medea feminism essay

Murderer and Trailblazer: Medea as a Feminist Text by Kyle Kim

Murderer and trailblazer: medea as a feminist text.

Medea possesses qualities that conform to the gender expectations of ancient Greece, but many parts of the play suggest that Medea is a feminist figure who challenges the gender and social norms of her time.

Like many Greek tragedies, Euripides’s Medea explores themes about society and human nature. One of the main themes presented in Medea is the role and condition of women in ancient Greek society. Both of the main characters, Medea and Jason, possess qualities that conform to the gender expectations of ancient Greece, and it would be unsurprising if audiences of this play in ancient times viewed the two characters as traditional portrayals of a woman and a man. However, many parts of the play suggest that Medea is a feminist figure who challenges the gender and social norms of her time, and many aspects of the tragedy revolve around issues of women’s rights and the marginalization of women in society. Careful analysis reveals that Medea is not a stereotypical woman but a woman who understands that there is an imbalance of power between a man and a woman and resists this injustice.

Medea’s monologue to the women of Corinth in the beginning parts of the play is a powerful proclamation of the unjust marginalization of women in society. Still in anguish over Jason’s betrayal of her, Medea cries out, “We women are the most beset by trials of any species that has breath and power of thought.” 1 She publicly states to all of the women in the city that the condition of being a woman is difficult and full of struggles. Medea then goes on to say that the burden of being a woman is not just difficult but also unequal to that of being a man. She presents marriage as an example of the imbalance of power between a man and a woman. Getting married and having a husband is inextricably tied to a woman’s reputation, Medea argues. Therefore, if a husband leaves his wife, Medea states that death is better than living with the repercussions. 2 For men, however, marriage does not bind them in any way. If a man is ever “irked with those he has at home, he goes elsewhere to get relief and ease his state of mind.” 3 When a man leaves his wife, his city, his family, and friends will not desert him and view him as an outcast. On the other hand, a woman who is deserted by her husband is likely to face humiliation and a decrease in status. The story of Jason and Medea is the ultimate example of this inequality between men and women because Jason, after abandoning Medea, does not experience any consequences while Medea is exiled from her city, deserted, and degraded. 4

Medea denounces that women essentially live in a system in which they must get husbands to be reputable and deemed valuable by society, but in exchange must submit to being objectified by their husbands. She states that women are, “obliged to buy a husband at excessive cost, and then accept him as the master of our body.” 5 Her speech of dissent manifests Medea as a woman going against the status quo. That the speech is addressed to the “women of Corinth” also suggests that she is urging the other women to realize their collective plight. 6 Furthermore, Medea pushes against gender norms by challenging the idea that the activities and lives of men are more strenuous and dangerous that that of women’s. She claims that she “would rather join the battle rank of shields three times than undergo birth-labor once,” arguing that the typical duty of men, warfare, are not more arduous or even more dangerous than the typical duty of women, birth-labor. 7 This is yet another example of Medea chipping away at the stereotypical and unfair depictions of women and their experiences in society. Medea’s monologue is powerfully feminist because it clearly identifies the inequality between men and women in society and passionately expresses and decries the lamentation and pain that accompanies the condition of being a woman.

Shortly after Medea’s monologue against the gender norms in society, Creon banishes Medea from Corinth and calls her a “Grim scowling scourge against your husband.” 8 Creon then goes on to say, “I am afraid of you” to Medea. 9 The moment when Creon, a man of authority, banishes Medea, a woman who publicly denounced gender inequality, seems emblematic of a man being fearful of a woman who goes against the status quo. Creon getting rid of Medea is an instance of the powerful suppressing dissent in order to maintain the existing power structure. In this sense, Medea’s experiences of state oppression after being abandoned by her husband, not only presents the marginalization of women, but also suggests that the gender norms of society are systematically maintained. Women cannot break out of the manmade mold of what a proper woman should be without fear of being ostracized or discarded by society and the powerful.

The dialogue between Medea and Jason is significant in that it shows the obliviousness of men to the plight of women. Jason criticizes Medea for her “fiery temper” and says that her anger and emotions were what brought upon her banishment. 10 He then justifies his betrayal of Medea by saying,

My motive is the highest of priorities: that is for us to live a prosperous life, and not run a mile from those who are impoverished. I wish to raise my children as befits my noble house, and father brothers for these sons I’ve had by you; to put them on a part to unify the line, and so achieve a happy life. 11

Jason’s justification for his actions is that he did what was best for everyone. By abandoning Medea and marrying into a noble house, Jason argues that their children will be able to live comfortable lives. His argument, however, is completely ignorant of the experience of Medea as a woman losing her husband. Jason, as a man, doesn’t realize that Medea’s life, reputation, and status in society were decimated due to him abandoning her because he didn’t face any of the same repercussions. He believes that Medea is angry at him merely because of the loss of a bedmate and finds this disgusting saying,

You women go so far to believe, as long as your sex life goes well, then everything is fine; but then if some misfortune strikes the realm of bed, you  count what’s best and finest as your deepest hate. I say it should have been a possibility for mankind to engender children from some other source, and for the female sex not to exist. That way there’d be no troubles spoiling human life. 12

Jason’s male privilege blinds him to the gender inequality that exists in society. He cannot comprehend that Medea’s anger derives from the loss of status, value, and dignity as a human being and reduces her emotions to an issue of sex, thereby falling victim to the stereotype of women being innately immoral creatures. This dialogue between Jason and Medea suggests that inequality that is deeply embedded in a society and culture is difficult to recognize because it is presented as the norm. Moreover, it signifies that the group who benefits from an imbalance of power cannot truly understand the struggles and plight of the marginalized.

