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Medea Literary Analysis

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From Innocuous Girl to Fearless Woman: Medea’s Strategy to Navigating a Misogynistic Society

Euripides’ play Medea, which tells the story of Medea, a young girl from a faraway land who lost everything because she sacrificed for a man who eventually left her — same old story. Medea gives modern audiences a peek into the society that Euripides lived Medea Euripides’ Medea exemplifies the ideas of misogyny and discrimination of non-Greeks.

To start, Medea is one of many women in mythology that comes to be victim of a misogynistic society. At first she is depicted as a sweet, innocent young girl who is struggling between choosing to leave with Jason because she is ‘in love with him’, weighing the things she would be giving up all ties to her family and family name. Even though she is intelligent enough to know it is not worth it, the plot is manipulated so that she must succumb to the magic of Eros, demonstrating that as a woman she is has very little autonomy and self-determination. (quote?) This situation is also seen in the myth of Persephone; she is depicted as a young innocent girl swept into marriage against her will. This demonstrates the kind of culture surrounding marriage in that society; young girls must go into marriage, regardless of what they want and are expected to answer to their husband’s beck and call, as their purpose is to create children and please her husband. Medea is a doting wife and she does anything for Jason, including betraying her father, killing
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