The mental health system in Ireland is severely lacking, and has been for many years. This performance of Medea’s Madness, adapted from Euripides’ Medea, aims to address the troubles that still remain in the mental health system in Ireland today, asking the audience to change the way they think about mental health. The vice-like grip the Catholic Church held over Ireland is finally beginning to loosen, yet it has left dark bruises behind. Ireland. There seems to be an attitude in Ireland that if you don’t talk about a problem, the problem will go away. People are afraid to speak their mind and voice their troubles for fear of being punished. For years the church condemned people who suffered from mental health issues, as well as people who didn’t conform to their ideal social norms. This included women who were seen with any man who wasn’t her husband, women who had children out of wedlock, and women who dared to speak for themselves. Anybody who was seen to be unfit for …show more content…
In one last act of defiance towards the traditional female character Medea commits one act that goes against what society thought in those times as being the only thing that gave a woman any importance. Medea murders her own children, purely to exact revenge on Jason. Jason accuses her of being ‘a monster, not a woman’ (1342), as a woman could never murder her own children. It goes against nature itself as it overthrows the natural link between being a woman and motherhood, which is thought to be the most important role most women will ever take on in their lives. ‘In terms of her actions, she obfuscates the boundary between masculine and feminine, heroic and civic’ (Surviving BA