Medea: Jason's Demise

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

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.

In the first conversation the reader sees between Medea and Jason, it is clear that Jason is not suffering from the situation at all and even goes to call Medea an idiot for speaking baldy of the king and his daughter, whom he is marrying. Jason claims that the reason he left Medea for the King’s daughter is because he is looking out for the best interest of Medea and their children. He even goes on to tell her, “However much you hate me, I could never wish you any harm.” Although his justification seems like a good excuse and a smart plan, it does not seem genuine seeing as to how quick he dismisses her and does not want to stick up for her by talking to the Creon about letting her stay and not exiling her and their

Medea betrays Jason by recognizing his yearning for a wife that is respectful and regretful. Her false articulation of accommodation to Jason, her admission that she was a stupid passionate lady, baits him to his fate. "I talked things over with myself, she lets him know, "and rebuked myself bitterly". "Why do I act like a mad women ? … What you did was best for me… I confess I was full od bad thoughts". Medea realizes that her most best approach to cover up her motives processes and execute she will likely put on a show to be pretend to be submissive. It works. Jason is duped, he feels that she has changed and moved toward becoming "sensible", that is receives Jason's views and

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).

This is the defining part of the play on who Medea is; someone that creates her own fate and disprove expectations. Which is what led her to the conclusion of killing her own children, knowing that this will hurt Jason the most, even over being murdered. Because men primarily care about family lineage and Medea ended Jason’s family forever with this heinous act. All these events portray Medea as a fearsome sorceress that will not tolerate being taken advantage of. Her traits of power and strength come during the scene when she is about to kill her children and is indecisive; but in the end her anger towards Jason overpowered her love of the children and she murders them. In the last scene of the play when she is above Jason in a godly chariot pulled by snakes the audience gets a sense of her cleverness and how she is different from other female characters. She will not risk being captured and was always two steps ahead of Jason the whole time. This is far different than what is usually expected, because the hero is defeated by a woman and she leaves without any sort of punishment. Medea as described in this play is a powerful/revengeful sorceress that outwitted her husband and managed to escape punishment for filicide.

There are also parts in the play where one may begin to have an understanding of Jason’s motives. In Jason’s first argumentative speech to Medea, he claims that money, possessions and social status is of no importance to him. He declares that his choice to marry the royal Glauce is of good intention, not merely because he is bored with Medea’s bed. Later, when Medea begs Jason to forgive her for her foolishness, he shows kindness and understanding towards her. After all that Medea said about him and his new wife-to-be, Glauce, he states that he is still willing to provide Medea and their sons with anything they may need. Medea pleads for Jason to convince Creon to let their sons stay in Corinth and Jason agrees to try to convince both Creon and Glauce to allow the boys to stay. Jason is still compassionate, showing at least some loyalty to Medea and his family. At the very end of the play, after Medea has killed Glauce, Creon and their two sons, Jason admits that she has ‘destroyed’ him. Jason is completely shattered; everything has been ripped away from him. It’s also unfair when Medea refuses to let Jason bury and mourn the bodies of their sons. Some may feel it is impossible to feel no sympathy for him.

Medea describes a tragedy resulting from mans selfishness but also portrays mans desire for good. In the book Medea, Medea is portrayed as an evil woman who wants to cause sorrow to her husband Jason. Jason was Medea’s husband but he divorced her to be with a younger and more appealing woman who happened to be the princess of Corinth named Glauce. Medea lived her life with sorrow and never left her bedroom for weeks after Jason left her.

However this scene could have been the final chance for Jason to win Medea over, to cancel the marriage and so they can go and live together elsewhere with their children and have happy lives, and he is dead set on the marriage. A scene that could be contributing more to the development to the play is the scene where she meets the King of Athens. In this scene she manipulates him into feeling sorry for her for example by showing how much he has hurt her mentally, and how her future is uncertain. He then makes an oath to the Gods to allow Medea refuge in the city of Athens, and that he shall not give her over to anyone who would ask for her. This is a massive success for Medea, as it means that when she performs her murders she now has a safe place to go where she can stay without fear of any repercussions, as otherwise she was quite willing to die in the attempt of assassination, when they caught her.

Medea is a Greek tragedy that follows the mythical hero Jason after his quest for the Golden Fleece. Jason is planning to marry someone he believes will increase his social standing while abandoning Medea, his current wife, and his children. Medea had previously aided Jason on his quest due to Aphrodite causing her to fall in love with Jason. Medea, feeling betrayed and wanting revenge on her husband, plans to show her power. Recurring themes in Medea include revenge, betrayal, and the position of women within society.

In this repot I will tell you how Medea made Jason “victor”,the one who “saved” Jason ,the one who “conquered” Jason’s foes. So just read on a you will know the truth.

In the play called “Euripides 1, Alcestis and The Medea”, they share a common theme, which is heroism. In the play, the two main characters who are females, show a sign of heroism and honor. In addition, both of their husbands named, Jason and Admetus, show dishonor in the scenes, that are the cause of their misfortune In results, in Greek heroism and honor, comes with great sacrifices, hidden emotion, yet in the 21 century, heroism is looked upon differently. In the play “Alcestis,” Alcestis shows great Greek heroism and honor, despite that she has children, she is willing to die for her husband, because no one else wants to die for him.

Throughout many stories we always see the males at a powerful position and the women tend to be the over bearing crazy type. Whenever something goes wrong we as the audience are always quick to blame to female or say it’s because she having a mental break down. The tragedy of Medea is no different. We all assume that Medea took her rage and acted out in an awful way due to no fault of anyone else. But the truth is that if it wasn’t due to Jason’s selfishness and betrayal to Medea, she would have never acted in the manner that she did, and the blame is to fall upon Jason.

When I originally read Medea, I instantly saw a strong, influential woman who had something to hide. Medea’s traumatic experience of Jason leaving her for another woman, forced her to mask her true feelings and assume a new personality. At the start of the novel, readers see an emotional side of Medea, which is replaced by the revenge she seeks against Jason. Hence concealing her true emotions to portray fierce and cunning instead of small moreover weak. Given her vulnerable side, it seemed logical that Medea would have documented her private thoughts throughout her hardship, such as maintaining a journal before her children left with King Creon.

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 '