Symbols of Murder

Euripides develops a symbol in choosing to have Medea kill her two sons.  By destroying the fruit of her and Jason’s loins, she is representing the destructive demise of their marriage. Her decision is out of hatred for her husband that inherently transferred to them, and also her desire to destroy every living remainder of their relationship. On a larger scope, the murder is retaliation to the patriarchal society in which she lives. Perhaps she feels as though she did not have the choice to subsume the duties of motherhood, and she is demolishing her obligatory identity. To her, motherhood is “endur[ing] the useless pangs of childbirth” (1030). Also, killing her sons is destroying the next generation of male dictators. Overall, Medea’s revenge is representational to the oppressed women who suppressed their feelings of injustice and explode in vengeance.

 Sylvia Plath’s Poem "Daddy" also can be seen as a symbol of feminine rage.   Like Medea, the speaker is a woman who allegedly “murders” two men in her life: her husband and her father. Her need to overcome male dominance leads the speaker into an eruption of viciousness. Plath remarks, “Every woman adores a Fascist,” because she is acknowledging the rigid stereotype of men as forceful, and women “adoring” their demands. The tone teeters back and forth from personal anger for submitting to masculine force and recognizing how women find comfort and normality in gender roles. Consequently, the speaker in “Daddy” learns brutality from the men in her life, and therefore finds “equality” by employing a belligerent retaliation.