Medea: The Revengeful
“Let death destroy Jason and Jason’s children! Let the whole ancestry of Jason be destroyed!” (Fredrick, 2015 , p. 18)
Studying the case of Medea, effects of PTSD made her commit Spouse revenge filicide because she wanted to punish her husband, Jason, for betraying her and breaking the oath he took. In his article, Combat Trauma and physiological injury, Brian Lush uses the same method Jonathan Shay used to interpret Achilles’s actions in the Iliad for Medea’s situation. 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. Without her, Jason would have been suffering under the tyranny of his evil uncle Pelias. Without her, Jason would be child free. Without her, he might even be