Medea Greek Heroism

Euripides’s plays often featured uncanny insight into the human condition and the struggle that his characters bore due to their expected roles within society.

She tries to redefine the ideology of woman and man being unequal, also versed when Medea says “A man, when he’s tired of the company in his home. Goes out of the house and puts an end to his boredom. And turns to a friend or companion of his own age. But we are forced to keep our eyes on one alone” (Euripides 734). The story sets a tone not only of a wife who ultimately decides on a jealous and deceitful action, but also of a woman who loved a man despite being unfaithful.

Ancient expectations for women include always putting the responsibilities of being a mother above all else, as shown in Euripides’ Medea and Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, as well as Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis. Both Clytemnestra and Medea exhibit motherly love and tend to those responsibilities, but commit atrocious, unladylike acts, which jeopardize the sympathy felt for them by an audience. The respective playwrights of each story use their character’s motivations and how they align with their roles as mothers first and women second to ultimately characterize each in either a negative or positive light. The motherly motivation that Clytemnestra and Medea exhibit excuses their vengeful and deceitful actions, however Medea’s final action,

Lysistrata by Aristophanes is seen to be a comical play used to show the impact of war not only on the ones physically in the war, but the ones mentally involved also. This play was written to help express the feeling the author had about the war occurring during the time the work was written. Lysistrata, the main character, is a strong woman who decides to become as what could be said as being “rebellious”. She does this by refusing to have sexual relations with the men in the city until it was agreed that peace would be declared between the two troops. She calls a meeting with the women in the city and include them in her vindictive ideas to bring the war to an end. This play is sure to bring a smile to the readers face due to the comical events that occur. However, comedy is not the only thing that becomes apparent within the play. Throughout the work of Lysistrata there are three themes that become apparent during this play: peace and harmony, control by gender, and politics.

Both Clytemnestra and Antigone are driven by their passionate transgressions and desires due to conflicts within their families, and they are incapable of bearing the consequences they bring upon their nations and societies. There are times when personal sacrifices are necessary to the greater social progress, and the death of Iphigenia is an example in which case her death contributes to the victory of the Greek army. Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army, decides to sacrifice the life of his own daughter in exchange of the wind that carries the Greek army to the land of Troy, which eventually leads to a glorious victory. However, Clytemnestra is overwhelmed by the death of her daughter, and she is not capable of perceiving the death of Iphigenia as a sacrifice to secure the Greeks’ victory with help from the Gods. Her husband Agamemnon, who lies to Iphigenia and sends her

As is archetypal to all Greek tragedies, ‘Medea’ by Euripides chronicles the downfall of a noble hero, Jason, as a result of a combination of factors like fate, hubris and the will of the gods. In ‘Medea’, the hubris of the main character, Jason, was his pride. This drove him to betray his wife Medea’s trust and defy moral parameters set by the gods. Euripides employed the hubris of Jason and his act of disobedience towards the gods as a reflection of Athenian society of the time and used this as an attempt to correct the progressively immoral ways of society. This piece focuses on pride as Jason’s hubris and its contribution to his imminent downfall.

It shows how she does have a heart and a conscience, which was something readers weren’t too sure about prior to this internal conflict, since she killed her brother without any issues. Euripides makes it obvious that she is strong, and headstrong about her decision to destroy Jason.

When Odysseus is disguised as a beggar, Antinous mocks him and thinks that he is above the beggar. When the contest came to see who can string Odysseus’s bow, Antinous believed that the beggar could not do it and Antinous is the mightiest of the suitors. By acting as the mightiest, Antinous displays hubris because he thinks that no one is better than him and he deserves Penelope the most. This is because he was the leader of the suitors which makes him think that he is superior. The aftermath of this act of hubris is shown when Odysseus kills Antinous in the throat while Antinous was eating. This illustrates the theme because Antinous’s pride of being better than everyone else ends up getting him killed which was a punishment. According to the text, it states, “But Odysseus aimed and shot Antinous square in the throat and the point went stabbing clean through the soft neck out— and off to the side he pitched, the cup dropped from his grasp as the shaft sank home, and the man’s life-blood came spurting from his nostrils—thick red jets– a sudden thrust of his foot– food showered across the floor, the bread and meats soaked in a swirl of bloody filth”(22.12-21). The description of Antinous’s death shows that because he was filled with extreme pride, ended up with an extreme death. Antinous’s excessive hubris resulted in a painful