Euripides ends Medea by employing a deus ex machina in which Helios, Medea’s grandfather, sends her a flying chariot which she takes, with the bodies of her dead children, to Athens. This ending provides a clear resolution to the tragedy. Whether or not the chariot signifies that the gods have sided with Medea, the condition of Medea in comparison to that of Jason at the end of the play seems to indicate the moral of the story. Jason, after abandoning Medea, loses everything. His newly wed wife and his children are dead. And he’s left in a state of utter despair. He, in the end, has to face the consequences of his actions. Medea, unlike Jason, is given a vehicle to flee from any consequences that may arise from her actions. Although she also suffers from the loss of her children, she was able to achieve the justice that she thought was proper. She was able to punish Jason for his actions even when society refused to. And before flying away, Medea says to Jason, “You can’t have thought that you could spurn my marriage bed and then proceed to live a life of pleasure, reveling in mockery of me?” 13 Medea represents the inevitable implosion of society when a group of people are oppressed and made subservient. She is the personification of the collective anger and pain of women living in a man’s society. The violence and the chaos she creates is symbolic of the unleashing of the pent-up rage of women that has built up in society for generations.

• Euripides, Medea , Euripides 1 , edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, translated by Oliver Taplin (University of Chicago, 2013), 230-231.
• Euripides, Medea ,  243.
• Euripides, Medea , 243-245.
• Euripides, Medea , 255.
• Euripides, Medea , 234.
• Euripides, Medea , 214.
• Euripides, Medea , 250-253.
• Euripides, Medea , 271.
• Euripides, Medea , 282.
• Euripides, Medea , 447.
• Euripides, Medea , 558-565.
• Euripides, Medea , 569-575.
• Euripides, Medea , 1356.

Kyle Kim (BA ’21) originally wrote “Murderer and Trailblazer: Medea as a Feminist Text” in Bella Mirabella’s Fall 2020 Interdisciplinary Seminar “ Tragic Visions .”

Thumbnail image: Mrs. Yates in the Characer of Medea (1771) by William Dickinson, Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of Euripides’ Medea

Analysis of Euripides’ Medea

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 13, 2020 • ( 0 )

When Medea, commonly regarded as Euripides’ masterpiece, was first per-formed at Athens’s Great Dionysia, Euripides was awarded the third (and last) prize, behind Sophocles and Euphorion. It is not difficult to understand why. Euripides violates its audience’s most cherished gender and moral illusions, while shocking with the unimaginable. Arguably for the first time in Western drama a woman fully commanded the stage from beginning to end, orchestrating the play’s terrifying actions. Defying accepted gender assumptions that prescribed passive and subordinate roles for women, Medea combines the steely determination and wrath of Achilles with the wiles of Odysseus. The first Athenian audience had never seen Medea’s like before, at least not in the heroic terms Euripides treats her. After Jason has cast off Medea—his wife, the mother of his children, and the woman who helped him to secure the Golden Fleece and eliminate the usurper of Jason’s throne at Iolcus—in order to marry the daughter of King Creon of Corinth, Medea responds to his betrayal by destroying all of Jason’s prospects as a husband, father, and presumptive heir to a powerful throne. She causes a horrible death of Jason’s intended, Glauce, and Creon, who tries in vain to save his daughter. Most shocking of all, and possibly Euripides’ singular innovation to the legend, Medea murders her two sons, allowing her vengeful passion to trump and cancel her maternal affections. Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’s Oresteia conspires to murder her husband as well, but she is in turn executed by her son, Orestes, whose punishment is divinely and civilly sanctioned by the trilogy’s conclusion. Medea, by contrast, adds infanticide to her crimes but still escapes Jason’s vengeance or Corinthian justice on a flying chariot sent by the god Helios to assist her. Medea, triumphant after the carnage she has perpetrated, seemingly evades the moral consequences of her actions and is shown by Euripides apotheosized as a divinely sanctioned, supreme force. The play simultaneously and paradoxically presents Medea’s claim on the audience’s sympathy as a woman betrayed, as a victim of male oppression and her own divided nature, and as a monster and a warning. Medea frightens as a female violator and overreacher who lets her passion overthrow her reason, whose love is so massive and all-consuming that it is transformed into self-destructive and boundless hatred. It is little wonder that Euripides’ defiance of virtually every dramatic and gender assumption of his time caused his tragedy to fail with his first critics. The complexity and contradictions of Medea still resonate with audiences, while the play continues to unsettle and challenge. Medea, with literature’s most titanic female protagonist, remains one of drama’s most daring assaults on an audience’s moral sensibility and conception of the world.

