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Literary Analysis: Medea By Euripides

1497 Words6 Pages

Can the murderess, Medea, be justified for the killing of her own offspring?
Medea is a play written by Euripides in the year 431 B.C. and basically is a tragic Greek mythological play that deals with themes such as love, marriage, betrayal and revenge. Summing it up, this play specifically is about how Medea is sent into exile due to Creon (the king) feeling threatened by her. He is feeling threatened by her because Jason (Medea’s husband) took another bride to bed which happened to be the king’s daughter. 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 …show more content…

After doing such a thing she was exiled from her own homeland and while she was escaping with Jason and the Golden Fleece she took severe measures and murdered her brother, cutting him up into little pieces, and throwing those pieces into the sea in order to gain some time to escape successfully. This was a complete and utter betrayal by Medea towards her family and homeland. This was not it, Medea and Jason settled in Lolcos and in Lolcos Medea manipulated the daughter of the king and tricked her into killing her father (the king of Lolcos). The only reason she did this was so that Jason could obtain the throne of Lolcos but both of them were banned from Lolcos too. After this Creon, the king of Corinth, welcomes them into his territory, in Corinth, Creon asks Jason to marry his daughter and Jason accepts, betraying Medea. This is why Medea, according to the Greek gods, was in her right to take such severe consequences upon Jason and in this essay we will analyze Medea’s position and decide upon a conclusion whether her actions are justifiable or

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