Medea - the Abandonment of Gender Roles Essay

Euripides is sympathetic to the plight of women in Greece. In Medea most of the characters are women. The male characters in the play do not seem to portray as much depth as the women featured. Jason, Medea’s husband, is leaving her for the king’s daughter. He shows himself as well versed in rhetoric and very self-serving. Creon is the king who openly admits that he is afraid of Medea and her clever ways. Even Medea’s sons seem to serve the purpose of pawns in Medea’s master plan of revenge.

this way because of how Jason lacked respect for her and drove her to do the horrendous actions. Medea lashing out on Jason further proves the fact that she is her own woman, and becomes the first symbol of feminism in the Greek culture. Another example of Medea’s

Furthermore, they were only expected to perform more womanly (wifely) duties. For example in Kim Becnel’s Literary Contexts in Plays: Euripides' "Medea", Becnel discusses that the only expectation of a woman consisted of having children for the male. Moreover, she states: “the male-dominated culture considered women's primary function to be the production of heirs for their husbands. And, even in such a constrained role, women often found that they still could not please men” (Becnel). This quote depicts that unlike today, the concerns for women is not having an education. Becnel continues to state, “Of course, an unmarried woman fared no better; legally, she shared the same rights and privileges as a child and therefore relied entirely on the protection of a male guardian — father, brother, or other nearest male relative — for her existence” (Becnel). Moreover, this quote shows that men had superiority by controlling a woman’s rights. Overall, King Creon’s fears of Medea’s education separated her further as being an outsider to

Medea questions the firmly held belief in Greek society that women are weak and passive. Wanting revenge on Jason for his betrayal of her, Medea must take control of the situation, a stereotypical masculine quality. Though she cannot become a man or take power like a man, she perceives her

Regardless of Jason’s actions, Medea was bound to loss her temper, lash out, and hurt those once so dear to her. This reaffirms the Nurse’s suspicions, Creon’s, and the

Medea plans to kill her children instead of Jason. The main reason being that, by killing the children, it will cause Jason eternal pain. Medea’s position of citizenship also affects her emotional state and actions. Medea is an immigrant. She speaks on how she tried to blend in to this “strange Greek society” (7) and failed. I feel it is because of this failed effort that Medea finally understands that she is a foreigner—and also unwelcomed—and has no home to return to. It is for this reason I believe Medea continued with her plan. She had nothing to lose and had to leave Corinth anyways. Medea appears to be a very outspoken woman. On page 7, Medea expresses her opinions of the women of her time. Medea embodies the voice of women. She makes it sound

In Medea, a woman betrays her homeland because of her love for a man. Jason is the husband that she ferociously loves and makes sacrifices for. They have two children together: Antigone and Ismeme. In Jason's quest for the golden fleece, Medea assists him in multiple ways. One of the things she does to help their cause is bring

For Medea, her “trigger” for her murderous rampage was her beloved husband, Jason, cheating on her with the princess of Corinth. Unfortunately, this is normal in their society, so Medea’s reaction seemed way overblown. This suppressed her feelings in a way, due to the lack of understanding, making her deal with these intense feelings through murder. However, you must think about what Medea is going through. She was sent away from her hometown because she killed family there.

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

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.

For the women in ancient Greece, justice was far from reach. In the Greek society, men were allowed to abandon their wives in order to marry younger ones and Medea was not invulnerable to this fate. Despite all of her devoutness to her husband, he relinquished her for someone new. “Oh how unhappy I am, how wretched my sufferings. Oh woe is me. I wish I could die”, Medea cried out at the horrendous news (page 3, line 9). Euripides created a tragedy that many women during the ancient Greek time could relate to.

he died!" (Euripides 117.) Bothof those deaths slowly led up to the main event, the death of her children. She manipulated allthose people just to see one person suffer. People will do whatever it takes to avenge someone.

A lady who has been harmed by the one she adores will look for reprisal until she does not hurt or feel the pain anymore. Ladies are brilliant and they know how to utilize what they need to harmed whoever has harmed them. They will do whatever it takes to get and give retribution to the individuals who have treated them terribly. Medea is a lady who did the unspeakable to keep her man. At last it pivoted on her and she lost the adoration for her life. She needed to accomplish something extremely disgraceful to convey torment to whom has brought agony to her. Medea is a shrewd, vile, and extremely hurt lady and shows it however out the play. She demonstrates her insight when she induces Creon into giving her one day and eventually driving him

Moreover, Euripides incorporates Medea into the relationship to convey the idea that females also possess power in an alliance, but the form of their authority is different compared to that of a male’s. Medea elucidates that even in arduous times, she assists Jason and supports their marriage. In a direct conversation with Jason, she tells him, “…after I’ve done all this to help you, you brute, you betray me…” (27). She explains that although she took care of Jason and supported him whenever he needed her help, he disabuses his power to overpower her and abandon her. Even after Jason abandons Medea, she thinks day and night of him. Medea demonstrates that the power females possess is not physical and totalitarian like the males, but rather is emotional and mental. She tries to keep the family together and in trying to do so, she does whatever Jason asks her to do. She is the important woman behind every successful man. Without her command, Jason would not be the person he is. Therefore, she can destroy Jason whenever she desires with her power. She can be a femme fatale and reduce Jason’s life to rubbles. Similarly, after Medea finds out that she is being cheated on, she quickly creates a malicious plan to obliterate Jason. She assassinates his new wife and his heirs. Although her love is “greater than

Moreover, Euripides incorporates Medea into the relationship to convey the idea that females also possess a dominant role in the struggle over dominance, but their power form is different compared to males. Medea elucidates that even in the arduous times, she assisted Jason and supported their union. In a direct conversation with Jason, she tells him, “…after I’ve done all this to help you, you brute, you betray me…” (27). She explains that although she took care of Jason and supported him whenever he needed her help, he used his massive quantity of power to overpower her and abandon her. Even after Jason abandons Medea, she thinks day and night of him. Medea demonstrates that the power females possess is not physical and totalitarian like the males, but is emotional and mental. She tries to keep the family together and in trying to do so, she does whatever Jason asks her to do. She is the important woman behind every successful man. Without her command, Jason would not be the person he is. Therefore, she can destroy Jason whenever he desires with her power. She can be a femme fatale and reduce Jason’s life into rubble. Similarly, after Medea finds out she was being cheated on, she quickly creates and evil plan and destroys Jason. She murders his new