Hi everyone,
i was just wondering if i could please get some help (i.e. proofreading) on my Medea text response. English is definitely not my strong point but constructive criticism is always appreciated. Thanks in advance.
The audience’s sympathies only lie with Jason. To what extent do you agree?
The Ancient Greek tragedy, ‘Medea’ by Euripides, aims to explore the devastations of a string of violent conflicts that arose from a passionate love affair between the “arch-criminal” Jason and the “poor lady” Medea. Throughout the play, the audience is conflicted by the characters’ exploitations and it is ultimately ambiguous as to where their sympathies should lie. Though Medea’s acts of vengeance appear to be vicious and “barbaric” to modern day audiences, it is through the Chorus, a group of Corinthian woman, that enables Medea to be identified in an empathetic light due to their common plights as women. Contrastingly, the playwright suggests that Jason is of arrogant and callous character due to the Chorus’ repeated declarations of his ‘unjust’ behaviours and his downplays of Medea’s sacrifices, leading the audience to regard him with little empathy, however, Euripides suggests that he can be commiserated for as he is stripped of his past, present and future.
Whilst the treatment of Jason could be said to garner the audience’s compassion, it is the characters of Creon, his daughter and the children who are manipulated by Medea who should receive the uttermost sympathy. Therefore, whilst Jason’s “woes” could be pitied for, it is ultimately other characters in the play who receives the most tenderness.
Euripides’ portrayal of the plight of a woman in Ancient Greece and their injustices conditions the audience to grieve for Medea’s situation. The society Medea lived in meant that she suffered the social grievances of her time. Through her account of a woman’s inferior role in society, the audience is subjected to comprehend the inequalities of the treatment of a woman and Medea, like all other Athenian women, is not exempted despite being the granddaughter of the Sun God. Unable to deny her husband his new marriage as it is in his right to, Medea was regarded by bread-winning men in patriarchal society as ‘disgrace[ful]’ as divorce brings upon shame. However, unlike the Corinthian women, Medea has no home, simply “a cruel husband’s plaything … brought back from a foreign land.” Furthermore, she is banished from the city of Corinth by Creon, a fate equivalent to death. As Medea is a foreigner and viewed as a “barbarian”, her exile from the city of Corinth is perceived as even more distressing. An exile, once more, due to her banishment from Colchis and Iolocus for a string of betrayals and murders, with no family to turn to, nor husband for protection, positions Medea to be in a vulnerable predicament. Hence, the audience’s sympathies are extended towards Medea for the circumstances she is caged in.
Jason’s betrayal is not only a product of his ambition, but a dismissal of his wife’s many sacrifices. As the play begins, the audience is made aware of Jason’s acts of being an “oath” breaker despite Medea’s efforts in helping him obtain the golden fleece, actions that stemmed from her “heart [being] transfixed for desire by Jason”.
Though Medea had betrayed her own father to aid Jason in his quest and was involved in Pelias’ death, he scrutinizes her with indifference and callousness, belittling her altruistic actions, suggesting that the “Cyprian lent success to his voyage”. Rather than feeling gratitude, Jason insists that Medea should be grateful to him for taking her from a “barbarous land” to a country with justice and law. However, justice only serves to benefit Jason as it is the patriarchal society that he lives in that had enabled him to marry a new bride, a fact that “torments” Medea. He excuses his infidelity by stating that “it was not the fact that [he] had lost desire” for Medea, rather it was his motives of ensuring his prosperity “by means of children yet unborn.” His actions, though set out shrewdly, stems from greed and avariciousness, and a disrespect for the female role. Hence, Euripides portrays Jason as a selfish and insensitive character and alludes that such calculating motives make Jason an unsympathetic character in the text.
Although Jason appears to be the main perpetrator due to his rapacious acts, it is his eventual fate that the audience’s sympathy is directed towards. Through Medea’s deceitful acts of revenge and her manipulation of Jason’s arrogance, Jason is “to be pitied” as the Chorus takes note of his plight. He has been cheated of his past, of the wives he wedded and the children he bore. The fact that he no longer has a family, no lineage to his name, a factor more important to a man than any other deed, was the greatest pain he received.
Jason was robbed of his present, his title as a hero and his role as a man. In times of Ancient Greek, when the play was set, men were viewed as being more astute than women. However, Medea had used Jason’s hubris traits to aid her in the death of the king and princess of Corinth. His defeat putting Medea and himself on an equal gender footing, a notion unheard of in an archetypical society. Lastly, Jason was stripped of his future, of the children he no longer has or will have and his prosperity. Jason’s distraught at Medea’s retribution gains him sympathy from the audience as it is made explicitly clear by Euripides that there is no fruition to any of his careful plan, leaving him at the end of the play as a broken man.
While the characters of Medea and Jason draw a mixed response from the audience, the characters of Creon, Glauce and the children remain the innocents in the play.
Caught up in the middle of a murderous war, all these characters end up being casualties in the tragedy. Creon’s only fault was his immense love for his daughter. Compelled to banish Medea away from Corinth as he “feared” her, stemmed from his anxieties that she will “do some irreparable harm to [his] daughter”. However, in trying to protect his daughter, Medea had appealed to Creon’s sense of family by abusing his identity as a father, using her children and the plans for their future as an excuse to deter her removal. Nevertheless, Creon gains the audience’s sympathy as his plans to ensure his daughter’s safety backfires, leading to his daughter and his own demise by the “most painful of deaths”.
While Creon is worthy of compassion to some degree, it is ultimately the children of Medea and Jason that are the real victims in the play. They are by far, the most innocent in the play, manipulated by their mother as a means of bringing extreme measures of agony onto their father. The death of two innocent children, courtesy of Medea, causes the audience to question whether they are deserving of their positions as bystanders or are paying the price for the crimes of their parents. It is through Medea’s manipulation that the real victims of the play emerges in which they are able to gain the audience’s compassion.
Captured throughout the text, Euripides strongly implies that the extremities of each character’s exploitations can ultimately affect the audience’s sympathetic response.
It is through Medea’s ill fortunes of her husband’s betrayal and her plight as a woman that potentially earns her the audience’s sympathy. Unlike Medea, Jason’s misogynistic views and his cold indifference to his wife’s sorrows lead the audience to be made aware of his heroic façade. However, Euripides insinuates that although Jason is an “oath” breaker, he is to be pitied for as he is left possessionless of all the things he values. Whilst there are many victims of treachery and deception that deserve sympathy, it is those that are caught in the cross fire of it all that are worthy of the audience’s compassion. Thus, as depicted by Euripides, the audience’s sympathies do not only lie in one place.
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