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Medea in shakespeare the tempest
Medea and greek tragedy
Medea and greek tragedy
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Medea in shakespeare the tempest
Medea and greek tragedy
Medea and greek tragedy
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
She is the only one that would leave a town with no ruler leaving not just Jason with nothing but Corinth as a whole. Medea left Corinth without a leader and made the people of Corinth see that it was all because of Jason. Medea knew from that start what she was getting herself into and if that meant she loses everything, she was fine with. Medea saw that as a great punishment for Jason due to the pain he caused her.
This is an ironic statement as Medea is actually planning to kill her children, a fact which the audience does not yet know about. Jason uses another form of rhetorical stretching, which includes his plea that leaving his wife and children was a ‘wise move’, and that the decision was made with Medea’s best interests at heart, as much an attempt to convince himself as much as the audience. The chorus is quick to point out that ‘You have betrayed your wife and are acting badly.’ The Nurse is our first instance of anagnorisis during the play. Though an ancient Greek audience would well be in tune with the stories in Greek mythology, the Nurse’s role would still have proved important, as she was a tool Euripides used to transport the audience
In Euripides’ text The Medea, Medea can easily be painted as the villian. She is a woman who killed her own children in an attempt to spite her husband. But, by examining the text, we can see that she deserves some sympathy. She has little to no control over her own life and has to rely on the will of men. And as a foreigner in Corinth abandoned by her husband, she faces even more challenges than the native women of Corinth did.
In Euripides’ play Medea, Jason provides many arguments for why he owes Medea no allegiance or appreciation. The first argument was about how Medea spoke badly of the royal family. “You uttered unholy curses against the royal family” (CMIC 514). Jason doesn’t think Medea deserve appreciation if she keep insulting the royal family. The second argument started when Medea talked about how she saved him during the process of obtaining the golden fleece.
In Medea by Euripides, Medea 's character flaw that ultimately led to her downfall is revenge. Medea 's husband Jason left her to marry a younger, beautiful woman. Medea becomes outraged, and all she thinks about is getting revenge. She kills Glauce, Jason 's new wife, and her father, Creon. She wanted her revenge to be perfect she even killed her own children to get revenge on Jason leaving her.
Therefore, we can see that Medea believes her actions are not only a sacrifice, but also as a form of cleansing, since she can not risk being tainted by the presence of unclean individuals. She specifically refers to Jason’s infidelity. She claims they “died from a disease they caught from their father” (44). Medea compares Jason’s adultery to a malady to prove that killing her children was the medicine needed to cure the sickness. However, the Chorus is not advocating for Medea and infanticide is actually the opposite of what the women are trying to say.
When Medea finds out she and her children are being banished by Corine, she comes up with a plan. Her plan is unusual instead of being rational and deciding how she will move on with her life and how she will provide for her boys, she decides to focus on what is more important to her which is revenge. Medea begs Corinth for one more day in Creon, and he agrees to let her have one more day. With in this one day Medea kills Jason’s loved one she says she does this to hurt him but arguably this hurts her.
Medea’s sacrifice lacks this reciprocity. Immediately before sacrificing her first child, Medea commands “Discedere a me, frater, ultrices deas manesque ad imos ire securas iube” (967-968). That she intends to sacrifice her children without the rightful authority of “ultrices deas” and instead under the supervision of her “frater” – and in some ways his being her sibling makes him an extension of
In Antigone and Medea , the women are ruled by their emotions. Due to this, they make impromptu decisions which leave them in a vulnerable state. Medea feels betrayed by Jason, and her heartbroken hearts fills with rage for him. She becomes so irate she makes an deathly decision, “oh, what misery! Cursed sons, and a mother for cursing!
Medea plots her revenge by murdering the king, the bride and her two children in order to make Jason suffer and take away everything Jason cared about. The Greek gods felt that Medea was in her right and they proved this by allowing and even helping her escape in the end of the play
Her despair and grief intrigued everyone in Corinth which led to the appearance of the chorus. Since Medea is a foreigner in their city, it was easier for them to judge Medea for they do not know her. They thought that Medea’s reaction was too much and since she is a woman, she had no rights to act that way. Medea was too devastated to show up yet she wanted to point out her side. She shared her heart breaking story of how Jason left her and their children for Princess Glauke.
Moving along the selection, she uses manipulation against Creon, Aegeus, and Jason to get what she wants. Moreover, after gaining the trust of each man, we are enlightened with her true, evil intentions. Towards the end of the story, Medea had a small moment where we see her reconsider killing her children. However,
Lush explains “Although Euripides did not cast Medea as a male solider as its protagonist, the play depicts Medea as suffering from the background Trauma, betrayal, isolation and consequent symptoms attributed to combat veterans with lasting psychological injuries” (Lush, 2014, p. 25). Hence using Lush’s view on Medea’s character as a devoted warrior suffering from Traumatic hardships in her experiences with the man she gave everything to, we can understand why she wanted revenge. Medea believes Jason owes her more than just the normal husband-wife obligations a man swears to when marrying a woman; in her view, she helped him be the man that he is and supported him throughout his heroic journey. Without her, Jason would not have succeeded in retrieving the Golden Fleece. Without her, he would not have had his father resurrected.
Medea was treated unfairly in the patriarchal society that she lived in and due to the circumstances she was forced to abide by, she sought to achieve her own form of justice. Women were mistreated and regarded as inferior to men. In fact, Medea mentioned how women were like foreigners forced to abide by their husband’s laws and remain subservient. Essentially, women were treated as outsiders and were thought to need constant protection from male figures. So, when the King of Corinth kicked her and her children out of Corinth and Jason left them, she wanted revenge since she felt she had been wronged.
Medea, the protagonist, is a woman driven by extreme emotions and extreme behaviors. Because of the passionate love she had for Jason, she sacrificed everything .. However, now his betrayal of her transformed the beautiful loving passion to uncontrollable anger, hatred and a desperate desire for revenge. Her violent and temperamental heart, previously devoted to Jason, now moving towards its doom.