Euripides is ancient Greek drama’s great iconoclast, the shatterer of consoling illusions. With Euripides, the youngest of the three great Athenian tragedians of the fifth century b.c., Attic drama takes on a disturbingly recognizable modern tone. Regarded by Aristotle as “the most tragic of the poets,” Euripides provided deeply spiritual, moral, and psychological explorations of exceptional and domestic life at a time when Athenian confidence and certainty were moving toward breakup. Mirroring this gathering doubt and anxiety, Euripides reflects the various intellectual, cultural, and moral controversies of his day. It is not too far-fetched to suggest that the world after Athens’s golden age in the fifth century became Euripidean, as did the drama that responded to it. In several senses, therefore, it is Euripides whom Western drama can claim as its central progenitor.

Euripides wrote 92 plays, of which 18 have survived, by far the largest number of works by the great Greek playwrights and a testimony both to the accidents of literary survival and of his high regard by following generations. An iconoclast in his life and his art, Euripides set the prototype for the modern alienated artist in opposition. By contrast to Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides played no public role in the life of his times. An intellectual and artist who wrote in isolation (tradition says in a cave in his native Salamis), his plays won the first prize at Athens’s annual Great Dionysia only four times, and his critics, particularly Aristophanes, took on Euripides as a frequent tar-get. Aristophanes charged him with persuading his countrymen that the gods did not exist, with debunking the heroic, and with teaching moral degeneration that transformed Athenians into “marketplace loungers, tricksters, and scoundrels.” Euripides’ immense reputation and influence came for the most part only after his death, when the themes and innovations he pioneered were better appreciated and his plays eclipsed in popularity those of all of the other great Athenian playwrights.

Critic Eric Havelock has summarized the Euripidean dramatic revolution as “putting on stage rooms never seen before.” Instead of a palace’s throne room, Euripides takes his audience into the living room and presents the con-fl icts and crises of characters who resemble not the heroic paragons of Aeschylus and Sophocles but the audience themselves—mixed, fallible, contradictory, and vulnerable. As Aristophanes accurately points out, Euripides brought to the stage “familiar affairs” and “household things.” Euripides opened up drama for the exploration of central human and social questions embedded in ordinary life and human nature. The essential component of all Euripides’ plays is a challenging reexamination of orthodoxy and conventional beliefs. If the ways of humans are hard to fathom in Aeschylus and Sophocles, at least the design and purpose of the cosmos are assured, if not always accepted. For Euripides, the ability of the gods and the cosmos to provide certainty and order is as doubtful as an individual’s preference for the good. In Euripides’ cosmogony, the gods resemble those of Homer’s, full of pride, passion, vindictiveness, and irrational characteristics that pattern the world of humans. Divine will and order are most often in Euripides’ dramas replaced by a random fate, and the tragic hero is offered little consolation as the victim of forces that are beyond his or her control. Justice is shown as either illusory or a delusion, and the myths are brought down to the level of the familiar and the recognizable. Euripides has been described as drama’s first great realist, the playwright who relocated tragic action to everyday life and portrayed gods and heroes with recognizable human and psychological traits. Aristotle related in the Poetics that “Sophocles said he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were.” Because Euripides’ characters offer us so many contrary aspects and are driven by both the rational and the irrational, the playwright earns the distinction of being considered the first great psychological artist in the modern sense, due to his awareness of the complex motives and ambiguities that make up human identity and determine behavior.

Tragedy: An Introduction

Euripides is also one of the first playwrights to feature heroic women at the center of the action. Medea dominates the stage as no woman character had ever done before. The play opens with Medea’s nurse confirming how much Medea is suffering from Jason’s betrayal and the tutor of Medea’s children revealing that Creon plans to banish Medea and her two sons from Corinth. Medea’s first words are an offstage scream and curse as she hears the news of Creon’s judgment. The Nurse’s sympathetic reaction to Medea’s misery sounds the play’s dominant theme of the danger of passion overwhelming reason, judgment, and balance, particularly in a woman like Medea, unschooled in suffering and used to commanding rather than being commanded. Better, says the Nurse, to have no part of greatness or glory: “The middle way, neither high nor low is best. . . . Good never comes from overreaching.” Medea then takes the stage to win the sympathy of the Chorus, made up of Corinthian women. Her opening speech has been described as one of literature’s earliest feminist manifestos, in which she declares, “Of all creatures on earth, we women are the most wretched,” and goes on to attack dowries that purchase husbands in exchange for giving men ownership of women’s bodies and fate, arranged marriages, and the double standard:

When a man grows tired of his wife and home, He is free to look about for someone new. We wives are forced to count on just one man. They say, we live safe at home while men go to battle. I’d rather stand three times in the front line than bear one child!

