The Story of Medea - Book Report/Review Example

MEDEA: The Dark Story of a Woman in Love OUTLINE: I. Introduction a. Influence of Greek mythology in modern tales b. Universal themes in the story of Medea II. Medea: Story and Context a. The young woman who fell in love with Jason, at the behest of Hera b. The Adventure of the Golden Fleece c. Jason's betrayal d. Medea's revenge III. Screen appearances a. "Medea" (1970) i. Medea as a "sexual" being ii. The golden age of Athens iii. Euripedes' color and language as captured on film b. "Medea" (1988) i. Depiction of a more complex Jason ii. Darkness of interpersonal relationships c. The very first "Medea" (1959) i. Fidelity to Edith Hamilton ii. Depiction of Medea as the "women spurned" IV. Conclusion a. "Medea" as reflection of universal themes of abuse of power and justice. b. "Medea" as commentary on broad issues of human rights. Greek mythology being among the earliest reenactment of human society has been remarkably influential in the world of story telling. People of all ages have been gripped, amused, saddened and altogether entertained by the larger than life adventures of its heroes and its plots which revolve in timeless themes such as jealousy, revenge, love, rage and so on.It had the same magic our fairytales and superhero tales are made of.It is even said that Shakespeare himself borrowed from Greek Mythology. This paper will focus on the story of Medea: the rage of a woman forsaken by a husband consumed by vengeance and power, rebellion of the weak, and their pursuit for something greater than what the powerful is willing to afford them. If one has seen Gladiator and other similarly themed Hollywood creations, one should be able to note that this is no unique theme.Ambition is no new motive. It has in fact been used to stir so many other adventure tales then and now.What is interesting is that the original Greek mythology version involved no glorification of the victor. Medea: Story and Context "For he who was all the world to me, as well thou knowest, hath turned out the worst of men, my own husband." It was the will of the goddess, Hera, herself that Medea fall in love and so it was arranged. Having been unsuspectingly struck by Cupid, she found herself slave to the wishes of the man she loved. She betrayed her father, dismembered her brother and made a criminal of herself in his name. Now, how would such a woman deliver her vengeance if the man to whom all her passions were devoted deserted her The central character was a woman who was about to be deserted by her husband, Jason, who was about to marry the daughter of the King of Corinth in order to further himself. But while Jason thought of nothing but ambition, Medea thought of nothing but her husband. That Medea loved her husband is clear, and Edith Hamilton speaks of that love in its earliest stages in rose-colored language: He spoke first and implored her to be kind to hum. He could not but have hope, he said, because her loveliness must surely mean that she excelled in gentle courtesy. She did not know how to speak to him; she wanted to pour out all she felt at once. Silently she drew the box of ointment from her bosom and gave it to him. She would have given her soul to hum if he had asked her. And now both were fixing their eyes on the ground abashed, and again were throwing glances at each other, smiling with love's desire. (125) Prior to being married and exiled in Corinth, Medea and Jason had been brought together by Hera and Aphrodite so Jason could take possession of the Golden Fleece. Jason was the son of a Grecian king who had been robbed of his rightful seat by his own cousin. He had wanted to regain control, which -his cousin, Pelias, had claimed- would be graciously given to him if he could produce the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece had then been in the possession of Medea's father, King Aetus but he too had been unwilling to give away the magical artifact. In order to ensure that the strangers never obtained it, King Aetus had devised a challenge impossible to overcome. Medea had sufficient ability to concoct charms in order to help Jason and to make sure that she did as he pleased, Hera had ordered Cupid to strike Medea with his bow. Realizing that his daughter had not only betrayed but also deserted him, Aetus had sent his son, Asphytus to follow them. Medea had however been far so crazed she tricked her own brother into his death. (Hamilton 131) With the Golden Fleece, Jason returned to Greece only to find that his father had been forced to commit suicide and his mother had died of grief. He vowed to vindicate his parents' death and it was again Medea who got that done. Medea managed to convince Pelias' daughters that in order for their father to be young again, the great secret to doing which she knew, they would have to cut their sleeping father to pieces. (Hamilton 132) It was then that they fled to Corinth and somehow earned respectability. All would have been well if Jason had not decided to remarry. Because of this, Medea was shown to have lost all zest for life and regretted having turned her family and homeland away. As if to foreshadow, the harsh vengeance Media would later inflict on her husband and children. Fearing that Medea would attempt to harm her daughter out of jealousy and vengeance, the King of Corinth, Creon, commanded that Medea and her children leave at once. Medea pleaded that she be granted one more day on which she planned to deliver her revenge. As soon as Creon left, Medea contemplated the various possibilities of killing her husband's bride and decided that the most efficient manner was to poison her. When that was done, what would happen next What city would receive her Jason suddenly appeared before her blaming her for the not having controlled her spirit thus bringing upon herself the misfortune of being banished from Corinth. Jason thought it downright foolish to provoke and threaten the king with her wailings and threats. He said that in fact if it were not for him she would have been killed. She was lucky to have been just banished. After Jason had left, Medea's next visitor was Aegus who turned out to be the answer to her problem. In exchange for the charms to cure his sterility, he would provide her refuge. And so Medea carried out her plan. She offered a lovely robe to Jason's new bride supposedly so she would persuade her father to make Medea and children stay. Jason delivered the present himself and his bride graciously accepted it but as she wore the robe, she was consumed by fire. Creon suffered the same fate while embracing his daughter in her death. To inflict further anguish on Jason, Medea murdered even her own