Medea's Trial Persuasive Speech

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.

However, no one in the play except the Nurse thinks for a second that Medea could bring herself to murder her children. Medea even has an internal debate over whether she could bring herself to commit such a crime, showing once again that she is not completely in control of her emotions. In the end, she decides to go through with it rather than leave them “to the mockery of my enemies” (78). In the end, Medea appears in the sky in “a chariot drawn by dragons” (84). She has already killed the boys and she attributes their death to Jason’s “weakness” (86) and his “lustful heart and new marriage” (86). The play ends with Medea disappearing from view with the children.

Medea after being betrayed by her husband Jason, she takes advantage of the sympathy of others to carry out her agenda. As an outsider and “non-Greek” (326), she understands that the people of Corinth do not reserve much sympathy for Medea herself. However, she recognizes there is a possibility that people will take pity on her children, therefore she takes advantage of this knowledge by using the children as bait. Medea persuades Creon and Jason to sympathize with her predicament by acknowledging their decisions and actions, meanwhile using the children as a commoMedea’s

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 order to do so, Medea sends her children with gifts to the daughter of the king, requesting to spare their banishment. When the princess accepts the presents and puts them on, she dies and anyone touching her will perishes, including King Creon, because Medea smears strong poisons on those gifts. Throughout the entire play, Medea uses her children as pawns in her game of revenge. No loving mother would allow her children to handle such dangerous objects and if Medea truly loved her children she wouldn’t

In the beginning on the play it was shown that Medea was so much hurt because of her husband’s second marriage that she wanted to kill her. She also begged to god to have a lightning to split her head but after thinking about the incident with all of her cleverness she thought it will not be worth dying, but making Jason and his newly wedded wife suffer will do her some justice and let her die in peace. She also wants Jason’s wife’s father Creon to suffer as he a banded her from her own country. She changed her plan of suicide to killing Jason’s wife so she can take revenge from both her husband and Jason’s father-in-law. She made a nice plan of giving a dress to newly wedded wife as a gift from her and also tell her to accept her children,

Medea is a tragedy of a woman betrayed by her husband Jason and bent on revenge to the extreme of killing her own sons. Medea as the the main character we see her perspective on the story as to where she is the one being betrayed and view her actions before and following that. Medea feels betrayed by Jason, for him wanting a new woman and she lets the jealousy consume her. Medea bent on revenge so furiously that she will go to no extent to pursue what she feels just. First, she was angry, then cold and conniving.

The plan that Medea has to kill the princess really represents her knowledge and evil mind that is devoted to access revenge on her husband. Medea knew that when someone saw the princess dying, that someone would try to go comfort or help her and that’s exactly what happened. Creon tried to help the princess after she put on the robe and garland, and then they both ended up dying. Medea knew that this would make a statement of her name and would represent her revenge in the best way especially considering Creon underestimated her wisdom and fell for her persuasive words. Just killing the princess and king was not enough though for Medea; she wanted to make sure that Jason didn’t have anyone who loved him, grant him attention, or carry his name, so Medea had to make sure that his last name linage would not continue.

The audience notices that Medea is quiet and wise when planning her revenge when she states that she will “kill in silence, by deceit” (l. 400). This foreshadows the idea of how Medea decides to slaughter her own children with a sword (l. 1371) in order to enjoy “destroy[ing]” Jason leaving him “childless” (ll.1372,-1373). Jason testifies against Medea and the jury decides to charger her for first degree murder since she killed her children with her own bare hands. Jason explains to the jury that Medea is put in exile because of her “own foolish words” which were that “she spoke against the royal family” (ll. 455-460). The Chorus testifies against Medea by repeating one of Medea’s statements in the play which was when “a woman is faced with injustice in the bedroom,” there is no

As a mother, Medea on the surface is not the best, as she eventually kills her children, ignoring their pleas for mercy ("Mother, don't kill us"). However, we must not ignore the heartache and pain that Medea endures in killing them. It takes incredible conviction to carry it out ("parted from you, my life will be all pain and

Hopman analyses the story as a whole, believing that because of Medea’s revenge leaves it to venture into the tragic genre. She goes on to explain why she killed her children and the princess, going into details about the conversation Jason and Medea had after Creon talked to Medea. This source will help explain and prove some background information about the reasons Medea chose to kill the princess and her two children the way she did and why, as she had helped Jason b destroying her life, he, might have felt his ego being hurt, believed he could have done it without her help. This source is a scholarly journal from Northwestern University, leaving very useful credibility information on my writings of the story.

By breaking down this story we can see all the key points, all starting with Jason, on the progress to Medea’s rage and her ultimate sacrifice of her children. From the beginning we she Medea take a strong affection to Jason, a handsome stranger that has arrived to gain the Golden Fleece. Medea makes a deal with Jason to help him get the fleece if he promises to marry her. Jason agrees and uses Medea’s power to get what he wants. Right here is where we first see

She feels that if she left her children with Jason they would not be treated properly and mocked since they are part barbaric. Medea is a woman of pride and does not want to give her enemies a reason to mock or laugh at her in any circumstances (781-782). She would rather not leave them with Jason as she feels he would still have someone around him he loves and she feels like there is no place for barbarian children in the Greek city: “Children, there is none who can give you safety” (793). Since she needs to move quickly to Athens after she commits the murders of the royal house she decides it would be difficult to take them with her as they will slow her down and endanger her escape. For these reasons, Medea sees it fit to best kill her children to get revenge on Jason.

Medea was a troubled soul once Jason left her for a younger princess. When the nurse says “Rulers are fierce in their temperament; somehow, they will not be governed;”, it rings very true of Medea (Puchner 531). Someone so accustomed to getting her way will by no means let anyone, including her beloved Jason, treat her with any disrespect. She not only felt dejected by Jason, but she felt she could do nothing to change her circumstance but take out deadly vengeance against those that committed such a hiatus act towards her. With all things considered, Medea felt Jason took everything from her when he left. Jason became her everything. When she

Soon after this, Medea is able to manipulate Creon as well. When Creon banishes her, she tells him of her great concern for her children and eventually convinces him to allow her to stay in Corinth for one more day. This allows Medea to continue with her plan to take out revenge on Jason. Medea acts and speaks like a Homeric Greek warrior, but tricks Jason by acting submissively like the ideal Greek woman Jason wished her to be. Medea approaches Jason with gifts for his new wife, apologizes, and tells him that she realized he was right. This move allowed Medea to remove all skepticism from Jason's mind, and he willingly took the poisoned dress to his bride. In the course of a few hours, Medea's ultimate manipulation skills enable her to exploit four individuals who are crucial to her murder plot.