Towards the end of Medea, Medea is at
stalemate with her decision of whether to kill her two children. In order
to kill her children, Medea had to trick herself into thinking “Do
not think of your children — how
much you love them, how you gave them birth”(1246-1247). In that moment, Medea’s
children were seen as the key to destroying Jason, even if she was hurt by
their deaths. Medea still
chooses to kill her children because her love of revenge was greater than the
love of her children.
This quote relates to Medea’s
thought process. One of the main reasons Medea wanted to kill her children was to get revenge on
Jason is because he made Medea look weakened from heartbreak. Medea has a
strong personality and hates when anyone looks down on her. Medea had to kill
Creon’s daughter and her kids to prove that she wasn’t a weakling. Medea’s need
to want to prove herself is her hamartia, easily present throughout the course
of the play. In the battle of love and revenge, Medea let her heart guide her,
when in reality, the most efficient ideas come from the heart and mind working
together. If Medea made decisions with her heart and mind, she would’ve found a
way to get back at Jason without murdering his (and her) loved ones. Because of
Medea’s inability to control herself, she will only be remembered as a monster
and a child(and royalty) murderer. Medea went through all the effort to get
back at Jason, but it still seems that Jason has “won”.
While trying to decide whether to kill her children in order to seek revenge on Jason, Medea uses second person point of view. She tells herself, "Do not think of them, how sweet they are, and how you are their mother" (40). This allows the audience to truly dive into her thought process. Her decision was clouded with many emotions and the audience is given the opportunity to experience them through this personal narration.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. I feel like there were so many other ways she could have went about trying to get back at Jason. When really she should not have even been seeking revenge but to just reach a common ground with Jason. But of course because of her stubborness and pride she took two innocent lives who was not directly involved in Medea's heart break.
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