sons. "Look upon this lost woman, ere she stretch forth her murderous hand upon her sons for blood; for lo! these are scions of thy own golden seed." The story of Medea was featured on film a number of times. The most memorable casting of Medea was in 1970, in the film of the same title with the great diva Maria Callas and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Haunting and mythical, it captures Medea in the full blossoming of her sexuality. Certainly, this is not the sexuality of a nave young virgin, but a violent kind of sexuality - rousing and primal, capable of great destruction. The film also depicts wonderfully the rich and complex character of the Golden Age of Athens, a period in which the city won its independence and rose as one of the most powerful cities in the Mediterranean. The political upheaval and cultural enrichment of the time saw the beginnings of realism and dramatic tragedy in literature. It was at this time (and Euripides' plays were known to possess this quality particularly) that characters began speaking and thinking as if they were real people with confused motives and contradictory traits. The film also made Medea a character difficult to sympathize with but this may be only in keeping up with the intention of Euripedes. Aristotle in fact criticized Euripides for presenting the protagonist in a way that is difficult to glorify and sympathize with. The play began with a Nurse wailing and recounting the suffering and sacrifice of Medea, her mistress as if to establish (before her gruesome vengeance was told) that the latter had been wronged. Be that as it may, her madness and cruelty to her children made this heroine not quite the heroine readers were meant to love. The language of Euripides was likewise said to be more rhetorical than poetic, suggesting that compared to his contemporaries, Euripides was inferior in form. "The sure sign of the general decline of an art," says Macaulay1, "is the frequent occurence, not of deformity, but of misplaced beauty. In general tragedy is corrupted by eloquence." This symptom is especially conspicuous in Euripides, who is constantly sacrificing propriety for rhetorical display; so that we are sometimes in doubt whether we are reading the lines of a poet or the speeches of an orator. (Bates 158). Further, he is criticized by Aristophanes: The comedian banters or reproaches him for lowering the dignity of tragedy, by exhibiting heroes as whining, tattered beggars; by introducing the vulgar affairs of ordinary life; by the sonorous platitudes of his choral odes; the voluptuous character of his music; the feebleness of his verses, and the loquacity of all his personages, however low their rank. (Bates 162). Rather than a failure in form though, it may in fact be this confusion that injected realism and it was realism that made Euripides play distinctively tragic and dramatic. Judging from his choice in theme and treatment, it seems that Euripides had deep sympathy towards oppressed groups such as women and slaves. He explicitly spoke against religious traditions and was through his writing a champion of the underdog making him in spirit and passion ahead of his time. It seemed that as a thinker Euripides felt strongly about the addiction and misuse of power. His plays generally contained elements of subversion, oppression, and rebellion. His admirers considered Euripides "the most humane in his social philosophy and the most skillful in psychological insight." (Bates 163). Another "Medea" movie was produced in 1988 by Lars Von Trier. While faithful to the story of Euripedes, one innovation is that it depicted the effect of Medea's actions on the husband, Jason. In the movie, it was clear that Medea's actions drove Jason to the edge of reason, making him mad. In many ways, Jason in mythology was a hero favored by the gods. He was an heir, robbed of his throne, an adventurer seeking the coveted Golden Fleece, and a son avenging the death of his parents. He was no such man in Medea. In Medea, Jason was more of an ungrateful social climbing husband who would have achieved nothing if not for the assistance of his wife. Despite Medea's madness, the play portrays Jason as the oppressor, and a pathetic one too, who deserved greater contempt than his wife.The Attendant in the play exclaims: "every single man cares for himself more than for his neighbourfor mere gain's sake" Of course, the first Medea movie was in 1959, directed by Jose Quintero and starring Judith Anderson in the title role. The Medea character here is markedly young, and though she was not exculpated for her transgressions, the movie is sympathetic to her character. It seemed to mirror Hamilton's own sympathies for the tragic character: They came to Corinth after Pelias' death. Two sons were born to them and all seemed well, even to Medea in her exile, lonely as exile must always be. But her great love for Jason made the loss of her family and her country seem to her a little thing. And then Jason showed the meanness that was in him, brilliant hero though he had seemed to be; he engaged himself to marry the daughter of the King of Corinth. It was a splendid marriage and he thought of ambition only, never of love or of gratitude. In the first amazement of his treachery and in the passion of her anguish, Medea let fall words which made the King of Corinth fear she would do harm to his daughter - he must have been a singularly unsuspicious man not to have thought of that before - and he sent her word that she and her sons must leave the country at once. That was a doom almost as bad as death. A woman in exile with little helpless children had no protection for herself or them. The majority of our societies today are democratic and capitalist and our moral standard, human rights is hinged on the principle that no man rules over another. This generation may find it rather hard to imagine where the king's word was the law and to claim that women were inferior to man would not raise a single eyebrow. This however was a reality in the past. The legend of Medea discussed in this paper reflected the struggle against the abuse of power and the formation of our concept of justice. WORKS CITED Bates, Alfred. The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization. The Athenian Society: 1903. Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. New York: Warner Books, 1999. Harsh, Philip W. A Handbook of Classical Drama. Stanford Univ. Press, 1944. "Jason." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001-04. Lefkowitz, M.R. "'Impiety' and 'Atheism' in Euripides' Dramas," CQ 39 2nd ser. 1989: 70-82. Murray, Gilbert. Euripides and His Age. London: Oxford University Press, 1965 Read More