Medea Essay

[pauliepeng]

if anyone can mark this essay I will be very grateful

Euripides is a woman hater or a sympathiser for women in Ancient Greece? Discuss.

 “Medea”, the Ancient Greek tragedy written by the famous playwriter Euripides in 431 BC, demonstrate how evil and destructive women can be when they are betrayed. The playwriter established Medea as a woman with excessive passion and egotistic, who sees her husband as her whole life.  Her extreme love consequently turned into furious hatred for Jason’s betrayal, which leads to the unforgivable crime of filicide. By doing so, Euripides is portrayed to be a woman hater, showing the evilness of women in love and the horrible passion demonstrated through Medea. However, Euripides also feels sympathy for the deep suffering of women in marriage in Ancient Greece.
Euripides is misogyny by revealing the hideous passion of women, which can lead to horrible consequences. Euripides clearly indicate Medea’s fearful passion through Medea’s monologue “I am well aware how terrible a crime I am about to commit”, but “passion is the master of my reason”. Medea’s extreme passion consequently 'causes the greatest suffering', which makes this extreme and uncontrollable emotion of woman detestable. Through the comments from Chorus, Euripides further highlighted that Medea’s passionate action of murdering her own children is beyond any human understanding as she is “ruled by passion”. By describing Medea as “the wretched woman whom friends have turned into a murderous Fury” and request for the God to “restrain her [and] hold her back”, the chorus emphasise that it is completely intolerable for a woman to murder kindred, especially 'the fruit of [her] wombs' even if it is based on reasonable passion. The question “how, then, shall the city of sacred streams…give you a home…the unholy one” further highlights that Medea’s filicide is not only cruel, but also goes against the nature of morality. By showing the extreme awful consequence as a result of woman’s excessive passion, Euripides shows his aversion towards it which makes him appear to be a woman hater. 
The dramatist place himself as a woman hater by describing the evilness of woman. The playwriter clearly indicates “nothing on earth has a heart more murderous” than a wrathful woman by telling Medea’s succussive crimes at the very outset of the play and implies her suffering is culpable of punishment. Through the monologue of Medea, Euripides further illustrates the viciousness of women. By cursing her own children “to die along with your father, and all the house to go ruin” and describing women to be “quite helpless in doing good but surpassing any master craftsman in working evil”.  Medea, a woman figure in Euripides’ play, clearly shows her hideous nature. In this case, Euripides invites aversion from the audience towards Medea and feels horrified for women’s evilness. Medea’s evil plan that “not one of them will live to boast of vexing my heat” and when she said to use poisons to overcome her emery “which [she is] particularly expert”, clearly depicts Medea’s vicious nature to the audience. Euripides place himself in a stance of woman hater by portraying Medea into such a malicious woman. King of corinth
However, Euripides also shows sympathy for the deep suffering of women in marriage in the Ancient Greece. Through the monology of the nurse at the very outset, the playwriter clearly indicates that the wound of Medea caused by Jason’s betrayal is tremendous. As a spectator, Nurse refers Medea as a “poor” “dishonoured” lady, and has “remained where she lies, surrendering herself to anguish and melting each passing hour with tears” from the moment her husband’s “criminal behaviour” came home to her. By describing Medea’s heartbroken suffering, Euripides shows sympathy for woman’s misery in marriage at Ancient Grecce.  Also through Medea’s sorrowful yelling “If only I could die” and “If only a flaming bolt from heaven would pierce my head!”, the playwriter invites his audience to understand her enormous suffering that leads her to have desire of death and thus feels empathetic and sympathetic for her.  The playwriter also indicates that “women are the most miserable of specimens”. For husband is a woman’s “whole life” in Ancient Greece and it is unable to distinguish whether he is “a good man or a bad” as “body carries no stamp of nature”, and it is “better off dead” if they cannot deal with their marriage partner well. In contrast to women, the man have the right to go out to ease the weariness of his heart whenever he desires. By showing the low status of woman in Ancient Greece, Euripides implies that the miserable life of woman at that time is sympathetic.

In conclusion, Euripides is a woman hater as a whole by choosing to portray Medea as a “wretched woman” and demonstrates that women’s excessive passion in love is hideous, which resulted in the tragic ending of herself as well as others. Yet, the playwriter also implies that the low status and miserable marriage of woman in Ancient Greece is compassionate.

Moderator Action: Moved to relevant board and changed subject title to be more specific.

[MightyBeh]

Spoiler

Euripides is a woman hater or a sympathiser for women in Ancient Greece? Discuss.

 “Medea”, the Ancient Greek tragedy written by the famous playwriter Not a word, see 1. Euripides in 431 BCE*, demonstrate how evil and destructive women can be when they are betrayed Not entirely necessary. Matter of preference.. The playwriter¹ established Medea as a woman with excessive passion and egotistic phrasing is a little bit awkward. Try: "Medea is established as an excessively passionate, egotistical woman", who sees her husband as her whole life.  Her extreme love consequently turned into furious hatred for Jason’s betrayal, which leads to the unforgivable crime of filicide sounds like Jason did the killing, but it was Medea. By doing so, Euripides is portrayed to be a woman hater, showing² the evilness of women in love, and the horrible passion demonstrated through by? Medea. However, Euripides also feels sympathy for the deep suffering of women in marriage³ in Ancient Greece.

