Euripedes, Medea- Desert Flower- Woman At point Zero - Essay Example

Euripides, Medea- Desert Flower- Woman at Point Zero Introduction Women have always fallen under the sex category that suffers most in life. This is seen now similar to how it was seen in the past as discussed in these three readings Dirie and Miller (2011), Euripides (2010) and Saadawi (1983). Sexual harassment is everywhere, whereas young women are cruelly criticized for their sexual behavior, which is considered suitable in boys or men under media pressure to match the stereotyped editions of beauty. The society basically judges women on their appearances. The issue of misery and prosperity in life, as well as their relationship to the righteousness of people, is one which is both significant and complex. This is basically what women go through in our world. There is a huge psychological difference between boys and girls. Until puberty, both females and males develop depression with almost the same frequency. If anything, males are a bit more expected to be depressed, but once puberty hits, everybody becomes more vulnerable to depression. However, females are twice as vulnerable as males. For this reason, females should be considered as the risk population when it comes to depression. Depression and suffering in females has been greatly discussed in these three books Euripides: Medea, Desert Flower and Woman at Point Zero by Euripides, Dirie and Miller and Saadawi, respectively. This paper finds a common theme of the suffering of women, particularly in the hands of men, in these readings in order to achieve their life goals. The paper will thoroughly compare and contrast this topic with regards to the three readings. Euripides: Medea, Euripides Medea refers to an ancient Greek tragedy composed by Euripides and rooted in the fable of Medea and Jason, which initially produced in 431 BC (Euripides 3). The plot focuses on a barbarian woman as she sees her place in the Greek world in danger and the vengeance she takes on her husband Jason who has deceived her for another woman. The entire events of the play are at Corinth, where Jason has betrayed Medea following the escapades of the Golden Fleece. The author’s characterization of Medea shows the inner emotions of love, passion, and vengeance (Euripides 4). Desert Flower: Dirie and Miller The Desert Flower is an extraordinary story of Waris Dirie who escaped from her harsh life in the African desert of Somalia when she was just a teenager, uneducated and poor, with nothing to her name but a torn scarf. She journeyed alone across the unsafe Somali wasteland to Mogadishu and then to London, where she labored as a maid; then to almost every corner of the world as a globally celebrated fashion model; and finally to New York, where she worked as a human rights diplomat for the U.N (Dirie and Miller 150). Woman at Point Zero: Saadawi Woman at Point Zero refers to a book by Nawal El Saadawi, which was published in 1975, in Arabic. The book is rooted in Saadawi's experience with a female convict in Qanatir Prison and is the first-person report of Firdaus, a murderess who has concurred to narrate her life story prior to her execution (Saadawi 34). Firdaus explains an upbringing of poverty and abandonment and remembers being circumcised by her own mother. The book examines the issues of the suppression of women, female’s freedom in a patriarchal culture and female circumcision. Compare and Contrast In Medea, Euripides’ description of Medea shows the inner emotions of love, passion, as well as vengeance (Euripides 13). Medea is broadly read as a proto-feminist novel to the level that it sensitively examines the difficulties of being a woman in a patriarchal world, even though it has also been studied as an expression of misogynist traits. Conflicting with this understanding undertone is Medea's barbarian character, which would upset a 5th-century Greek audience. The nurse's grieve shows an impossible desire: to change the past. Jason, Medea, the chorus and others will rerun their own editions of this futile wish at a number of stages in the play (Euripides 23). Medea and Jason each convey remorse at having inducted the events the nurse remembers in the play; their past love has condemned them in the present. Tragedy, as a form of art, normally communicates an extremely basic message: actions, planned or not planned, bear impacts or consequences, which must be identified and endured. Plenty of drama simply rotates around a protagonist or hero, Medea in this case, who is suffering through her actions and creating a viewpoint concerning them (Euripides 23). Medea noticeably lacks any such insecure recognition of error; she develops a mature viewpoint on her own endeavors. As the nurse discloses to the reader, Jason deserts Medea on a whim. Even though, this desertion leads to disastrous results to himself and all those close to him, Jason never accepts his responsibility for the pain he has created to Medea. Like the nurse here, Jason only wishes things had never occurred the way they did (Euripides 45). The major mood of the entire play is denial, denials that were conducted to Medea and the nurse's attitude in these opening moments point out everything, which will follow. In maintaining Euripides' superseding themes, the nurse chooses just those elements, which reflect on the succeeding action, mainly Medea's intelligence, cleverness, and readiness to sacrifice connections to kingdom and family so as to pursue the flight of her dreams (Euripides 53). Different from Jason, who utilizes misleading rationalizations to keep away from facing the impacts of his own actions, Medea basically rides her dreams carelessly. Even before Creon casts out Medea, she is already a constant exile, undisturbed with the chains of liability, which bind her. The most noticeable signs of deserted liability are her children; ferried around the stage, utilized in a killing plot, and then killing themselves, their soundless traits will be masterfully used by Euripides as proof of the play's most importance absence—liability. Therefore, the nurse's opening grieve shows both the tone of rebuff and theme of lost liability, which permeate the whole play. Medea is happy with her vengeance so far, but is determined to carry it further: to totally wipe out Jason's plans for his new family as she settles to kill her own sons. She dashes backstage with a knife to murder her own children (Euripides 60). And, as the chorus mourns her resolution, the children are heard shouting for help. Jason dashes to the scene to discipline her for the killing of Glauce and discovers that his children also have been murdered. Medea then is seen on the stage in the chariot of Helios, the god of sun; this was most likely achieved through the mechane device normally reserved for the manifestation of a goddess or god. For the Firdaus, young or old, the nature of power appears initially to be extremely easy: men possess everything and women nothing (Saadawi 13). Firdaus’ father has power and authority over her mother. Even her own uncle has power and authority over her. When Firdaus gets married to Sheikh Mahmoud, he has power over her. Even men that women pass by on the streets have power over them. Bayoumi, who keeps Firdaus in his residence and lets his friends have sexual intercourse with her, has power over her (Saadawi 19). When Firdaus becomes a mature girl, she no longer senses her mother’s eyes helping her. From then on, each time Firdaus feels a person’s eyes watching her, she feels endangered. When she initially runs away from her uncle’s home, Firdaus comes across a frightening man who runs his eyes all over her body, making her feel assaulted, and as if her body belong to other people, men. Firdaus’s all-time effort is to declare her body as her own (Saadawi 19). Sheikh Mahmoud’s eyes never leave her dish during mealtimes as he observes every crumb of food she puts in her mouth with a jealous passion. Firdaus becomes embarrassed about taking meals. Firdaus explains nearly all of the men she faces in the same manner—they search her body with their eyes and, in doing so, behave as if her body exists just for them. It is not up to the time she is in jail that Firdaus feels comfortable and relaxed when others are examining her body. This is because she has confirmed to herself that she possesses herself and that she controls her own destiny (Saadawi 56). Attaining the respect and positive admiration does not become one of Firdaus’s objectives till Di’aa, who has used her services as a sexual worker, reveals to her that despite her financial security, she is not admirable or respectable. Till Firdaus earns her own money, the way that the world sees her never, in reality, gets into her consideration. This is partially because people have never given her much attention in the past. She was only an invisible human occupying the duty of a wife or daughter (Saadawi 67). When she lastly gathered some power and wealth, the world also took notice. Men took notice since, in Firdaus’s world, men did not want females to have power or authority over them. By criticizing her work as a prostitute as disgraceful, they attempt to reduce her power, even if they are also concerned in the exchange of money and sex (Saadawi 70). For the men in her life, respectable females are females who are submissive and obedient and live under the shield of a powerful man. Waris Dirie, the author of Desert Flower, on the other hand, is from Somalia, home of a number of the most striking women in the world, many of whom turn into supermodels such as the renowned Iman and Dirie herself. This novel is an account of her desert and semi-nomad life, the narrative of the horrible practice of Pharonic circumcision of females that she suffered and the authors escape from a number of oppressive circumstances eventually to an improved life. The exercise of FGM (female genital multilation) or female circumcision is not well-understood by Americans and Europeans (Dirie 98). The practice, even though not supported by their holy book, the Koran, is widespread in some areas of Islamic Africa. It might have had ethnic origins before some of the areas turned into Islamic. Dirie offers a blunt account of the ancient practice, which has caused the death of many young girls and also severe suffering and pain for those who survive the act. In addition to the anecdote of FGM, the author also tells how she escaped her marriage engagement to an old man, who she did not even know, how she landed in London and lived with her relative, only to flee the virtual enslavement and landed a job at MacDonalds. Her life, from then on, unlike the other two books discussed, turned into a success story (Dirie 99). As women from poor backgrounds, Firdaus Medea and Dirie have never had to make numerous choices in their lives, especially the crucial ones. Firdaus clitoris is cut off and she is wedded off to an oppressive and older husband without any person ever requesting for her opinion. The first real choice that Firdaus ever made was when she fled her husband’s home. Also, when Bayoumi asks her to decide over oranges or tangerines, Firdaus is hit by the reality that no one has ever requested her to make a choice like that before. She acknowledges that she does not even realize which fruit she opts for because she has never had the chance to mull over what she needed. Others always told Firdaus what would occur. After this, choice becomes a fascination for Firdaus. Its only when she gained money that she realizes her power to make vital choices in her life. Medea’s choices were also determined by her husband, Jason. Her entire marriage, Medea considers, was the shadow of her husband. It was after this that Medea chose to avenge her husband by taking away the lives of their children and making sure that he never go another child. In the final story, we see that Dirie never got to make many choices or decisions in her life, but the ones she made were very significant. She escaped from her birth home just to evade FGM and also he slavery that her relatives in London were putting her through. These three writings simply show the extended to which women have suffered to reach the point they are in their lives, for instance, being sex slaves, not being able to make any choices in their lives and also undergoing FGM. These three readings are extremely significant and I would advise anyone eager to learn the sufferings of women, historically and currently to read them. Works Cited Dirie, Waris and Miller, Cathleen. Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad. New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2011. Print. Euripides. Euripides: Medea. North Charleston: CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2010. Print. Saadawi, Nawal. Woman at Point Zero. Cairo: Zed Books Ltd., 1983. Print. Read More