Euripides and Sophocles wrote powerful tragedies that remain influential to this day. The vast majority of work recovered from this time is by male authorship. What remains about women of this time is written through the lens of male authors’ perspective and beliefs about the role of women in Greek culture. The works of these two playwrights frequently characterize women as unstable and dangerous. Agave, Antigone, and Medea are all undoubtedly the driving force behind the tragic action in these plays. It is their choices that lead to the pain and death of the people around them. Through an examination of the evidence from three separate works, Antigone, The Bacchae, and The Medea, the role of women in ancient Greek tragedy becomes clear. The actions of Agave, Antigone, and Medea repeatedly prove their characters instability and danger.

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.

Amongst Euripides' most famous plays, Medea went against the audience's expectations at his time. Indeed, the main character of the play is Medea, a strong independent female who neglected moral and . She was therefore in all ways different to how women were perceived in Ancient Greece. This essay will explore how Euripides' controversial characters demonstrate that his views were ahead of his time.

The poetic tone of Aristophanes' Lysistrata differs greatly from the poetic tone of the Greek tragedies we have read in class. However, after analyzing this Greek comedy, it seems to share some of the main characteristics of Euripides' Medea. Within these plays, we meet shrewd, powerful masculine women who use the art of manipulation to get what they want from others and to accomplish their goals. This theme of manipulation is employed through various means and techniques. The women of these plays also seem to contradict the stereotypical woman and have characteristics similar to the Homeric Greek warrior.

As the famous Greek playwright Euripides once said: “Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.” Such ideas are portrayed in one of him most famous plays, Medea. This play is a fascinating classic centered on the Greek goddess Medea. Despite its recent fame, during his time, Euripides was unpopular since he used what would be considered a ‘modern’ view where he would focus on women, slaves and persons from the lower classes. In the play, Medea commits filicide, which initially appears extremely horrendous, but as the audience is guided through the play, they develop sympathy towards Medea. In order to achieve this empathy and enhance the understanding of Medea’s pride and ideals, Euripides

Aristotle cites that, "A man cannot become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall." Consistent to Aristotle’s characteristics of a tragic hero, the tragic hero must fit the requirements of being noble and employed in a high standing position of society. There should be a tragic flaw that ultimately leads to his downfall, and those reading the play must feel pity for this character as he goes through necessary changes as a result of his flaw. Aristotle illustrates a tragic hero as one who falls from grace into a state of acute misery. In Euripides’ Medea, the tragic hero is Jason, a man of noble birth who falls from being honored and respected due to a flaw in his character, that flaw being adultery. His adultery leads to terrible outcomes, the deaths of many people, and his loss of all the things he loved.His character is an excellent example of the heroes who rise high, then ultimately fail due to their own nature. By the end of the play he realizes his errors and becomes negligible. Some may argue that Medea is the tragic hero in the play, but this reasoning is flawed because Medea has no single flaw, she has exuded a sadistic nature from the start, from her actions involving the Golden Fleece to her killing her own offspring. Jason suffers from the fatal flaw of adultery that ultimately destines him for ruin, making it is clear that he serves as the tragic hero in Euripides '

When Medea kills her children, audiences react with shock and horror. Any sympathy viewers have built for the woman is, in the words of Elizabeth Vandiver, “undercut” by this act (15). Since Medea is the protagonist, we question why Euripides chose to make her a child murderer. Most scholars agree that he invented this part of the myth. He also lessened her role as witch by drawing attention to her human qualities. This only highlights the infanticide (14) because we cannot excuse her ruthless act as monstrous and non-human. However, Medea remains very human until after she kills her sons. Appearing at the end of the play in the deus ex machina, she takes over not only the position but also the