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Character Medea in Euripides
Features of tragic character by euripides medea
Features of tragic character by euripides medea
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Unspectacularly, the Jeffers adaptation of Medea is quite a disappointment painting Medea as an animal with no “reason” or human-like thought in regards to her decisions. “QUOTE”. Consistently compared to animals, Medea rarely gains the respect as the incredibly intelligent human-being that Medea should have. On countless occasions, Medea remains seen as an animal, including, “I shall not die perhaps as a pigeon does. Nor like an innocent lamb, that feels a hand on its head and looks up from the knife to the man’s face and dies – No, like some yellow-eyed beast that has killed its hunters let me lie down” (Jeffers, 28.)
Luis, Happy Sunday, it is my hope that you had an awesome weekend. In my opinion, I think your tentative conclusion is great. You make a strong point , "to appreciate free, one must understand what free really means", I am all ways reminding my children, you must work for what you want and when you do you will appreciate and valve it more. Illegal immigrants is a problem, but they do take the jobs that average Americans will not take . ( farming, housekeeper, and etc)
I want Medea to be justified in her actions, but I want this to be something that could happen to anyone. I don’t want her actions to be considered ‘what women do.’ There is also this theme of feminism and standing up for women in general. She criticizes men while using her wit to maneuver the situation properly. Medea is a cunning woman confined to this world dominated by men.
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 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.
But let me remind you that she had her doubts. She had moments where she stopped, worried that what she was doing was wrong, and then justified it to herself. Not that what she was doing was right, but that it was a necessary wrong. Medea understood what it meant to kill her children at the time they died. She understood that it was wrong, and that she was being judged negatively by the gods.
On the contrary, it rather looks as an argument against them seeing that even animals love and protect their children while these two heartless women did not. In order to understand the connection, let’s strip society of its civilization and human intelligence, and, hence, go back to how animals behave. For example, Cat owners know that in many situations, the mother cat, though very protective of her kittens and hostile towards anyone coming near them, might end up killing and sometimes eating her own kittens. Horrifying as it may sound, this phenomenon is observed in many animals such as lions, bears, rats and many more (Morell, 2014, Para.12). Reasons for such actions vary drastically from wanting to increase reproductive opportunities to reducing the competition for natural resources (Taylor, 2012, Para.3).
Euripides’ Medea, is a play that follows the journey of a young woman seeking vengeance against her husband, well now ex-husband. The steps she takes to get her revenge make Medea seem like a monster. However, her actions and the torments she has endured make it appear as though she may suffer from a mental illness. So the question is, does Medea have some form of mental illness, or was she just enraged by the injustices committed by her “loving” husband? Evidence leans more toward her being mentally unfit than her being a murderer.
Medea was a priestess which made her familiar with the concept of sacrifice. At the point of time when she killed her children, she was not a mother but solely a priestess. This portrays Euripedes’ belief that victims who are betrayed turn against their tormentor and everything related to their tormentor. Even though Medea wins over Jason by filling it with pain and sorrow, she does lose a lot. The phrase “Medea why lie down with death?”
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
Throughout the dramatic play, Medea, the relationships between Medea and the other characters explore the connections between gender and politics. Medea’s first speech to the all female chorus reveals her belief that women were cursed with the most “wretched” existence on Earth. This was a common belief of the time as men were able to freely divorce women without any penalty. However this did not stop Medea from using her gender to her advantage. An example of this is when she uses pathos to appeal to Creon to not exile her.
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.
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 has already lost her husband and her home so this decision is an obvious one for her. She wants to leave everyone in the same misery that she has been experienced and continues to experience. After this, she even plans to murder her own children just to distress Jason further. Medea knows that she will live in regret and misery by doing so, but her need to sadden Jason trumps her own future feelings. The murder of her sons also symbolizes the death of her marriage with Jason.
