Tragic Hero In Medea

Both Fifth century B.C. playwright Euripides and Roman poet and dramatist Ovid tell the story of Jason ditching Medea for another woman; however, they do not always share a perspective on the female matron's traits, behavior, and purpose. Euripides portrays a woman who reacts to injustice by beginning a crusade to avenge all who harmed her which she is prepared to see through even if it means resorting to the most contemptible methods. Ovid, on the other hand, tells of a much less extreme figure whose humble goal is only to persuade Jason to return. Despite these differences, both Medeas create trouble by acting with emotions instead of with reason, and as a result, put

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.

Throughout the entirety of the play, Medea, there are multiple victims of other people’s actions as well as their own. This raises the question: out of all the people who suffer in this classic play, ultimately, who is the tragic figure? Although many people have to suffer slow, painful deaths in the play, the answer is narrowed down to the two main survivors: Medea and Jason. While Jason is the victim of his children getting murdered by Medea, the tragic figure still remains Medea due to how she is the one who suffers the most throughout the play because of Jason and societal expectations.

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.

In “Stereotype and Reversal in Euripides’ Medea,” Shirley A. Barlow argues that the protagonist refuses to play the customary role of an ancient Greek woman, except when it benefits her, which shows that Medea is a reversed stereotype (158). This is further shown when the Tutor states, “Take heart! You too, will, journey back with children’s help” (1015). In this circumstance, the Tutor is declaring how the children will be able to help their mother come back home, yet this is an example of dramatic irony because Medea ultimately kills her children at the end for revenge. Euripides uses dramatic irony to convey Medea’s strength and power. The characters mistakenly assume that Medea is weak, yet her will-power and desire for revenge is shown when she kills her sons. Next, Jason is expected to be strong and powerful, yet is weaker than any female. Rabinowitz also speculates that Jason’s role has feminine aspects: “Jason would seem to be the perfect example of a woman with a man” (152). For example, Jason exclaims, “I have come, however, to save my children’s lives, to keep the king’s family from making them pay for the foul murder committed by their mother” (1303-5). Jason hastily runs back to the house to save his children from a masculine

From the beginning of the play the conflict between good and bad where Medea and Jason are concerned has been ambiguous. Both characters have done terrible things in order to attain what they want. Nothing could stand in the way of them including Medea’s father, whom Medea betrayed and to pile on the grieve she kills her brother and drops parts of him into the sea so as to delay her father thereby ensuring that Jason and his Argonauts could fulfil their quest to attain the Golden Fleece. When Jason betrays Medea and walks away from their marriage we immediately identify him as the villain, yet the reader fails to understand that during that time when this play was written it was still socially acceptable for the man to walk away from his marriage provided he gives back the dowry he attained from the wife’s father. In this case Medea did not bring any such items so it was even easier for him to leave her so as to empower himself. It was Medea’s role as a woman belonging to that age to accept Jason’s decision however she feels betrayed that he would break a vow made in front of the gods, and apparently she was not a regular woman even by the standards of that time as she had an intellect that could rival that of scholarly men. So to exact her revenge she destroys everything Jason loves leaving him to regret ever betraying the marriage.

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

Euripides also carefully reveals the elements of Medea's past that demonstrate her readiness to violate solidarity of family ties in order to pursue her intractable will; Jason and Medea's original tryst, for example, required that she kill her own brother, thus choosing marriage ties over blood ties. Secondly, Medea's selfishness provides power to her fatal flaw. Medea's selfishness and lack of humanity is displayed through the act of killing her own two sons. Medea understands that the slaying of her children will make Jason miserable. During this time, the chorus recognizes her self-worship and states, “But can you have the heart to kill your flesh and blood” (Euripides, The Medea, 816)? Medea does not stop to think what pain she may cause to herself by murdering them. She is only concerned about her happiness that will be derived from Jason's grieving. Medea comes to the conclusion that it is worth the suffering just to see her ex-husband unhappy. Medea states, “Yes, for this is the best way to wound my husband” (Euripides, The Medea, 817). This exhibits Medea's selfishness by the slaying of her sons just to cause sorrow to Jason for her own pleasure. Medea's rage also leads to her fatal flaw of excessive passion. Her excessive passion, fed by rage, leads Medea to do uncalled-for acts of violence and murder.

One of his greatest flaws is his oblivion; had he recognized how powerful and passionate Medea was, he would not have abandoned her to begin with. Jason’s epiphany strikes at the

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

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.

The story of Jason and Medea can be read in two works: Euripides’s Medea

The Chorus delivers these final lines of Euripides’s Medea, “…the end men look for cometh not, / And a path is there where no man thought; so hath it fallen here.” (Euripides, 80) This quotation not only signifies the events, which have transpired in the plot of Medea, it also shows the recognition of a very curious aspect of Medea: that the protagonist of the play, Medea, is not the tragic hero. A tragic hero by Aristotelian standards is one who possesses a driving aspect– or hamartia – which causes his or her downfall, who endures a reversal of fortunes leading to immense suffering – called peripeteia, and who undergoes an anagnorisis: a profound change or realization. Medea does not have any of these attributes. Instead, it is

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.

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 '