Why Is Medea Unethical

Medea never intends to commit any acts of cruelty until she’s banished which eventually leads to the rising action. The King tells Medea to leave even though she has no plan and no help for her sons. She is pushed further off a cliff with no chance of escape. The moment after she has a last day granted to stay, she starts planning the murder of Jason and his wife. She feels the need to get back at Jason for what he did and any chance of getting back with him is ruined.

Upon first reading this play, emotions of anger, disappointment, and relief swirled to the surface. The fact that Medea was to escape without any consequences angered me so much, but as I thought about it more, my emotions began to shift. It wasn’t as if Medea murdering her children was something she wanted to do. She had to have gone through so much to push her to that point. How can I better justify her actions and relate it to a 21st century audience?

Medea portrays the consequence of a rebellious being’s response to a hostile society through vengeance, passion, and deceitfulness. It also gives the reader a unique perspective on the roles of women that were considered taboo, and still are, at least in the western culture. At the beginning of her relationship with Jason, Medea was strengthen by love to do the unimaginable. Her clever and crafty style were her frequent methods of overcoming obstacles and getting what she wanted. She tricked the daughters of Pelias to boil him alive when he refused to give Jason the throne.

Under Homer’s supposed ‘Hero Ethic’, it can be understood that an individual should support one’s friends and harm one’s enemies. This system leaves little to no room for forgiveness or for mercy. Jason has become her enemy by abandoning Medea and their children. He justifies this by pointing out that he has given her “more than [she] deserve[s]” as Medea now lives in “the center of the world.” However, Medea views him as “A brutal man whom [she] once loved [that] has smashed [her]/in the face so hard [she] wear[s] the face of death.

Modern Day Medea When reading the play Medea one might not think of Stephen King’s novel Carrie. There are however, many similarities between the two stories and the two main characters. Both characters were wronged and humiliated by people close to them. Both characters were also willing to use their supernatural abilities to take revenge on those who had wronged them.

Intro: “It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane” (PHILIP K. DICK, Valis). In present day America laws have been placed that prevent people who are “insane” to be guilty of the crimes they commit. In short, insanity is the state of being seriously mentally ill relating to madness. This is presented in the book Medea written by Euripides through her point of view. In Medea, a surge of insanity purges her after she is betrayed by her husband Jason causing many cruel and harsh actions to follow from her.

Medea was treated unfairly in the patriarchal society that she lived in and due to the circumstances she was forced to abide by, she sought to achieve her own form of justice. Women were mistreated and regarded as inferior to men. In fact, Medea mentioned how women were like foreigners forced to abide by their husband’s laws and remain subservient. Essentially, women were treated as outsiders and were thought to need constant protection from male figures. So, when the King of Corinth kicked her and her children out of Corinth and Jason left them, she wanted revenge since she felt she had been wronged.

Gentlemen of the Jury, before you write Miss Medea off as having been driven insane through grief and loss, some of the facts that have been presented today need to be put in order. First and foremost, homicide has occurred, and it has been done through the hand of the defendant. There is no arguing this fact; multiple witnesses have been brought forth to testify against this woman. These witnesses were present for the planning of all of the murders, and were threatened with death if they breathed a word of it. The only argument that the defense has left is to portray Medea as being insane.

In Euripedes’ Medea, passion is the driving force of all of the actions that occur within the play. By allowing her passion to take over her, Medea does terrible things in order to get revenge on Jason. Medea’s passion ultimately leads her to poisoning the princess and the king, as well as murdering her own two sons. As a result, I believe that self-governance is not effective when one’s passion overpowers one’s reason.

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

In The Medea, Medea definitely breaks out of her traditionally feminine role as mother and wife, killing her children to avenge her desertion at Jason’s hands. In breaking out of her role as a submissive female, Medea challenges the order of Greek society the gods seem to have ordained, committing evil upon evil, ostensibly horrible because she is not obeying the seemingly god-decreed social customs. In The Medea, though, Euripides questions the very order that condemns Medea. Although Medea commits horrendous evils, Euripides casts doubt on the idea that the gods call into place the dominant Greek culture; he asks his audience to question its assumptions about Medea’s revenge. By calling into question the very line to the gods men purportedly

From a young age, society teaches that every cause has an effect, every action a consequence. Children are taught this in many ways, one being how to follow rules. If one doesn’t follow rules, the consequence is a punishment of some sort. In Euripedes’ Greek tragedy, Medea, the main character, Medea, is mourning the loss of her husband who has left her and their two children to marry the princess of Corinth. As one can imagine, Medea is outraged at how Jason has treated their family after all Medea has done for him.

The Medea by Euripides and Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare mark as significant works of the ancient society the two play features aspects that are crucial to the modern society if properly analyzed. In a number of ways each of the authors to the play has illustrated the theme of betrayal each of the main characters and the events that they encounter in their life puts them in a position to betray or be betrayed by others. Elements of betrayal in Medea occur mainly to Jason and Medea based on their relationship as husband and wife. On the other hand, the aspects of betrayal evident in the case of Juliet and Romeo are due to the fact that they are lovers. One of the major similarities between the two plays is that love I the root cause of the theme of betrayal.

Is it possible for one to love and also maintain their reputation at the same time? Throughout The Aeneid, Lanval, Medea, and Othello this question is answered and it is evident that maintaining your reputation and also choosing love is impossible. One must choose between glory and love because they are not compatible. Glory and love are contradictory. If you choose love you lose your reputation, while on the other hand if you value your reputation more than anything you will not have love.