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Greek mythology influence on literature
Theme of insanity in literature
How medea's madness affects the play
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Attention getter: Faithful: true to one’s word, promises, vows, etc. Background information: The Odyssey written by Homer is about Odysseus’ 10 year journey home after the Trojan War. Along the way Odysseus battles the wrath of the Greek gods. His wife Penelope and his son Telemachus fight off the suitors for Penelope's hand on the throne. Holding them back long enough for Odysseus to return back to Ithaca. As Odysseus loses all his crew throughout the journey, he finally returns home from his long brutal voyage.
In language there is a plurality in the meanings of most words. In order to determine the definition of the word that the author is using, context clues are used. In Euripides’, The Bacchae, and Plato’s The Symposium, the meaning of the words intoxication and madness are played with, giving further meaning to the story and also adding further meaning to the themes in their respective plots. The meanings they use are similar in the fact that they both strengthen a common theme in both texts; the power of the gods. Where they differ is Plato’s interpretation of the word intoxication in the description of Socrates state of mind.
HAEMON “For any man, even if he is wise, there’s nothing shameful in learning many things, staying flexible” (804-806). This advice came to Creon through many characters throughout the play. Had he taken the advice sooner, neither he or his family would have experienced the tragedy that they did. In the Greek play Antigone written by Sophocles, Creon is considered immoral due to his cruel and tyrannical behavior as the King of Thebes, yet despite those actions, the nature of his tragedy causes the reader to sympathize with him, not only because of how he expresses regret and remorse, but also how he acknowledges he was wrong about his initial ways of thinking and was willing to bear the full responsibility for stubbornly deciding things on
She is not blameless, in what she did, but she deserves some sympathy because of how she was immobilized by all the duties thrown on her by her society. Medea voices how she has been suppressed in her society. She notes, “We women are the most unfortunate creatures” (L 231). Medea’s tone throughout her speech is proper, confident, and angry.
This quote represents when Medea killed her children and then refused to let Jason have their bodies for burial. This quote supports the topic sentence by showing how Jason had a relationship with his children until they were killed and how Medea had a relationship with Jason
The legal definition according to the book is “The principal legal doctrine permitting consideration of mental abnormality in assessing criminal liability.” According to google it says it is the state of being seriously mentally ill. One other definition I have heard was from Einstein, and that was that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Insanity refers to the defendant’s mental state at the time the offense was committed. The insanity defense is most often used in cases in which the defendant is charged with a violent felony.
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.
She can’t see the pain she is afflicting on her own life through the filter of anger. By trying to take Jason’s new life away from him, Medea leaves herself with nothing. She has every right to be upset with him for leaving her for another woman but she simply took it too far. “Forgive and forget” is easier said than done but her children could have had a great life.
The theme of betrayal is well illustrated in this case. Medea grieves the loss of her husband’s love as she opts to marry the Corinthian princess to increase his status and wealth. She feels betrayed as they were already married and had kids. She does not understand Jason who attempts to explain himself claiming that he does not even love Glauce. In addition, Medea feels that all the sacrifices she had made including killing her brother just to be with Jason were all in vain.
The events leading up to the play are what had driven her mad. It is a possibility that Medea had always suffered from a mental illness and it was just triggered by something in her life, or she could have developed it as her life began to fall apart. The loss of a family member, being responsible for a death or deaths, and the end of a marriage, all things that the Harvard Health Publications (2009, pg. 31-33) had said could lead to depression. Each of these individual events were traumatic enough as they were.
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!
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
Medea: The Revengeful “Let death destroy Jason and Jason’s children! Let the whole ancestry of Jason be destroyed!” (Fredrick, 2015 , p. 18) Studying the case of Medea, effects of PTSD made her commit Spouse revenge filicide because she wanted to punish her husband, Jason, for betraying her and breaking the oath he took. In his article, Combat Trauma and physiological injury, Brian Lush uses the same method Jonathan Shay used to interpret Achilles’s actions in the Iliad for Medea’s situation.
Women were meant to be submissive and obedient to the dominant figures in society in their eyes, which is why when she acted submissive and feminine, he believed she finally understood his view and gained some sensibility. She told Jason, “Wretched woman (thus I scolded myself), why am I so mad as to hate those that mean me well, to treat as enemies the rulers of this land and my husband, who, in marrying a princess and getting brothers for my children, is only doing what is best for us all?” (Euripides 58). At that point, Medea was discussing in reference his justification for marrying the Princess of Corinth. He claimed that he was marrying her so that he and their children could gain citizenship since currently they were not citizens of Athens and thus, did not receive any benefits or protection.
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.
