Throughout the story, Medea puts on a guise, making Jason believe that she truly agrees with his misognyst actions and regrets her reaction -- "A mere female is naturally given to tears" (927) -- which she considers to be "excessive". Medea does this to trick Jason and to easily carry out the crimes, "[killing her] children" (792), that she plans to commit as an act of revenge. However, by doing this, Medea is further deprecating the way men regard women in this patriarchal society. It seems like she is empowering herself, but she is actually thickening the line of inequality that exists between men and women. If the women who speak modestly and are obedient to their husbands are looked down upon by their society, how will society perceive a woman behaving erratically and wildly, the complete opposite of what society expects from women?
Hysteria is a movie based off of true Western history that explores a fragment of females' path towards gender equality. Just like the men in Medea, the men in Hysteria belittle the struggles of women. The movie directly approaches the made-up mental ailment, "hysteria", that physicians claim to be real in order to trivialize the wantons of women. The men, who are more comfortable and open with their sexuality, do not want women to become sexual beings, making them equal to men. The women's attempts to claim their sexuality and physical pleasure is reminescent of Medea striving to claim her equality and right to anger. But, just like the women diagnosed with "hysteria", Medea's conflicts with society will most likely be dismissed as some sort of mental illness that clouds the judgement of women.
Jason seems to think that Medea's actions are a result of her being a "beast of wilder breath than Skylla shrieking o'er the Tuscan Sea" (43). He doesn't realize that every action she made was carefully calculated beforehand. In Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is sent to the doctor by her husband just because she is acting more independent. In societies like Edna's and Medea's, men assume that strong women have to be sick or crazy.
ReplyDeleteSylvia Plath was also known for acting "erratically and wildly" by your description of Medea. Critics, especially male,dismissed the antagonism and frustration she depicted in her writing as "hysteria" or a side effect of her mental illness. Society saw no validity in Plath's suicide and she, too in some ways "thickened the line of inequality." Her peculiar behavior and manic depression elevated in her writing contributed to the "angsty teenage girl" stereotype.
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