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How Is Medea A Sympathetic Character

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Medea

Euripides Medea, is a tale of a women unlike no other. Medea defies the traditional roles of women in ancient Greece. Medea is that of a strong, calculated, mad, and passionate women. Medea upon meeting Jason, believing to live a life happily ever after with him, leaves her family and life behind, carrying their two children migrating to an unknown land. Unknowingly Jason meets another and commits infidelity which sets ablaze everything Medea believed in. Euripides portrayal of Medea persuasively conveys her as a sympathetic character.
Medea becomes the ideal wife for Jason as she leaves her home and family, carries two children, and sacrificed her own life for her love of Jason. Medea’s ideal life comes to an end when Jason leaves for another, a princess none the less. During Medea’s speech to the members of the Chorus announces, “You have this city and your father’s home, enjoyment of life, and the companionship of friends, but, alone and without a city, I am abused by my husband, carried off as plunder from a foreign land, I have no mother, no brother, no relative to offer me a safe haven from this disaster (Medea 255, pg. 700). Medea since Jason’s betrayal, is truly left alone with her two children in an unknown land, no one there to provide care or support. …show more content…

To leave a man, it would bring the greatest shame upon a woman. Medea proclaims, “of all creatures that have life and reason we women are the sorriest lot: first we must at a great expenditure of money buy a husband and even taken on a master over our body: this evil is more galling than the first. Here is our most challenging contest, whether we get a bad man or a good one. Besides, divorce is unsavory for a woman and it is not possible to say no to one’s husband” (Medea 235, pg. 700). Medea is not one to conform to woman roles of her time, she is not submissive nor

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