Medea wins the Chorus’s complicit silence on her intended intrigue to avenge herself on Jason and their initial sympathy as an aggrieved woman. She next confronts Creon to persuade him to postpone his banishment order for one day so she can arrange a destination and some support for her children. Medea’s servility and deference to Creon and the sentimental appeal she mounts on behalf of her children gain his concession. After he departs, Medea reveals her deception of and contempt for Creon, announcing that her vengeance plot now extends beyond Jason to include both Creon and his daughter.

There follows the first of three confrontational scenes between Medea and Jason, the dramatic core of the play. Euripides presents Jason as a selfsatisfied rationalist, smoothly and complacently justifying the violations of his love and obligation to Medea as sensible, accepted expedience. Jason asserts that his self-interest and ambition for wealth and power are superior claims over his affection, loyalty, and duty to the woman who has betrayed her parents, murdered her brother, exiled herself from her home, and conspired for his sake. Medea rages ineffectually in response, while attempting unsuccessfully to reach Jason’s heart and break through an egotism that shows him incapable of understanding or empathy. As critic G. Norwood has observed, “Jason is a superb study—a compound of brilliant manners, stupidity, and cynicism.” In the drama’s debate between Medea and Jason, the play brilliantly sets in conflict essential polarities in the human condition, between male/female, husband/wife, reason/passion, and head/heart.

Before the second round with Jason, Medea encounters Aegeus, king of Athens, who is in search of a cure for his childlessness. Medea agrees to use her powers as a sorceress to help him in exchange for refuge in Athens. Aristotle criticized this scene as extraneous, but a case can be made that Aegeus’s despair over his lack of children gives Medea the idea that Jason’s ultimate destruction would be to leave him similarly childless. The evolving scheme to eliminate Jason’s intended bride and offspring sets the context for Medea’s second meeting with Jason in which she feigns acquiescence to Jason’s decision and proposes that he should keep their children with him. Jason agrees to seek Glauce’s approval for Medea’s apparent selfsacrificing generosity, and the children depart with him, carrying a poisoned wedding gift to Glauce.

First using her children as an instrument of her revenge, Medea will next manage to convince herself in the internal struggle that leads to the play’s climax that her love for her children must give way to her vengeance, that maternal affection and reason are no match for her irrational hatred. After the Tutor returns with the children and a messenger reports the horrible deaths of Glauce and Creon, Medea resolves her conflict between her love for her children and her hatred for Jason in what scholar John Ferguson has called “possibly the finest speech in all Greek tragedy.” Medea concludes her self-assessment by stating, “I know the evil that I do, but my fury is stronger than my will. Passion is the curse of man.” It is the struggle within Medea’s soul, which Euripides so powerfully dramatizes, between her all-consuming vengeance and her reason and better nature that gives her villainy such tragic status. Her children’s offstage screams finally echo Medea’s own opening agony. On stage the Chorus tries to comprehend such an unnatural crime as matricide through precedent and concludes: “What can be strange or terrible after this?” Jason arrives too late to rescue his children from the “vile murderess,” only to find Medea beyond his reach in a chariot drawn by dragons with the lifeless bodies of his sons beside her. The roles of Jason and Medea from their first encounter are here dramatically reversed: Medea is now triumphant, refusing Jason any comfort or concession, and Jason ineffectually rages and curses the gods for his destruction, now feeling the pain of losing everything he most desired, as he had earlier inflicted on Medea. “Call me lioness or Scylla, as you will,” Medea calls down to Jason, “. . . as long as I have reached your vitals.”

Medea’s titanic passions have made her simultaneously subhuman in her pitiless cruelty and superhuman in her willful, limitless strength and determination. The final scene of her escape in her god-sent flying chariot, perhaps the most famous and controversial use of the deus ex machina in drama, ultimately makes a grand theatrical, psychological, and shattering ideological point. Medea has destroyed all in her path, including her human self, to satisfy her passion, becoming at the play’s end, neither a hero nor a villain but a fear-some force of nature: irrational, impersonal, destructive power that sweeps aside human aspirations, affections, and the consoling illusions of mercy and order in the universe.

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Medea: Feminism in a Man's World Amanda Cook

Although Euripides was known for his propensity to challenge tradition and complacency, his Medea was quite controversial when it was introduced in 431 B.C. in Classical Greece (ca. 479-323 B.C. ). Athenian society, a man's world by organization, had no place for women outside of the home. When a girl was young, she was ruled over by her father, and after he chose whom she would marry, her new master was her husband, and she "received much male advice on the subject of staying home and being quiet" (Bowra 85). Women basically shared an equal status with slaves in Athenian society, having no privileges and certainly no power other than that power held within the home over servants. The culture expected women to display great virtue and to fully submit to their husbands. Not only is Medea a woman, she is also a foreigner, placing her at an even lower status. Nevertheless, she exercises power over her husband as well as every other character whether female or male, and she does so using extreme violence. Written in what certainly could be called a male-dominated society and time, Euripides' Medea is a feminist piece and Euripides' himself, traditionally believed to be a misogynist, is quite the opposite.

