Key Themes Of Medea

I will be offering an analysis of the key themes explored in the play Medea, I will be going in depth on the different themes used throughout the play and give textual evidence, relevant critical material as well as comparing the themes and exploring how they interrelate.

From the get go in the play Medea is in troubled situation, one being her husband, Jason, he has wedded a woman who is named Glauke, the daughter of Creon, who is the King of Corinth. Later on in the play Creon exiles Medea and her children from Corinth, she has two sons. We then go on to find that Medea decides she is the woman to take such exploitation; she plans a bloody vengeance and quickly sets about finding a way to kill them all.

Murdering her own children isn’t easy

Exile in Medea is an impending threat, Medea is reminding us of the circumstances of exile throughout the play. For Medea exile is more than just a physical circumstance, it is also an emotional and spiritual state, the nurse quotes “There is no home. It’s over and done with” also along side Medea’s quote “Oh, my father! Oh, my country! In what dishonour I left you”, this shows us that Medea is lucky that exile is her punishment when it could be a painful death.

My next theme of choice is Revenge as this theme is one of if not the most important one within Medea. The pleasure of getting revenge on someone who has betrayed you in the past or mistreated you is almost self proclaimed as successful in Medea’s eyes. She set’s out a plan and has her focus on nothing else but vengeance, she has so much built up anger that her feeling of love is numbed, it’s almost as if the feeling of hatred has overpowered the feeling of love that she has towards her husband and more importantly her two sons. The leader mentions to Medea “My lady, to kill your own two sons?” and Medea’s cunning response had a huge impact, “it is the supreme way to hurt my