Medea: Character Analysis of a Woman of Ruthless Intent - Thesis Example

? Medea: Character Analysis of a Woman of Ruthless Intent The character of Medea from the tragedy of the same name by Euripides begins her journey within this work in a state of betrayal, her heart torn by the actions of Jason who has left her to marry a princess. Medea is characterized by many different descriptions, but in the end she is reflective of the a classic dynamic that often affects women in modern life as they sacrifice a great deal for the men in their life only to be left once the men have reached their goals. Medea, however, does not passively accept her betrayal. The revenge that she takes on Jason is one that horrifies the audience. In the play Media by Euripides, the character of Media is developed through the violent emotions that she experiences and then through her reactions to those emotions as she exacts her revenge. The play Media by Euripides was first performed in 431 BCE in for the annual drama festival in Athens where it received third prize (Euripides and Jeffers 3). The play finds its emotional center on the plight of women as they are manipulated in a man’s world, their lives at the will of the male gender. Women have experienced long periods of time throughout history in which they had little in the way of public rights and without the protection of a male figure, were subject to a world in which their status afforded them no assumption of safety or survival. In Athens during the time period that the play was written, the laws were such that the control over the future of a woman was solely within the rights of her father and then her husband, or on their brothers or kin should he die (Leftkowitz and Fant 61). Women were vulnerable to the choices that men made. When Jason chooses to leave Medea and marry Glauce, he is not only leaving her, but leaving her vulnerable to her environment and without an assurance of survival. At the beginning of the play, Medea is in a vulnerable state created by the actions of Jason. As The Nurse sets the stage for the background of what has happened prior ot the point at which the play begins, she says “Where the man and the woman love and are faithful, now all is changed; all is black hatred. For Jason has turned from her; he calls the old bond a barbarian mating, not a Greek marriage; he has cast her off” (Euripides and Jeffers 10). Medea has left her family, killed for him, and been responsible for the success of his mission. Without Medea, Jason would not have survived the quests that he had been sent to accomplish. Jason was foolish to think that he could cast Medea off without any consequences as he has personally been a party to the actions that Medea was capable of committing. Rickart discusses the reactions of Medea through akrasia, a belief that there are decisions made that are done so because of a shift in an internal conflict so that people act against their own better judgment. Medea has revealed her ability to act throughout the events that have happened during her relationship with Jason, and yet he acts without regard to her ability to murder. Rickart states “Medea would not be Medea if she did not take vengeance”, a fact that Jason has failed to take into consideration (97). Jason makes it clear that she was a useful tool for him during his adventures. He discards her through the rhetoric of invoking gods and fate for her actions on his behalf, not in giving her credit for the deeds that she has done for him. He says “As to those acts of service you so loudly boast - whom do I thank for them? I thank divine Venus the goddess/ Who makes girls fall in love. You did them because you had to do them; Venus compelled you; I enjoyed her favor” (Euripides and Jeffers 36). In defining the difference between her actions and his fate, he discounts her participation as being a part of his fate. Her usefulness is not a result of her will and her skills, but of the divine blessings of the gods who chose to support his deeds. Where he is given the accolades of his accomplishments and the support of the gods, Jason characterizes her role as defined merely by the will of the gods for his success. He states “A man dares things, you know; he makes his adventure/ In the cold eye of death; and if the gods care for him/They appoint an instrument to save him; if not, he dies. You were that instrument” (Euripides and Jeffers 36). In describing her role in his life, he has discounted her love, her abilities, and her importance, thus she is turned from someone who had value to someone who is useful. One of the central moral dilemmas within the play is based upon the philosophical conflict between evil as it is represented in passion and good as it is represented in reason (Rickart 99). The character of Medea is rife with passion, in this instance the word being associated with emotions more than sexual desire. Modern interpretations of her character have swung back and forth between portraying her as evil or interpreting her actions in respect to those of the classic Greek hero. According to Boedeker, “Medea is portrayed as a typical barbarian and witch: at least since 1977, however, her resemblance to Greek heroes has been emphasized” (35). Where males who have committed terrible acts have been portrayed as sympathetic, female wrath is often characterized as being evil. In killing her children, it is admittedly hard to define her as being heroic. Medea’s journey is set against the fate of Jason and in the myths she is the facilitator. In the play by Euripides, however, she is given a voice and developed for the injustice that is done to her by Jason. The moral dilemma between emotion and reason is given context in the way in which she has been disregarded and in the violent expression of her feelings of betrayal. Sarah Johnston, in an introduction to a book of essays on Medea, says of her “Narratively, Medea first appears as a lovely and lovelorn princess who enables Jason to steal the golden fleece. In this role, she fits the paradigm of the ‘helper-maiden’” (Clauss and Johnston 5). When Jason meets Medea, she is drawn into his needs and responds to them out of the love that she feels for him. She believes in their marriage and in the ‘right’ of what she does on behalf of him. However, when he betrays her, she is transformed into his nemesis, intent on taking from him what she can in revenge. Johnston describes her turn from the ‘helper-maiden’ to a character of wrath, her emotions guiding her towards terrible acts (Clauss and Johston 5). Medea has, however, revealed herself from the earlier parts of her myth as a woman who is fully capable of murder. She kills her brother and scatters his parts over the land in order to slow down her father from stopping her and Jason from leaving her country. Therefore, it is not a shift in character that is revealed in the play by Euripides, but a shift in the focus of her capacities against Jason rather than for him. From a literary standpoint, she changes from the ‘helper-maiden’ towards her vengeance. Johnson describes her by saying “we realize that infanticidal Medea resembles a type of female demon, feared in traditional cultures throughout the ancient and modern world, who specializes in killing children” (5). The appearance of her character is defined by her actions, however, and her actions have always shown her capable of strong, often violent actions when she felt the need to act. When Medea kills her children, the depth of her anger and feelings of betrayal is manifested in what can be considered as one of the worst actions a woman can commit. There is some belief that this part of her story is a creation of Euripides and that before this time her children were not killed at her hand, but by the hand of another (Johnston and Clauss 7). Euripides enters into a discussion of the dilemma of passion versus reason, her actions reflecting the worst end to the betrayal she feels. Medea is revealed as a woman who does not take the scorn that Jason has laid upon her without a response. She is one who takes action. It is not outside of her character to take action; therefore as Jason underestimates her he loses everything. Medea is a woman victimized by the ambitions of a man who in turn takes everything from him in a series of actions that reveal her as ruthless and without mercy. Jason betrays her importance and disregards her in his own hubris, thus losing everything that he had hoped to gain. Medea is a woman of action and in discounting that fact Jason has turned his own fate through his betrayal of her. Works Cited Boedeker, Deborah. Medea. The Classical Review, New Series. 54.1 (March 2004): 34- 36. Clauss, James J, and Sarah I. Johnston. Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1997. Print. Euripides, and Robinson Jeffers. Medea: freely adapted from the "Medea" of Euripides. New York: S. French, 1976. Print. Lefkowitz, Mary R, and Maureen B. Fant. Women's Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Print. Rickart, GailAnn. Akrasia and Euripides’ Medea. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. 91(1987): 91-117. Read More