woman trying to protect her children? Through the story of Medea, Medea justifies the killing of others while several other characters portray the injustice of her killings. Can a person show a justifiable reason to the killing of others or is the killing of others justified under certain circumstances?

In ‘Medea’, Euripides shows Medea in a new light, as a scorned woman that the audience sympathises with to a certain extent, but also views as a monster due to her act of killing her own children. The protagonist of a tragedy, known as the Tragic Hero is supposed to have certain characteristics which cause the audience to sympathise with them and get emotionally involved with the plot. The two main characters, Medea and Jason, each have certain qualities of the Tragic Hero, but neither has them all. This makes them more like the common man that is neither completely good nor evil, but is caught in the middle and forced to make difficult decisions.

Lars Von Trier's adaptation of Medea combines many elements from the original plot line, but also differs significantly. Von Trier uses not only visual images to compel his audience, but also incorporates a vast amount of sounds and noises to create dramatic effect. The film follows a lonely Medea without her chorus of companions that an original audience of the play would be used to. Rather than seeming foreign, Medea seems well adapted to her new home and is often seen utilizing the lands bodies of water accordingly. Although it is not outwardly declared, Medea's main mission is to seek revenge and abolish Jason's new life. Jason is pictured as handsome and strong, following stereotypical gender norms. His new bride also is in

This part in the plot is extremely interesting and key to understanding the burden that is Medea’s barbaric background considering that the two princesses are directly compared to each other. This means that solely by the fact that Medea is of barbarian descent, she is not good enough for Jason. This illustrates the huge burden Medea has to carry with her at all times in the form of the Barbarian