Analysis of Greek Play Medea By Euripides - Essay Example

As Medea’s intentions of murdering the children are hinted at right from the beginning in the Nurse’s opening speech and stated by the women of the Chorus just before it happens. The horror of the action is sufficient to keep the audience’s interest going. The aim of the play is to re-enact one of the classics, and focus in particular on the horror that a woman is capable of doing, if she is betrayed in love; and also focus in general on what any person will do when pushed to the wall—a foreigner in a new land, deserted by the spouse she has helped, now exiled—and having nothing to live for, or look forward to will destroy the person who brought upon that fate on her.

There seems to be a bit of awkwardness—just a tad—in rendering a Greek play in English translation, in the beginning, in the Nurse’s speech and Medea’s, which seem too ‘anglicized’. However, this does not happen as the play progresses. Medea’s dialogues are at times delivered at a low pitch and volume, with lots of heavy breathing as if she is talking to herself, and at others, she shouts and screams. This variation is a device used to convey her emotional and unstable state.

  Visually, her troubled state is shown by having her hair disheveled (compare this with the neatly coiffed women of the chorus) and her dark-ringed eyes; we have the image of a distraught woman who is perhaps losing sleep, and not taking care of her personal appearance. Medea's strength and scheming are heightened by the way the director has made the actor use her eyes. When she pleads with Creon, although she is pleading there are no tears. Her eyes are open wide, also displaying a flash of anger at times.

At one point she jumps at him, and he moves back. So although Creon in the scene is the more powerful person according to the story, Medea's body language shows her as a person who cannot be easily cowed down.