Examples Of Provocation In Medea

Provocation, Premeditation, or Complication? Medea is first and foremost a revenge story with a debatable tragic and unnecessary ending: the murder of her children. Medea, being portrayed as a cunning woman who needs retribution after Jason’s betrayal, seems to be “sound of mind” in her decisions leading up to her revenge, but do these decisions make her murders premeditated? Is she actually sound of mind? In a court of law in the 21st century, Medea’s case could be pleaded as not guilty because of the psychological shock she went through leading up to the murders, meaning that her crime would fall under the category of provocation, but this could also be disproved because there are scenes in the play where she artfully plans her revenge.

Just after her banishment, she begins to plan her revenge very clearly to readers as she plainly states, “Now I can hope my enemies will pay the just price.” (668) Medea then explains, in detail, how she will kill the king's daughter by having her children bring her gifts. There is no tone of remorse when Medea speaks of her plan to murder Jason’s new wife. Interestingly though, Medea knows what she is going to do next, murder her children to hurt Jason, is wrong, “But I cry out at what deed I must do next: I will kill my children, my own – no one can rescue them.” (791-793) Her claim, “no one can rescue them” is essential because it could be perceived as Medea herself cannot even save them, and while there is clear premeditation, these statements complicate the conviction of her actions, making them seem more provoked. It’s as if her desire for revenge, provoked by Jason and the King of Corinth, has completely overwhelmed her moral conscious, or as Edith Hall states, in her article Murder and stage history: Medea's State of Mind and Criminal Law, “At the point that she finally makes up her mind to commit child-murder, she notoriously states that although she is well aware that what she is going to do is wrong, her internal organ of passionate emotion, what the Greeks called her thumos, has overwhelmed the conclusions to which her deliberations have (or would) lead her -- that is, her emotion has overwhelmed her reason” (Hall 7). While there is obvious premeditation for the murders of Medea’s children and Jason’s new wife, Medea shows that she has an internal conflict about the decision to kill her children, complicating the idea of premeditation and provocation even