Medea (#4)

            Medea, despite having practically all her assets and honor taken away from her, still is able to make a sacrifice. She is willing to sacrifice her reputation and morality all for exacting vengeance upon her husband. However, she does not falter at sacrificing these, since they mean fairly little to her. Instead, her true sacrifice comes in making her children martyrs to her cause. This does align with true sacrifice, as she encounters a moment of emotional dilemma – “[her] heart is not in it,” (1041) and relents to “have twice as many woes” (1046). But, with her dismissal of this as cowardice, she resumes her sacrifice with sending them to deliver death and walk to their own. She retains her pride this way, by lifting herself up via lowering Jason and destroying all that he loves – be it a mutual love between the two or not.

            However, this is not the only time she has sacrificed family for her own benefit. She betrayed her own blood in her homeland to help Jason out of love. Thus, Medea’s own pride and childish selfishness are contingent on how far she is willing to sacrifice her own physical and metaphysical assets. She is willing to cause damage to herself, so long as it helps her reach her own ends. As such, her murdering of her children is her final sacrifice – she has no more to give, and thus she can gain no more. She will only have a fall from grace from here, until she obtains something else to burn in sacrifice to the goddess of her own pride.

            

Sly as a...

           Medea was able to fulfill her vengeance by using her cunning abilities. Similar to Iago and Odysseus, she was not able to defeat her opponents through pure strength and power. Instead, she lied to Jason and used her children as mere tools. Medea begged Jason to tell Creon, "not to exile the children from this country" (943). However, she does not care if her children get exiled or not. She only needed them for her plot to "kill the king's daughter" (783). After Medea killed Jason's new wife and father-in-law, she decides "to kill [her] children and leave" Corinth (1237). She does this to inflict more pain upon Jason.

            There is a contradiction in Medea's idea of revenge and justice. Medea used her children to kill Creon's daughter, just as Jason used Medea to obtain the Golden Fleece. After she accomplished her vengeance, she tossed her children away, just as Jason remarried a new woman after he no longer saw any value in Medea. By killing her children, Medea is not better than Jason. A righteous mother would have escaped with her children instead. It's also worth noting that Euripides never showed the tragic death of Creon, Jason's wife, and Medea's children. Instead, a servant describes the death of Creon and his daughter. This is similar to Mystic River's use of implied violence. Dave's death and Katie's death were never shown in the movie.

Medea's BFF

Throughout the play, the Chorus serves as a narrator and voice of morality for Medea. At first, they sympathize with her situation, saying “But still to me — even if I speak out of character —

you seem, in abandoning your wife, not to be doing the right thing” (577-578). However, as the play progresses, their support for the strong female wanes. Medea’s decision to murder her children causes a change in sentiment towards her. From then on, the Chorus repeatedly begs her to reconsider her choice. This change in tone by the Chorus serves to emphasize the dramatic effect of the play. The events become even more tragic because the Chorus voices the opinions that most of the readers have. They become a megaphone for the audience but are still tragically ignored. Interestingly, despite their protests to Medea’s plans, the Chorus does not notify Jason of his children’s impending deaths; they are loyal to Medea. After she murders her children, the Chorus then speaks to Jason, saying, “Your children are dead, killed by their mother's hand” (1307). Even this statement is devoid of criticism. The Chorus disagreed with Medea’s actions, but they still refuse to betray her. Because they are composed of female members, this gives the Chorus the character of a female best friend. Throughout the dramatic unfolding, this group of female confidantes give Medea advice. This creates the image of a community of women working together to combat they wrongs committed against them (in this case, adultery). Perhaps, Euripides created this effect to make a statement about the strength of women.

Euripides uses Medea to show the power of an individual angry woman while Medea and the Chorus demonstrate the depth that female secrecy and loyalty transcend. This contrasts with the disloyalty shown by Jason.

