Manipulation of One's Love

            The conflict presented in the prologue reveals the major theme of manipulation in Medea. In the prologue, the nurse informs the audience, “Jason has cast aside his children and [his wife] and now goes to bed in a royal marriage with the daughter of Creon” (17).  Medea’s husband, Jason, essentially leaves her for a new and younger wife, who is also the daughter of a king. Medea claims, “I am so brutally misused” (111). She feels exploited because her husband forsakes her after she has provided vital assistance to him. These deeds include the time she “convinced the daughters of Pelias to kill their father” (9-10) and “killed [her] brother in cold blood for [Jason]” (166). Medea no longer has a family or homeland to depend on, and she is in the risk of being banished from Corinth. Both the nurse and Medea regret her decision on betraying her people in order to marry Jason. Now that he has found a more beneficial wife, he no longer wants to be with Medea. Medea’s actions demonstrate she can be deceiving as well, and she will use her cunningness to fulfill her act of revenge.

            This political cartoon questions whether the United States can trust Pakistan and provide the country with military aid during the war on terror. Pakistan may abandon the United States after taking advantage of it, just as Jason has married another woman after he is finished capitalizing on Medea. The theme of manipulation can also be seen in other works of literature. Jason’s manipulation of Medea is similarly displayed in some of Shakespeare’s plays, such as Hamlet and Othello. In Hamlet, Claudius killed his brother, King Hamlet, and married his sister-in-law, Gertrude, as an approach to become the King of Denmark. In Othello, Iago manipulates Roderigo to help him and tricks Othello into killing his wife, Desdemona. This theme appears to be an archetype in many forms of literature.