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13. Medea Variations: Feminism and Revenge

• Published: September 1997
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Medea is examined once again, described as intelligent, beautiful, honorable, yet jealous and spiteful. She is the perfect example of a woman scorned yet she does not simply ignore it. She defines the rage and strength of a woman, traits that were once suppressed and muted. Though first unseen by authors, Medea became a symbol of feminism that carried on for years in drama. Criminologists have stated that a number of crimes were attributed to women, implicating that women are not simply the weaker sex. More often than not, it is her broken and damaged relationship with her partner that provoked her to violent acts, an anger that cannot be silenced. A more important trigger was her parental instincts, as she would risk her own life for the sake of her children.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Medea — The Female Discourse and Patriarchal World of Medea

The Female Discourse and Patriarchal World of Medea

• Categories: Medea

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Words: 2351 |

12 min read

Published: Jun 29, 2018

Words: 2351 | Pages: 5 | 12 min read

Works Cited

• Bates, William Nickerson. "Euripides: A Student of Human Nature." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: GALE, 1998.
• Bowra, C.M. & The Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS. Classical Greece. New York: Time Incorporated, 1965.
• Durant, Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.
• Euripides. "Medea." Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: Norton, 1997. 435-465.
• Flaceliere, Robert. Daily Life in Greece at the Time of Pericles. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
• Lauter, Paul. "Flannery O'Connor." Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 2112-2113.
• Mack, Maynard. "Euripides." Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: Norton, 1997. 433-434.
• Marowski, Daniel G. "Medea." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: GALE, 1998.
• Rosenmeyer, Thomas G. "The Masks of Tragedy: Essays on Six Greek Dramas." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: GALE, 1998.

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Medea Feminist Essay

Euripides's Medea seen through a feminist lens Euripides's play, Medea, is ideologically conflicted meaning that there are some feminist ideas present while also reinforcing patriarchal ideology in parts of the play. The play is reinforcing patriarchal ideology slightly more than it is undermining it. Medea is shown to be a strong and independent woman who does what she wants and doesn't let anything stand in her way. She is shown to be feeling angry and acting hysterically throughout the play and her behavior is irrational. Euripides also portrays her like a 'bad girl' stereotype that is talked about in the feminism criticism handout. Medea shares qualities from a traditional male as well as a traditional female. She is strong and decisive which are said to be male traits in a patriarchal society and she is also emotional like a woman was said to be. Patriarchal ideology is a society that favors men over women. There is inequality between them and it makes life for women very difficult. Women who live like this aren't able to get jobs or vote or even be seen doing something that was said to be manly. They wouldn't be able to be strong and independent and would also be seen as having a bad life if she didn't have a husband for her to praise. Men wouldn't be able to do anything that is said to be girly either. He wouldn't be able to cry, show emotion or act too caring towards people. Life would have many restrictions and women would have to fight for their rights to be able to do things like men can. In the play patriarchal ideology is reinforced because it shows Medea as being a hysterical woman. It shows Jason as being a strong man who is supposedly trying to protect his family and keep them safe. Medea is shown to be emotionally unstable which is supporting the idea that this is a trait of a woman. It shows them in a bad sense. She could even be seen as going crazy due to her behavior that is represented throughout the play. When she finds out that her husband, Jason has left her she starts to scare the people around her, making them think that she may be destructive. At the very beginning of the play the nurse describes how her emotion overcomes her. " She hates her children, does not enjoy seeing them. I'm afraid she may be planning something rash. Her mind is dangerous. " (Euripides 37) This description is displaying Medea's hate and how she is so angry that she is not thinking straight. Medea couldn't even look at her children and think kind thoughts about them because they reminded her of Jason who had dishonored her. She was extremely offended by Jason and was trying to ask the gods for help to rid her of the suffering. Medea was explaining to the chorus which is full of women, that men treat women so badly; with no respect and was trying to show them that she was even worse off than them because her husband had just left her. She wanted their sympathy and got it by being hysterical and practically going crazy over the matter. All this rash, unwanted behavior portrayed Medea as being stereotypically a 'bad girl' who is said to be violent, aggressive, worldly and monstrous. Medea was shown having these qualities and didn't accept her traditional gender role. The feminism criticism handout explains how Jason probably sees her. Jason probably thought that Medea wasn't good enough and that he deserved someone better that was more of a 'good girl' who obeys patriarchal rules of society. Jason was shown to be rational and his choice to leave Medea was quite smart. After seeing her horrible actions the identity of a traditional woman in Medea was definitely gone. Although there were many patriarchal ideas in the play; feminist ideas are presented too. By showing Medea to be an independent woman who is resolving her problems you can see that gender roles are switching a little and that women are becoming more equal to men. Patriarchal ideology is undermined when Medea acts very strongly. She kills her children and she doesn't let her love for them get in the way. Even though this was a kind of stupid thing to do because it made her sad, she could at least act tough and not let her hysterical emotion overcome her and make her back out of what she had set out to do. During this time she is decisive and stands up for herself being very courageous. It was basically revenge on Jason for leaving her and she wanted to make him suffer horribly. She has a very interesting idea that is very clever too. When she sends gifts to Jason's new wife, the princess, and secretly poisons them so the princess will die when she first puts them on, she is being very sneaking and also brave because this is a huge crime that she is committing and making her help her in her evil is just truly daring. It was a very effective