Medea's story ft. Jason

Medea's heart was aching in sorrow caused by Jason. The fact that he left her to get remarried was something Medea could not bare. She wanted Jason to feel the pain that she felt. She wanted Jason to know how much he hurt her. What better way was there than her way? Sure it frowned upon to kill anyone but if you think about it and get past all the morals and things... She was kind of smart about it. Medea could not physically harm Jason because he was a stronger man. He no longer was in love with her and she's the one who got left so she can't emotionally do anymore damage to him that he hasn't already don't to her. So she hit him where it hurts, hit him in his soft spot. His kids. Medea killed her own kids. So you would think that it would emotionally scar her but I think her apetite for revenge fairly outweighed her love for her kids which was extremely selfish of her. Her actions showed why holding grudges against anyone only eats you up inside and causes you to do things that are out of character to people who you never wanted to harm. I believe Medea's reasoning and her pride was always her downfall since the beginning. Now, she just proved how she really is and showed her true colors.

Medea: A Woman Hidden by a Facade of Stereotypes

Due to her crimes, Medea is perceived as a "sorceress". However, after reading Medea, readers may not be able to find the qualities that could allow Medea to be described as a magical entity. Medea's behavior as a psychopath could be mistaken as that of a "sorceress". She has no connection to her children, showing no signs of maternal love towards them: "she hates her children, takes no pleasure in seeing them" (35). The only connection Medea makes is with Jason. She is fixated on him to a point past obsession, which leads to her motives behind her conniving revenge. Her psychotic behavior is previously evidenced by a major aspect of Medea's background: she kills her own "brother in cold blood" (166). Medea has no respect for human life, declaring herself free from the burden of living a life of morality.  Yet, the obdurate crimes she commits afterwards come as a surprise to many. The general perception of Medea's story may be a masculine reaction to Euripedes's rally for gender equality. Mysoginists seem to be stereotyping the passion of a woman and the murderous behavior of a psychopath as the actions of a godless witch, instead of realizing that the stress they put upon women within patriarchies may be the cause of such erratics. Euripedes's message in Medea may be similar to that of Walt Whitman in his poem "The Sleepers": "I hate him that oppresses me, I will either destroy him, or he shall release me". Whitman seems to be following Euripedes's crusade by showing that oppressors must either practice equality or be crushed under the numerous, penetrating heels of the oppressed, crazed with a thirst for revenge.

Justifications and Selfishness

     Both Medea’s logic and reasoning are always poorly justified. The simple fact that she always needs to justify her decisions says something about who she is and what she does. When she said that she must kill her children she said that it is because “no one..will rescue them.” (792) That statement is very ironic considering that their mother, who is supposed to be their primary protecter, is the one saying that no one will be able to protect them, so the logical thing would be to kill them obviously. All of her justifications are furthering the assertion that she only cares about herself, especially when her pride is on the line. Her pride is built on being a woman who men fear, woman scorn, someone who can not let someone get the upper hand on her in any way. She  does not feel the least bit sad about killing her “own flesh and blood” (816) because on the positive Jason will feel even sadder than she ever will. She values her opinions, her revenge, and, most importantly, her pride, everything else far and in between are matters that will sort themselves out as far as she’s concerned. 

Rage

Medea responds to the limitations set on women in this time, in a quite vengeful way. Refusing to take care of the children, while her husband goes off to marry someone else, she makes the decision to kill Jason's new bride along with her own children. Medea inflicts the suffering Jason has made her feel onto him. This can relate to the political cartoon because after a world of only men becoming US presidents Hillary is stepping up with a vengeance to take down her competition.
Medea is driven to do these irrational actions because of the rage that has built up inside of her. This relates to the Buddha quote very literally. Medea is drinking her own poison of rage, and expecting Jason's bride and her own children to die. This is exactly what happens, but it does not dawn on Medea that the rage inside of her is poisonous. She finds that the only way she can cope with the pain Jason has caused her is to transfer that pain over to him by killing everything he has. Medea didn't take into consideration that this plan also involved killing any sense of morality she had left. In the end, she feels no remorse for Jason for she feels this is equal the amount of pain he had inflicted upon her. She wants nothing of Jason's sobbing as she says "Your words are thrown into the empty air." (1403) This poison Buddha speaks of has truly blinded Medea, and there is no going back to the days before her rage.