Euripides is misogyny Misogynistic, by revealing the phrasing? "in his representation of the" might work better. hideous passion of women, which can lead to Sounds weak compared to what she did (kill like three people?? Crazy), try 'cause' or something more accusatory horrible consequences. Euripides clearly indicates Medea’s fearful passion through Medea’s her monologue, “I am well aware how terrible a crime I am about to commit”, but “passion is the master of my reason”. Medea’s extreme passion consequently 'causes I would move the ' across; 'causes' may be a part of the quote but it makes your writing sound weaker. Short quotes are confident quotes. 'the greatest suffering', which makes this extreme and uncontrollable emotion of woman detestable. Through the comments from the Chorus, Euripides further highlighteds that Medea’s passionate action of murdering her own children is beyond any human understanding as she is “ruled by passion”⁴. By describing Medea as “the "wretched woman whom friends have turned into a murderous Fury⁵” and request for the God⁶ to “restrain her [and] hold her back”, the chorus emphasise that it is completely intolerable for a woman to murder kindred, especially 'the fruit of [her] wombs' even if it is based on reasonable passion. The question “how, then, shall the city of sacred streams…give you a home…the unholy one” further highlights that Medea’s filicide is not only cruel, but also goes against the nature of morality. By showing the extreme and awful consequence as a result of woman’s excessive passion, Euripides shows his aversion towards it which makes him appear to be a woman hater.

The dramatist place himself as a woman hater was used in the last sentence; try a different synonym. by describing the evilness of woman. The playwriter¹ clearly indicates “nothing on earth has a heart more murderous” than a wrathful woman by telling Medea’s successive crimes at the very outset of the play and implies her suffering is culpable of punishment. Through the monologue of Medea, Euripides further illustrates the viciousness of women. By cursing her own children “to die along with your father, and all the house to go ruin” and describing women to be “quite helpless in doing good but surpassing any master craftsman in working evil”.  Medea, a woman figure in Euripides’ play, clearly shows her hideous nature. In this case, Euripides invites aversion from the audience towards Medea and feels horrified for women’s evilness. Medea’s evil plan that “not one of them will live to boast of vexing my heat” and when she said to use poisons to overcome her emery?? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but google said that was some kind of rock. “which [she is] particularly expert”, clearly depicts Medea’s vicious nature to the audience. Euripides place s himself in a stance of woman hater by portraying Medea into such a malicious woman. King of corinth?? Where did this come from and where does it go?

However, Euripides also shows sympathy for the deep suffering of women in marriage³ in the Ancient Greece. Through the monology monologue? of the nurse at the very outset, the playwriter¹ clearly indicates that the wound of Medea caused by Jason’s betrayal is tremendous Phrasing? "Medea's pain at Jason's hand" or something might work. Sounds very technical where here you want to to sound emotional.. As a spectator, Nurse refers Medea as a “poor” “dishonoured” lady, and has “remained where she lies, surrendering herself to anguish and melting each passing hour with tears” from the moment her husband’s “criminal behaviour” came home to her. By describing Medea’s heartbroken suffering, Euripides shows sympathy for woman’s misery in marriage at Ancient Greece.  Also through Medea’s sorrowful yelling “If only I could die” and “If only a flaming bolt from heaven would pierce my head!”, the playwriter¹ invites his audience to understand her enormous Nothing wrong here, but potentially more emotive language could lend to your idea. suffering that leads her to have desire of death and thus feels empathetic and sympathetic for her.  The playwriter¹ also indicates that “women are the most miserable of specimens”. For husband is a woman’s “whole life” in Ancient Greece and it is? unable to distinguish whether he is “a good man or a bad” as “body carries no stamp of nature”, and it is “better off dead” if they cannot deal with their marriage partner well. In contrast to women, the man have the right to go out to ease the weariness of his heart whenever he desires. By showing the low status of woman women in Ancient Greece, Euripides implies that the miserable life of woman at that time is sympathetic Phrasing? "Implies that the life of a woman is miserable and he is sympathetic to their suffering" or something similar would link well with your topic..

In conclusion, Euripides is a woman hater as a whole by choosing to portray Medea as a “wretched woman” and demonstrates that women’s excessive passion in love is hideous, which resulted in the tragic ending of herself as well as others. Yet, the playwriter¹ also implies that the low status and miserable marriage of woman in Ancient Greece, and is compassionate.

1. Some words for "play writer": Writer, author, playwright, Euripides, tragedian, etc.
2. Word sounds a little too simplistic. Don't crack out the thesaurus but try replacing it with something more formal; showing -> demonstrating.
3. Why do married women suffer? Is it because their only value is as a mother? Because they have no choice in marriage? That their husband owns them? Or is it just women in general who suffer? Needs a little bit of expanding without clogging up the paragraph. About a sentence or less should do.
4. Small thing. Switching between ' and " for quotes. Doesn't matter which you use but make sure you're consistent.

5. Assuming Fury is capitalised in the text, it could be a reference to the Furies; Goddesses of vengeance known particularly for punishing those who murdered family members (i.e. Medea becomes a 'Fury', metaphorically, because Jason 'murdered' their marriage and disgraced her sons; interesting but a little bit weak of a link). Might be relevant, but otherwise feel free to dismiss this one.
6. 'the God' is usually a reference to Apollo if there's no other obvious link. Apollo had an interesting rivalry with the Furies. Feel free to dismiss this one too.

* Trivial change but technically more correct.

This was very well put together imo, especially the second section. Used a lot of good evidence, although some quotes were a little awkward or too long. Your biggest problem seems to be phrasing and expression, which are the kind of errors that are hard to pick up. Try reading sections out loud and you should be able to catch a lot of these. Needed to expand on some points but overall the piece communicated the prompt very well and didn't stray. Your conclusion however didn't really sit on either side of the 'is Euripides sympathetic to women or not?' and personally I think that while the section on Euripides feeling some sympathy to married women was well written, it detracted from your contention a little bit. I'm a Literature (and Classics) student, not an English one, so I can't comment on how it would score in a SAC, but the piece stands on its own very well.