Medea Essay (Please Mark Thanks!!)

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“Euripides character Medea is a desperate woman maltreated by a despicable man.” Do you agree?

Enmeshed in an era of a dominant male species, Euripides enduring tragedy, Medea charts the journey of a scorned woman’s path towards retribution. Indeed Medea is viciously discarded and betrayed by the staunchly reasoned Jason. However she is far from the subservient desperate woman who is maltreated by her husband. Medea is a woman with an unbridled passion which catalyses her destructive judgement and contributes in the decline of her humanity. Likewise, it is overly simplistic to dismiss her as merely a desperate woman, but she is rather a divine and barbaric entity who sacrifices her own humanity to fulfil her vengeful desires. Medea is also a triumphant figure for women as her ability to display sophrosyne enables her to triumph over the fettering values of men. Thus, whilst Euripides’s Medea may appear to be a vengeful and scorned woman mistreated by Jason, she is more accurately portrayed as an extremely passionate divine entity who brings justice for the maltreated women of her society.

Medea is a woman with a paroxysmal passion unmoderated by the veneer of human civilization. This culminates in the decline of her humanity. During her initial laments at Jason’s flippant treachery, Medea loses her conformist composure and capitulates towards animalistic conduct. She instils fear within the chorus and the nurse and she is characterized as “glaring at her children like and bull” and her efforts of “winning the hearts of her citizens” becomes futile as she appears devoid of any semblance of civilization. Whilst it is understandable to be irate when one is duped to their disadvantage by the person they once loved unconditionally, Medea’s disintegration from civilized citizen into a volatile barbarian is abhorred and antithetical in the eyes of Athenians. Indeed, Medea faces immense agony due to Jason’s callous dismissal, yet to some extent her “proud impassioned soul” contributes to such dire circumstances. During the climax of the agon, Medea concedes she has “[shown] more eagerness than sense” by “doing all she can to please Jason” and win his heart. This demonstrates that Medea’s overwhelming passion untampered by logic blinded her judgement before their marriage. Moreover, to avoid the repetition of this mistake proves crucial in her eventual machinations. Ultimately, Medea’s overwhelming passion culminates in the disintegration of her humanity and catalyzes the onset of destructive reasoning. In the midst of her psychomachia, Medea dabbles between a reasoned justice free of innocent deaths to “hurting Jason most” by resorting to filicide. However, the “passion which is the master of [her] reason” proves too difficult to overcome. Consequently, Euripides illustrates that the danger if excessive passion is exhibited and insinuates how it obliterates one’s will to assimilate with a foreign and civilized society. Thus, in his harrowing depiction of Medea, whom possesses an excess of passion, Euripides illustrates Medea as a woman propelled by immense passion in her desires for revenge.

Although Medea is in many ways a mortal woman, her status as a demigod implies she cannot be merely labelled as a desperate woman. Indeed Medea’s mercurial temperament is frightening in nature. It is her status as a demigod and barbarian which infuses the most fear. Creon’s callous banishment is motivated by his own fears of Medea’s position as “a sorceress and a woman who is no stranger to dark knowledge”. This clever observation by Creon is, in many ways, a prudent measure to protect his daughter. Nevertheless, it is the candidness of Creon’s fears and his direct reference to Medea’s god like status which catalyzes the divine barbaric existence within Medea to seize her humanity and execute her brutal revenge. Similarly, Medea’s desires to “hurt Jason most” is the divine punishment for his violation of the sacredness of oaths. After she bewails Jason’s dismissive treachery, she implores the gods to impose punishment on Jason who breaks his “weighty oaths”. This is poles apart from Aegeus, the king of Athens who grants Medea a peripeteia, who understands “the fate awaiting mortal oaths. Thus, in the dichotomous depiction of Jason and Aegeus’s connection to the gods, Euripides accentuates the importance to please divine beings and the preservation one’s oaths. This notion would have resonated with the Athenian audience as belief in the gods was staunch at the time. The gallant portrayal of Aegeus (Athenian King) encourages to condemn Jason’s actions and endorse Aegeus’s whom was the king of their own land. Medea’s divine status is crucial in the eventual success of her cunning schemes. She gleans the chorus’s sympathy and binds them to the oath of remaining “silent”. Nonetheless, their awareness of Medea’s violations of “mankind’s laws does not halt her execution of filicide. Whilst it is understandable to be concerned at a brutal murderer, the chorus’s inaction in rescuing the children underscores the immense powers of oaths, although their actions may not be receptive by a modern audience. Hence, in endowing Medea with divine abilities, Euripides depicts Medea as an entity beyond the scope of a maltreated woman subjected to a cruel husband. Instead, she is a divine entity infused with barbarism and brutality who punishes men that violate their oaths and she executes justice on her own accord.

Needless to say, Medea departs the action as a cold hearted divine figure completely devoid of humanity. However, her ability to harness the antithetical emotions of logic and passion propels her as an inspiration for women. Medea is initially in a paralyzed state of depression and bewails her fate violently. However, her ability to execute sophrosyne as she addresses the chorus in “measured tones” enables her to accrue their sympathy as she emphasizes the inherent fact that “women are the most miserable of specimens.” This is pivotal as the chorus eventually side with Medea and admonishes Jason for “behaving unjustly.” Whilst Jason ‘s “criminal behavior” has “vexed” Medea, she chooses to adopt a posture of inferiority to fool Jason into believing she had acquiesced to his “superior” judgement. Rather than castigate Jason for his treacherous actions, Medea tempers her address with “honeyed words”. Unlike Jason who cannot sacrifice his “legacy” and insurmountable hubris, Medea’s adroit adoption of sophrosyne and her ability to readily relinquish her pride enables her to bypass the frail wall of Jason’s logic and successfully execute her plans. Euripides utilization of Deus Ex Machina, furthermore, represents Medea’s transcendence of misogyny. Although her humanity is non-existent, Medea is successful in achieving her revenge as she “places her claws in [Jason’s] heart as [he] deserves” it. Whilst Medea’s path to satiate her “murderous heart” cannot be wholly endorsed, Euripides’s utilization of peripeteia and divine intervention suggests that he is sympathetic towards women and depicts Medea as a desperate woman who epitomizes the rights of women.

In his harrowing tragedy, Medea, Euripides’s eponymous protagonist is not exactly a desperate woman maltreated by a despicable man, but rather an excessively passionate divine figure who seeks justice for women. Within a deeply patriarchal society where men exude an unjust domination over women, Euripides’s pioneering female text becomes a clarion voice for the silenced plight of women. In our present day world where gender biases exist perennially, Euripides’s messages remain as relevant as ever.