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Recommended: Medea's revenge
In “The Crucible”, Arthur Miller presents a city named Salem, with contradicting people. Throughout the story people accuse others of being witches or being involved with witchcraft so they could be hanged. Miller presents the idea that vengeance ruins people’s lives or reputation so that you can get what you want and be satisfied. Some people take revenge to protect themselves; they are scared of what would happen to them but they still do it or in this case, they accuse.
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 the beginning everything was fine Medea and her family were welcomed with open arms but it was until Jason had left them and the house was filled with hatred because Medea was upset that he had left after all that she had done for him. She refused to eat , she stood in her room, cried the days away , sometimes she would call out for her father, her country and her home: all abandoned and betrayed for a man who now abandons her, betrays her honor and her love ( pg 6, line 32-34 ). So now she wants personal revenge to punish him for his actions only to get the delight that revenge brings to herself. Jason left from Medea ‘for a royal bed’ is said by the ( pg, line 22 ) which shows the audience to look at Jason as a selfish man. Medea did
The writer, John R. Schafer, Stated "The more intense the relationship, the more intense the betrayal is. " The quote means that when a relationship gets strong and betrayal happens, The impact on the person who is being betrayed is more degenerative. In Medea, Medea betrays Jason because he cheated on her for Glauce. Medea returns the favor by killing Jason’s sons and taking their corpses with her. “You killed my sons, and now refuse to let me even touch or bury them.”
As the play begins, Medea has stopped eating and spends her days locked within her own house. She can be heard moaning and rambling from within her home. She even wishes she would die, saying things like, “I am miserable, unhappy in my labors! Oh me, I wish I were dead.” As we as, “I wish I could cast off this hateful life and take my rest in death!”
Jason’s new marriage with Glauce plummeted Medea into revengeful and passionate fury. She had given up everything to live with Jason after which he had cheated and tricked her. This makes the readers sympathize with Medea. Jason had spurned the privacy, purity, sanctity of their marriage sphere. In the process of wanting to gain honor, he had backstabbed Medea by demoting her from the status of a legal wife to that of a concubine.
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.
Not only did this hurt Jason, but it also hurt the Corinthian king,his daughter and many more. Medea felt justified in her homicidal acts because she had given up so much to be with Jason. Medea’s nurse explained how the main character abandoned her life for a man she believed she loved, “Sometimes she turns to look away, to call out for her father, her country and home: all abandoned and betrayed for a man who now abandons her, betrays her honor and her love. She has learned the hard way what it is to be an exile to had given up everything” ( lines 29-36.)
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.
However, this was clearly not his intention because he did nothing to prevent his children being kicked out into the wild. Unsurprisingly, Medea became enraged and sought to obtain the justice she was not able to obtain. She wanted to judge Jason based on his inexplicable actions. He abandoned his paternal duties and were willing to start a new life, while she and their children were left to
As is stated throughout the play, “Zeus/[is] the caretaker of oaths for the human race…” (p. 10) which means that it is his job to hurt Jason and those who have broken oaths. Yet, Zeus seems to use Medea as a pawn as well, since he allows her to smite those that have wronged and in return allows her to be saved since it is the least that can be done for someone who has suffered so much at the hands of the gods. When viewing the chariot as remuneration by Zeus, the fact that Aegeus came to Corinth and met Medea at the exact time she needed him can also be viewed as such. As the story goes, Aphrodite charmed Medea into loving Jason, and it is for that reason that she suffered so many hardships.
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.
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.