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. 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
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After doing such a thing she was exiled from her own homeland and while she was escaping with Jason and the Golden Fleece she took severe measures and murdered her brother, cutting him up into little pieces, and throwing those pieces into the sea in order to gain some time to escape successfully. This was a complete and utter betrayal by Medea towards her family and homeland. This was not it, Medea and Jason settled in Lolcos and in Lolcos Medea manipulated the daughter of the king and tricked her into killing her father (the king of Lolcos). The only reason she did this was so that Jason could obtain the throne of Lolcos but both of them were banned from Lolcos too. After this Creon, the king of Corinth, welcomes them into his territory, in Corinth, Creon asks Jason to marry his daughter and Jason accepts, betraying Medea. This is why Medea, according to the Greek gods, was in her right to take such severe consequences upon Jason and in this essay we will analyze Medea’s position and decide upon a conclusion whether her actions are justifiable or
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Show MoreI 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.
Medea knew what she was doing and was aware of her future when she went through with her destructive scheme to take revenge on Jason. Medea left Jason with no one to bury him once he dies, no ancestry because she killed their children and is an outsider due to leaving corinth with no home due to the king and princess
In Antigone and Medea , the women are ruled by their emotions. Due to this, they make impromptu decisions which leave them in a vulnerable state. Medea feels betrayed by Jason, and her heartbroken hearts fills with rage for him. She becomes so irate she makes an deathly decision, “oh, what misery! Cursed sons, and a mother for cursing!
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
“While seeking revenge, dig two graves- one for yourself,” quoted by Douglas Horton. This quote highlights the fact that revenge takes away from the person who seeks it as much, if not more, than the person who did them harm. Medea is entitled to be upset but her quest for revenge leaves her worse than she started. While trying to crumble Jason’s life, Medea ultimately demolishes her own, and she has no one to blame but herself. All throughout Medea by Euripides, Medea tries to get back at her ex-husband and father of her children, Jason, after he left her for a younger woman.
”Medea is portrayed as reacting to Jason’s betrayal by “doing what other heroes before her had done...when confronted with an enemy. She schemes, she tricks, she deceives,” and she seeks revenge on those who have harmed her. Medea enforces this notion that she is merely doing what any self-respecting man, Greek, or Hero would do when she scoffs at Creon's concern over her type, stating: “A woman like me!
The theme of betrayal is well illustrated in this case. Medea grieves the loss of her husband’s love as she opts to marry the Corinthian princess to increase his status and wealth. She feels betrayed as they were already married and had kids. She does not understand Jason who attempts to explain himself claiming that he does not even love Glauce. In addition, Medea feels that all the sacrifices she had made including killing her brother just to be with Jason were all in vain.
Medea kills many people out of revenge including Creon, Glaunce, and her two sons. The ultimate reason behind it was to cause her husband pain for leaving her for another
She is now driven to the madness of these events by thinking to herself what’s the best way to get revenge on her cheating husband. By thinking to herself that getting rid of everything that Jason holds dear to himself, that alone will satisfy her need for revenge and will make her peace with the gods above. For the rest of the events that takes place in Medea’s revenge, this is where I start to disagree with her actions in justifying her shattered heart and the destruction of her sanity. She puts her husband’s mourning over the killing of their children to put her mind at
You’ve been unjust” (lines 557-558). These quotes show Medea’s anger is within reason; however, she may have been too extreme. To get revenge on her horrid husband, she plans to kill Jason’s wife and children. Medea sends poisonous clothes to the potential wife, Glauce. Not only did Glauce die, but her father Creon as well.
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 or Jason: Who is the Real Antagonist? “[Creon] lets me stay one extra day, to make three enemies corpses: ha! Father, daughter, and my husband.” (57) By having Medea commit such despicable and heinous acts in her lust for vengeance, Euripides shows us how committing revenge lowers the person who orchestrates it more than the one who wronged them in the first place.
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.
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
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.