Medea

[QueenDemetria]

For the prompt: 'Is Medea an innocent victim?'

Can i argue that at first she is, but as the play progresses she becomes a victimiser?

[clarke54321]

For the prompt: 'Is Medea an innocent victim?'

Can i argue that at first she is, but as the play progresses she becomes a victimiser?

Absolutely! In fact, it is better that you do challenge the prompt. In this way, you are able to demonstrate your depth of understanding and sophisticated insight.

[Syndicate]

For the prompt: 'Is Medea an innocent victim?'

Can i argue that at first she is, but as the play progresses she becomes a victimiser?

That's seems perfectly fine. Although do make sure you make your contention is crystal clear. Don't make the assessor feel as if you are agreeing with the prompt and then going against it. Usually if you don't have a clear contention, your essay goes all over the place (and therefore allows the assessor to mark you down easily).

Instead of saying: "Medea pretends to be the victim to entrench the sympathy towards her", say something like: "Medea fabricates a persona intended to usurp...". So using words with negative connotations in this case will be better (this is my personal opinion, do what ever feels right to yourself ).

[amigos]

To an extent, yes, but don't just have your contention as "yeah, she's a victim at first, but then she's not". This is essentially you fence sitting and avoiding the jarring question regarding this huge ambiguity of the play, which is: what changes in Medea that it mitigates her status as victim to villain by the play's end? The answer to this should be what guides and form the crux of your essay. Also, do note how the prompt implies that being a victim does not make you inherently innocent (i.e people can do bad things and still be victims).

[QueenDemetria]

Thanks for the tips guys! 

[scout]

To an extent, yes, but don't just have your contention as "yeah, she's a victim at first, but then she's not". This is essentially you fence sitting and avoiding the jarring question regarding this huge ambiguity of the play, which is: what changes in Medea that it mitigates her status as victim to villain by the play's end? The answer to this should be what guides and form the crux of your essay. Also, do note how the prompt implies that being a victim does not make you inherently innocent (i.e people can do bad things and still be victims).

Hi amigos,
This is a problem I often face with 'Medea': how do you acknowledge and analyse the ambiguity/contradictions of the play (e.g. Jason being overly pragmatic, but injudicious at the same time OR Medea being irrational, but also very logical) without looking like a fence-sitter as you say? ...especially if a prompt is one-sided?
Thanks

[amigos]

Hi amigos,
This is a problem I often face with 'Medea': how do you acknowledge and analyse the ambiguity/contradictions of the play (e.g. Jason being overly pragmatic, but injudicious at the same time OR Medea being irrational, but also very logical) without looking like a fence-sitter as you say? ...especially if a prompt is one-sided?
Thanks

Echoing my teacher's advice:
- Think of the play holistically
- Always question your interpretation
- Acknowledge resistant readings
- Avoid making the play sound simple and clear-cut

Other than that, I don't really know how to answer your question to be honest - learning to analyse the play's ambiguities is just something I've developed overtime with class discussions. Sorry if that wasn't much of a help.

[meganrobyn]

Hi amigos,
This is a problem I often face with 'Medea': how do you acknowledge and analyse the ambiguity/contradictions of the play (e.g. Jason being overly pragmatic, but injudicious at the same time OR Medea being irrational, but also very logical) without looking like a fence-sitter as you say? ...especially if a prompt is one-sided?
Thanks

I think a lot of it has to do with teasing out the way people are presented (including by themselves as well as others) from the substantive way they are, based on their real actions. For instance, Jason is a classic gaslighter: he presents Medea as being unreasonable and overly emotional when she is actually being really reasonable; he presents himself as being fair and pragmatic when his actions are actually completely unfair and emotional (based a lot on his own feelings of insecurity and frustrated pride). Don't take what people say at face value. Also, don't forget that it's Euripides constructing characters in a certain way - they're not actually any of those things; everything is chosen for a particular character, thematic, etc, effect. So, if Medea is presented as a witch, do you get the impression that the implied authorial voice of Euripides agrees with that? Or is he using that presentation to say something else? Ambiguity is definitely present, but a lot of the time it's more a case of sorting out the competing voices; the individual voices often compete with each other, but the overall implications of the authorial voice are sometimes much more consistent.