Related Papers

Luke Willson

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This paper explores Seneca’s representation of Medea both in relation to Euripides’ re-shaping of Greek myth and as an expression of Roman cultural differences. Euripides masculinizes Medea, having her break several gender boundaries in order to achieve her goals. I argue that this created an adverse effect on her character’s reception in Roman culture and influenced a more vilified character of Medea found in Seneca’s Medea. By focusing on Medea’s representation, specifically through her masculinization, I show how her character directly contrasts with Roman values which ultimately reduces her character from a conflicted heroine into an oversimplified villain. Medea may be seen as an extreme example of Roman views on threats posed by powerful women. The representation of Medea and how each playwright depicts her, either masculinizing or vilifying her, have parallel examples in contemporary issues, from depictions of powerful women and even to how women feel they need to present themselves. My final point is how a complex female figure, such as Medea, can serve as a model into Roman attitudes towards powerful women but also as a parallel model to view the treatments of powerful women within our current society.

Jean Santilli

Some say that Medea is a heroine in the battle against Patriarchy. We will see that she is not. As a matter of fact, the title of this article is not “Medea versus the Macho Man”. A subliminal poison of our societies was produced by a socio-historical event told by mythological tales. We all know that mythologies tell tales of events that never occurred anywhere, yet happen every day everywhere. But it is necessary to decipher them, in order to be aware of the peril. That double origin – historical and mythological – is described in an essay written as a travel log: Our Lady Goddess & The Femicide of the Heroes. It is available in three languages on this page at Academia.edu. Here on the other hand, we will unveil a “systemic” problem; the “linear” approach with which it is addressed in society and tribunals makes it worse. We will propose a “systemic” approach; it is more useful, above all for the main victims of Medea & Macho: their children.

In Euripides’ Medea, Medea’s hesitation to kill her children in her deliberative monologue is startling in its new concern for a mother’s love for her children. This paper examines how motherhood is constructed in the tragedy up to the monologue. I argue that Jason and Medea both see motherhood primarily as a familial role, albeit a role with different emphases. The Nurse, in contrast, has a primarily affective view of the mother-child relationship. The monologue brings these two views into conflict.

Affonso kristeva

Although students and scholars alike know well that ancient Greece was immensely misogynist and patriarchal, nevertheless, there have been numerous attempts to retrieve voices from the classical world at least empathetic to the plight of women. Frequently these attempts turned out to be abject failures. However, many continue to peruse the Greek literary tradition, and archaeological remains for non-misogynist voices. Euripides, at least within reasonably recent history, is for many just such a voice. Medea is one of the first feminist characters in Western literature, which involves the recognition of a significant cultural shift. Euripides&#39;&lt;i&gt; Medea&lt;/i&gt; indeed questions contemporary beliefs and standards in ancient Greek society, substantially those of the heroic masculine ethic. Still, it did so at the expense of women, not in their support. Through this paper, I would like to show the depiction of the women situation in ancient Greek and how Medea, as a female pr...

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Medea in Euripides’ Medea murders her two sons to take revenge on her husband Jason who has married the Corinthian princess Glauce for royal power. However, little attention has been paid towards the cause behind the killing of her sons. This paper will examine the marital relationship between Medea and Jason from the perspective of the colonizer and the colonized and it will show Medea as the victim colonized who kills her brother and leaves her native land Colchis to marry Jason. Jason is presented as the oppressor colonizer who betrays Medea without whom he could have never achieved the Golden Fleece. The terms colonizer and colonized which are at the heart of the postcolonial theory are hardly applied with the play Medea. Therefore, analyzing this topic from the present day postcolonial theory adds a new perspective to this Greek play.

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Feminism in Medea

‘It is the best for all tame animals to be ruled by human beings. For this is how they are kept alive. In the same way, the relationship between the male and the female is by nature such that the male is higher, the female lower, that the male rules and the female is ruled.’ Aristotle, Politica, ed. Loeb Classical Library, 1254 b 10-14.

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Medea: Feminism or misogyny?

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The Evolution of Feminism in Euripides’ Medea

How it works

The dictionary defines feminism as “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” Many would argue that Euripides’ Medea is an early representation of feminism. While this is true, as evident by Medea’s independence and quest for equality, Medea does not exhibit feminist qualities until her first exchange with the women of the chorus. Many believe that Medea’s bold decision to abandon her fatherland and fight with Jason shows that she is a feminist; however, the betrayal of her family just to be with a man demonstrates that Medea is more interested in having a husband than being an independent woman.

When Medea loses Jason, she experiences grief that turns into rage, which sparks the feminism that motivates Medea to seek justice. Medea’s exchange with the Chorus exhibits her transformation into an early feminist as she uses sympathy, gender inequality, and a quest for justice to persuade the women of the chorus to take her side.

