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Medea In Cherrie Moraga's The Hungry Woman

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The beautifulness about Greek mythology adaptations is that they can be understood and reinterpretted into modern times and their situations. Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry Woman is an adaptation of Euripides’ Medea. This story takes place in the future during which Aztlan goes through an anti-homosexual revolution. In this adaptation of the myth, Medea, her husband, their son Chac-Mool, and Medea’s girlfriend live near the border of Aztlan, in Phoenix (Moraga, ‘Setting’). Jason wants to leave Medea and take Chac-Mool back to Aztlan because he wants to “spare [himself] humiliation” (Moraga 76). Jason wants to leave for Aztlan because it is there that he holds some power in society. Just like the original Medea, Moraga’s Medea is furious at Jason …show more content…

Back in ancient Greece, Medea was considered a minority because she was both a foreign and a woman. Because of this, she was excluded from the only right that was available to her during that time - being Jason’s wife and bearing legitimate children. In The Hungry Woman, Medea is portrayed as a bisexual Latina. Because there were (and still are) controversies, violence, and unwelcomeness to the LGBTQ+ community and to many Latin Americans in the United States, it is essential that Medea was portrayed the way she was. It greatly helped to bring the success in this adaptation. Moreover, because the Chicano movement was incredibly popular during the time in which this adaptation was written, the audience of the play can see through a different lense how the Latino community was extremely discriminated against. During this time, the Latinos were discriminated everywhere by everyone; they were viewed and treated as second class citizens. By portraying and identifying The Hungry Woman’s Medea with these minority group identities, the audience can greatly see the mistreatment that was and is still presently happening in our …show more content…

This adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone is set in 2005 during which Western born people went to go fight in Syria, a pre-Islamic state. The main characters of this adaptation are of Pakistani descent. Aneeka (Shamsie’s adaptation of Antigone) and Isme (modern-day Ismene) are sisters of Parvaiz (present-day Polyneices) who “went to Syria, to Raqqa” in order to be part of the “media unit” of the extremist group (Shamsie 97). Just like in Sophocles’ version, Aneeka is more sympathetic to her brother. To Aneeka, mourning her brother’s absence is more important than banishing him from her and her family’s life. To her, it does not matter that he is rebellious and joined an extremist group (Shamsie 43-44). Moreover, it is likewise important that the main characters in this adaptation were of a minority group identity. With the present day conflicts and discrimination of Pakistani people (and other Middle Eastern people as well), Shamsie was able to grealy illustrate their point of view. Because Parvaiz’ actions are considered to be wrong and treasonous, this story is even more greatly similar to the original myth. Sophocles’ version portrays the treasonous brother as part of a minority, which is likewise the identity of Parvaiz. If this story would have contained people from a dominant identity, it might have been easier for the audience to be sympathetic to Parvaiz and his situation. With

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