Medea's Decisions

Revenge is one of the few drives which pushes humans to perform the extreme. The central drive which Medea’s actions are constantly revolving around is revenge, the action of inflicting suffering to the cause of previous suffering. Medea gains suffering from her actions of revenge. Euripides, through Medea’s actions of revenge, illustrates the suffering which it is accompanied by. Medea is unwilling to compromise the revenge she desires to inflict on Jason, regardless of the suffering she will face in return.

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,

Medea’s strength is portrayed as her madness as she takes control and decides the fate of her enemies. She is a strong character and Euripides allows Medea to have a voice by allowing the audience to witness her break from the norm of what a woman of her time is expected to do. After giving up her family and former life to be with her husband, Jason, he decides to marry a younger princess while still married to Medea. Medea realizes that women are left to face the most miserable situations and says, “We women are the most unfortunate creatures” (229). Jason feels that Medea is to be grateful for what he is doing by marrying into royalty as it will afford all of them a better life. The representation of Medea by Euripides is powerful, manipulative, and extremely smart, yet because she is a woman she has limited social power.

Superficially, Medea is a critique of relations between men and women, the struggle between Jason and Medea; then the struggle between Creon and Medea. However at the deeper level, Medea is a critique of the quality and state of the contemporary culture of Euripides (Arrowsmith 361). The unique symbolism is that

The duty of women portrayed in Greek society is a major subject in Euripides Medea. In old Greek society, ladies are delicate and compliant as per men, and their social position is viewed as exceptionally mediocre. Feminism is the hypothesis of men being viewed different in contrast to women and the male predominance over ladies in the public eye. Women's lives are spoken to by the parts they either pick or have forced on them. This is obvious in the play Medea by Euripides through the characters of Medea and the medical attendant. During the day and age which Medea is set ladies have exceptionally restricted social power and no political power by any stretch of the imagination, despite the fact that a ladies' maternal and residential power was regarded in the protection of the home, "Our lives rely upon how his lordship feels." The constrained power these ladies were given is diverse to present day society yet parts are as yet forced on ladies to acclimate and be a devoted spouse. Ladies have dependably been dis engaged because of their sex in present day and antiquated circumstances alike. In Corinth they are required to run the family unit and fit in with social desires of an obedient spouse. Medea, being an eternal and relative from the divine beings has a specific power in insight and guileful keenness. Being an outsider, Medea's wayward nonsensical conduct was normal in this play as she was not conceived in Greece and was viewed as an exotic foreigner. She goes over to the group of onlookers as an intense female character regarding viciousness. Some of Medea's responses and decisions have all the earmarks of being made a huge deal about as creators for the most part influence characters to appear to be overwhelming; this makes a superior comprehension of the content and the issues which are produced through the characters. Medea's ill-conceived marriage and the double-crossing of Jason drive Medea to outrageous vengeance. Medea acts with her immortal self and confer coldhearted demonstrations of murder instead of legitimize the results of her actions. Medea see's this choice as her lone resort as she has been exiled and has no place to go, "stripped of her place." To make sensitivity for Medea, Euripides

Internal conflicts within Medea shed light on her true character and her difficulties to make decisions. Throughout the play, there are many cases of Medea contemplating her

According to Torrance (2007), In her article, "The Princess's Gruesome Death and Medea 1079" it states that for the past few years, with regards to Medea's role there has been some contrast oh how the role was played. There were some discussions that claim contrast between passion and reason using Platonic Genesis made by Galen. Also another author namely H. Foley emphasized that there was gender conflict. Whether it was gender ideology or Platonic exegesis, it was clear that Euripides wanted to show through his monologue Medea the internal struggles between two forces.

Euripides created a two-headed character in this classical tragedy. Medea begins her marriage as the ideal loving wife who sacrificed much for her husband's safety. At the peak of the reading, she becomes a murderous villain that demands respect and even some sympathy. By the end, the husband and wife are left devoid of love and purpose as the tragedy closes.

In Euripedes’ play Medea, he depicts Medea as a woman who is consumed with vengeance and hatred after being betrayed by her husband Jason. This betrayal sparks a series of “unholy, horrible” murders. Medea’s actions can be justified through justice and revenge. Medea was motivated by Jason’s actions to pursue her own actions against Jason. Medea wanted revenge toward her husband for leaving her after she fully dedicated herself to Jason - and she also wanted to seek justice for the pain that he caused her. However, Medea went too far by killing her two children who were innocent in this matter. Ultimately, Medea’s final deeds are justifiable and outweigh Jason’s betrayal of his family.

Euripides’ Medea is a controversial play which explores the actions of the protagonist as a result of a moral dilemma. Immediately, the audience’s sympathies for Medea are stirred by the Chorus and Nurse who describe Medea’s suffering coupled with betrayal and immoral actions of her former husband Jason. Despite this however, the audience cannot help being disgusted by the extent Medea goes to in order to guarantee the questionable revenge of her traitorous husband. Although it is without a doubt easy to see that the sorceress’ situation is miserable because of the betrayal by Jason, it is nevertheless very difficult for the viewers to forget that she is vindictive and heartless due to the events that occur during the play’s climax.

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, by Euripides is an Ancient Greek tragedy that is purley entirely nourished by passion and Reason which both, isn't more powerful than the other in shaping this primordial Greek cataclysm. In many ways passion early on in the play is feed into the character's reasoning, however in the end, reason plays a more prominent role because of the actions of the characters. Medea is a character who is ruled by her emotions which is driven by Jason's betrayal. Medea's revenge against Jason is in many ways a product of a reason due to Jason’s deception of divine oths. Medea’s passion fuels her reasoning in her contretemps throughout the play.

In Euripides' play the title role and focus of the play is the foreign witch Medea. Treated differently through the play by different people and at different times, she adapts and changes her character, finally triumphing over her hated husband Jason. She can feasibly be seen as a mortal woman, Aristotle's tragic hero figure and even as an exulted goddess.

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.