In order to gain the chorus’s trust, Medea lures them in with the woes of her life and future in order to earn their sympathy. Pity is a powerful thing; it can cloud people’s judgment and leave them vulnerable to manipulation. Medea uses this knowledge as a tool to prompt the chorus to feel sorry for her. Medea first exclaims, “Unexpected trouble/ has crushed my soul. It’s over now; I take/ no joy in my life” (Euripides 226-228). This dramatic testament of unexpected betrayal leaves her miserable and unhappy, allowing Medea to make the chorus feel her pain and thereby drawing them into her plight.

Medea wants them to understand that her life has become worthless; she wants them to know what a struggle each day has become and even goes as far as to proclaim “my friends, I want to die” (Euripides 228). Medea fills the chorus with sadness for her, gaining their sympathy as well as their trust. She shows the Chorus that she trusts them enough to confide in them about her thoughts of suicide, but she also wants them to know how isolated she feels and that she may be better off dead. This tactic of both pushing them away and drawing them in gives Medea the upper hand over Jason with the Chorus, as they now feel bad for her and blame Jason. With the Chorus’s full attention and fear for her life, Medea can begin to fully sway them to her side by complaining about gender-based double standards to spark hatred within the chorus.

Medea begins to exhibit true feminist qualities when she uses gender inequality to encourage anger within the chorus, thereby further persuading them to take her side. The all-female chorus is predisposed to take Medea’s side, making it easy for Medea to stress Jason’s betrayal and hard for the chorus to defend him. This opening allows her to launch into a critique of marriage. Medea starts by reminding the chorus of how awful finding a husband can be. Medea complains, “First of all, we have to buy a husband:/ spend vast amounts of money just to get/ a master for our body—to add insult to injury” (Euripides 233-236). This is a frustrating reminder that women cannot escape married life and even when they do decide to enter it, they are not in control of anything, not even their own bodies.

This alone is aggravating enough to bring Jason down to the lowest respect of the chorus because Medea’s marriage to Jason can be directly related to the general idea of marriage that Medea has just described. However, Medea doesn’t stop there; she quashes any doubt of injustice when she points out that “if a woman leaves her husband, then she loses her virtuous reputation. To refuse him is just not possible” (Euripides 238-240). The word ‘refuse’ emphasizes the double standard of virtue between men and women. A man’s virtue is almost always positive. Everything a man does is out of courage and selflessness. On the other hand, a woman’s virtue is only honored if she is obedient and compliant. If a woman does anything out of emotion or desire, her virtue becomes immediately obsolete.

Medea obeyed Jason and betrayed her own family out of love for him because if she didn’t, she would lose everything. But as it turned out, she lost everything anyway because “a man, when he gets fed up with the people at home, can go elsewhere to ease his heart” (Euripides 247-248). Jason left and, without a husband, Medea is nothing. This is another double standard Medea brings to light. Because he is a man, Jason is free to do what he wants and go where he pleases, and no one questions him. In contrast, society does not justify Medea’s anger and misery and even exiles her because of those feelings. In light of such double standards, Medea embraces a kind of feminism. She describes total gender inequality and professes that it is not fair. Now that she has educated the chorus about gender inequality, Medea is ready to tell them what she is going to do about it.

Medea shows the Chorus that marriage is a bad deal for women and especially for her, and now she must test their loyalty by requesting their silence. Medea does not have a fully formed plan yet, but she knows she wants to take action. So she asks the Chorus: “if [she] should find some way, some strategy to pay [her] husband back, bring him to justice, keep silent” (Euripides 265-267). Medea does not have anything worked out for her revenge, but she wants the Chorus to understand that she deserves to seek payback. Furthermore, she does not use the word ‘revenge’, rather she uses ‘justice’. This simple substitution makes her plan less an act of emotional rage and more a quest for justice and gender equality.

The battle for justice is much more respectable than the battle for revenge. Medea knows this and evidently, she also convinces the chorus. After hearing everything Medea has to say, the chorus responds, “I’ll do as you ask. You’re justified, Medea, in paying your husband back. I’m not surprised you grieve at your misfortunes” (Euripides 272-274). This indicates that Medea not only gains their sympathy but also sparks an understanding of justice within the chorus. After everything they’ve heard, the chorus feels that Medea deserves to get justice and they even agree that she has a right to grieve. With the chorus’s blessings, Medea is now free to carry out her plan for revenge.

An early form of feminism became Medea’s driving force in gaining the trust of the chorus. Through her use of sympathy, gender inequality, and a desire for justice, Medea was able to persuade the chorus to her side. Once Medea had garnered pity from the chorus, she knew they would no longer favor Jason’s side. However, that was not enough to secure their silence when she decided to act on her rage. Medea knew she needed more than just sympathy, so she incited anger towards Jason by emphasizing gender inequality and the inherent unfairness faced by women. Once Medea had the chorus understand gender injustice, she could enlist their help in executing her plan for justice. All Medea needed was the chorus’s silence if her plan proved successful. By aligning the women of the chorus with her cause, Medea achieved just that. Employing sympathy, illustrating gender inequality, and formulating a plan for justice, Medea exhibited feminist qualities that prove an injustice in the bedroom is precisely the catalyst a woman needs to discover the feminism within her.

