Euripide Character Analysis

Amongst Euripides' most famous plays, Medea went against the audience's expectations at his time. Indeed, the main character of the play is Medea, a strong independent female who neglected moral and society's expectations of a woman. She was therefore in all ways different to how women were perceived in Ancient Greece. This essay will explore how Euripides' controversial characters demonstrate that his views were ahead of his time.

Ancient Greek society was ahead of its time politically speaking. Indeed they initiated the concept of democracy. Of course, this democracy did not include everyone in Greece; male citizens dominated society and had full legal status. They were divided in three classes depending on wealth. Females on the other

He was considered most socially critical of all Greek tragedians; the writer is now also known to have been “the Ibsen of his days”. The connection with the Norwegian playwright stands on their common interest in describing humanity, their goal was neither to denounce or celebrate it but to represent humans as accurately as possible. This caused both of them criticism because their descriptions went against their contemporary society's views, both playwrights are now considered as ahead of their

In The Trojan women, the playwright depicts women with various personnalities whom show power of will and reflection; these characters go against Ancient Greek society's views on women as people then believed a female's sole purpose was to stay at home and bear children. Furthermore, the criticism of gods in the play, especially by women, certainly shocked audiences at the time because many citizens considered it a great offense to so much as question their power. On the other hand Dionysos in The Bacchae is used to question the limitation between humans and gods. The oppositions in the character's personnality reflect his dual heredity. He also is a victim of xenophobia : neither human nor god, he is rejected by both; born Greek but raised abroad, he does not have a true homeland and is considered a foreigner. Such complexity in a character was also controversial for contemporary society, then the audience was used to easy plots and simple personnalities amongts