Grief In The Medea

Good Grief:

What is the Healthiest Way to Mourn, Charlie Brown?

Death, breakup, failing once again to kick a football—these all have impacts on us that stretch beyond the direct effect on our lives. The way they make us feel, the long-term emotional impact they have on us, can be just as significant as the loss itself. It is, therefore, imperative, to consider what our emotional responses are to such tragedies and whether they are healthy reactions. How can we make sure our grief is good? Euripides’s The Medea addresses this question through its characters’ emotions. Both of the main characters—Medea and Jason—experience tragedy, and they react in similar ways, oscillating between violent anger and languid depression, unable to resolve the

As the play starts, the Nurse tells the audience that Medea constantly “cries aloud … Wasting away every moment of the day in tears” (Euripides, 59). She also “Moans to herself” (60). This is a clear picture of a person in desperation, uncontrollably upset. Nonetheless, fewer than a dozen lines later, we are also told of Medea that “her heart is violent” (60). In tandem with her depression, she also has the fury of revenge inside of her, ready to erupt. Indeed, the Nurse notes this about Medea, saying in regards to her, “Great people’s tempers are terrible, always … Dangerous they shift from mood to mood” (63). The nurse recognizes that in Medea’s grief, she is shifting from a mood of despair to a mood of fury and back

Jason, too, displays this pattern in his mourning over his murdered children. He begins in anger, calling Medea a “woman most utterly loathed” and saying to her, “I wish you dead” (104). He feels anger at the cause of his grief. In the same monologue, however, he switches to sadness, crying, “Oh, my life is over!” (105). Afterwards, in his series of short exchanges with Medea, he again oscillates between anger and sadness. First, he returns to anger against Medea, calling down “curses” upon her. Next, he desires to just leave Medea and “mourn” the children. Afterwards, he calls for a Fury to destroy Medea, telling her, “I hate you” (107-108). Soon, however, he returns once more to sadness, calling himself a “wretch” and saying he misses his children (108). He ends in both anger and depression, calling Medea “this hateful / Woman, this monster” before concluding that he will “lament and cry upon heaven.” This last is a mixture of anger and sorrow, as Jason is both crying out in lamentation and requesting vengeance from the gods against Medea. Thus, Jason, too, repeatedly oscillates in mourning between fierce anger and abject