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Is Euripides' Medea A Feminist Or A Misogynist Play?

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Introduction

Statement of the problem:

Research questions:.

• This research paper tries to answer the following questions?
• 1- Is Euripides' play Medea a feminist and not misogynist?
• 2- Does character portrayal like Medea show Euripides own feminist views with respect to ancient Greek society?
• 3- What was the motive behind writing such feminist tragedies?

Research Objective:

Significance of the study:, delimitation of the study:, literature review, research methodology, discussion:, conclusion:, bibliography.

• Barlow, Shirley A. "Stereotype And Reversal In Euripides' Medea." Greece and Rome. 1989. Web. 22 April 2019.
• Harrison, J. "Cambridge Translations From Greek Drama Euripides Medea". Cambridge University Press. 2012. Web. 22 April 2019.
• Lewis, S. "The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook". Routledge. 2002. Web. 22 April
• McDermott, Emily A. "Eurpides' Medea: The Incarnation of Disorder". University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989. Web. 22 April 2019.
• Musurillo, Herbert. "Euripies' Medea: A Reconsideration". The American Journal Of Philology. 1966. Web. 22 April 2019.
• Palmer, Robert B. "An Apology For Jason: A Study Of Euripides' Medea." Classical Journal. 1957. Web. 22 April 2019.
• Rabinowitz, N.S.A. "Feminist Theory and the Classics". Routledge. 1993. Web. 22 April 2019.
• Snell, B. "Scenes from Greek Drama". Berkley: University of California Press. 1964. Web. 22 April 2019.
• Webster, T.B.L. "The Tragedies of Euripides". London: Metheun. 1967. Web. 22 April 2019.
• Willson, Luke. "Is Medea a Feminist". Web. 22 April 2019.
• Williamson, Margaret. "A Woman's Place in Euripides' Medea". Routledge, 1990. Web. 23 April 2019.
• Wright, F. A. Feminism in Greek Literature : From Homer to Aristotle. Port Washington. Kennikat Press, 1969. 22 April 2019.

Is Euripides' Medea A Feminist Or A Misogynist Play?. (2019, Dec 07). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/is-euripides-medea-a-feminist-or-a-misogynist-play-essay

"Is Euripides' Medea A Feminist Or A Misogynist Play?." StudyMoose , 7 Dec 2019, https://studymoose.com/is-euripides-medea-a-feminist-or-a-misogynist-play-essay

StudyMoose. (2019). Is Euripides' Medea A Feminist Or A Misogynist Play? . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/is-euripides-medea-a-feminist-or-a-misogynist-play-essay [Accessed: 19 Jul. 2024]

"Is Euripides' Medea A Feminist Or A Misogynist Play?." StudyMoose, Dec 07, 2019. Accessed July 19, 2024. https://studymoose.com/is-euripides-medea-a-feminist-or-a-misogynist-play-essay

"Is Euripides' Medea A Feminist Or A Misogynist Play?," StudyMoose , 07-Dec-2019. [Online]. Available: https://studymoose.com/is-euripides-medea-a-feminist-or-a-misogynist-play-essay. [Accessed: 19-Jul-2024]

StudyMoose. (2019). Is Euripides' Medea A Feminist Or A Misogynist Play? . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/is-euripides-medea-a-feminist-or-a-misogynist-play-essay [Accessed: 19-Jul-2024]

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Beach Reading for Classicists

Medea: a Novel, Eilish Quin

“Among the women of Greek mythology, the witch Medea may be the most despised. Known for the brutal act of killing her own children to exact vengeance on her deceitful husband, Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, Medea has carved out a singularly infamous niche in our histories. But what if that isn’t the full story? The daughter of a sea nymph and the granddaughter of a Titan, Medea is a paradox. She is at once rendered compelling by virtue of the divinity that flows through her bloodline and made powerless by the fact of her being a woman. As a child, she intuitively submerges herself in witchcraft and sorcery but soon finds her skills may not be a match for the prophecies that hang over her entire family like a shroud. As Medea comes into her own as a woman and a witch, she also faces the arrival of the hero Jason, preordained by the gods to be not only her husband but also her lifeline to escape her isolated existence. Medea travels the treacherous seas with the Argonauts, battles demons she has never imagined, and falls in love with the man who may ultimately be her downfall.” ― publisher’s blurb

“With rich prose, vivid imagery, and a voice of singular compassion, Eilish Quin tells the story of Medea, a remarkable woman whose lonely childhood and innate curiosity led her down unthinkably catastrophic paths. Quin’s telling is clear-eyed but tender, and explores questions of power, sacrifice, and what it means to be a woman in a world ruled by men. A haunting, deeply moving tale that I won’t soon forget.” — Claire Legrand

“A must-have for adult collections, especially for readers who want to rethink how so-called monsters are traditionally presented, from a modern feminist viewpoint.” — Library Journal