Medea

1. Medea By Euripides 441 BC

2. Revenge Is revenge ever justified? It can feel so good, or can make you feel worse. Does the concept of an “eye for an eye” apply? Or, is it just unnecessary and irrational?

3. Central Conflicts in Medea • Men versus Women • Husband versus Wife • Foreign versus Native (citizen)

4. Media • Medea was originally produced in 441 BC, and derived from a collection of tales that circulated informally around all Athenians. • Euripides’ audience would have been familiar with its general parameters and many of its specifics. • The play's merit consequently lies in its manner of exposition and its emotional focus, which Euripides places squarely in the flights of amoral passion that afflict the protagonist, Medea. • Her infamous murders of her own children challenged the Athenian moral universe that continually hovers in the background of the play.

5. In the opening, a nurse gives exposition but at the same time she also expresses a wish that the past could be undone. • Medea, Jason, the chorus, and others will replay their own versions of this futile wish at various stages in the play. • Jason and Medea each express remorse at having inaugurated the events the nurse recounts; their past love has doomed them in the present. • Tragedy, as an art form, often imparts a very basic message: actions, premeditated or not, bear consequences that must be recognized and endured. • Unlike Jason, who uses deceptive rationalizations to avoid facing the consequences of his own actions, Medea simply rides her passions unthinkingly. • Even before Creon banishes Medea, she is already a perennial exile, unconcerned with the chains of responsibility that bind her. • Both Jason and Medea illustrate the play's most significant absence—accountability.

6. After planting the crucial backdrop to the story, the play immediately introduces us to Medea's total despair: • Upon being abandoned by Jason, offering in the process Euripides' fundamental psychological insight that victims of an intense emotional wound (Medea) not only turn against those who inflict it (Jason) but against their entire world of emotional attachments (her children). • Against some interpretations of Medea, which claim she struggles between her devotion as a mother and her desire for revenge, we could infer from her first cries that her children's murder is fated from the beginning--the natural consequence of Medea's overwhelming emotional shock. • The offspring of Jason and Medea, the children are presented as naïve and oblivious to the intrigue that surrounds them. • Medea uses them as pawns in the murder of Glauce and Creon, and then kills them in the play's culminating horror. • Their innocent deaths provide the greatest element of pathos--the tragic emotion of pity--in the play. • Their silence as characters without names shows their marginal role between two warring parents.

7. Medea is part of the gallery of Euripides' "bad women." Euripides was often attacked for portraying what Aristotle called "unscrupulously clever" women as his main characters; he depicts his tragic heroines with far less apology than his contemporaries. • We are not, as in Aeschylus' Oresteia, allowed to comfort ourselves with the restoration of male-dominated order. In Medea that order is exposed as hypocritical and spineless, and in the character of Medea, we see who a woman whose suffering, instead of ennobling her, has made her monstrous. • The play is often seen as one of the first works of feminism, and Medea is seen as a feminist heroine.

8. However, many scholars of Greek theatre have challenged the theory that Medea reflects any feminist ideologies, believing that Euripides was explicitly mocking and describing how they ought not to behave. • Moderation was also a theme of the play, and a popular value in ancient Greece. Medea's actions were seen as erratic because they were not in moderation, and in the time of the play, women did not have much say in what went on. • Therefore, Medea's reaction was not one taken in moderation. Moderation of everything was one of the Greek ideas, for example, moderation of love, the result being balance and harmony.

9. Watch VCU’s Medea VCU TV – filmed 2007 production of Medea done with sign language and interpretative movement

10. Medea Act I Study Questions • Medea’s nurse serves as her chief servant, governess of the children, and confidante; therefore, she knows Medea well. How does she describe Medea’s reaction to Jason’s abandonment? • What does she say about Medea’s personality and temperament? • Which of her statements foreshadow impending events? • When Medea addresses the chorus, how does she gain their sympathy (In your answer, consider that the chorus consists of Corinthian women)? • What does Medea ask them? • When Creon goes to Medea to order her and her children out of Corinth, why does he particularly fear Medea? • Does Medea truly mean to be reconciled with Creon or does she have ulterior motives in mind? • Why does Creon finally agree to allow Medea to remain in Corinth for twenty-four hours? • How does his submission to her plea make him a more human character?

11. Medea Act I Questions • When the play opens, where is Medea and what is she doing? • Upon what three “creatures” does Medea seek to take revenge? • Why does the Chorus of Corinthian women agree to keep Medea’s plans for revenge secret? • How does Medea deceive Creon into letting her stay in Corinth for one more day? • How does Jason rationalize his marriage with Creon’s daughter to Medea? • Aegeus will accept Medea as an exile under what condition? • How does Medea plan to gain Jason’s confidence? • One conflict that presents itself in the play is: • Another conflict that presents itself in the play is: • A third conflict that presents itself in the play is:

12. Medea Act II Questions • When Act II opens, Medea begs Jason for what? • Medea says, “But we _____ are—well, I shan’t say entirely worthless; but we are what we are. And you men shouldn’t stoop to our level…” • How does Jason feel Medea’s mind has turned? • What does Jason promise Medea he will try to do? • Medea cries, "Oh, I am lost!" at what news? • The Chorus considers _____ to be the most terrible grief of all? • How does Medea respond to the Messenger's urgings to flee after the royal murders? • Creon died as a result of _____? • After the royal murders, Jason returns to do what? • One reason the Greeks used a messenger to avoid violence on stage is:

13. Medea Quote Study • For each of the quotes listed, complete the following: • Who is speaking? • To or about whom is the speaker speaking? • Paraphrase the meaning of the line(s). • What do the lines foreshadow (#’s 4 – 8)? • Write 2 – 3 sentences about how you feel about each line (do you believe there is truth in the line, or have you ever witnessed similar circumstances?).

14. What ever happened to Medea? • After Euripides’ play is concluded, Medea eventually becomes Aegeus’ wife and has another child named Medus. • Medea continues her violent ways and tries to have Aegeus’ son, Theseus, killed. • As a result, King Aegeus drives her out of Athens. • She returns to Colchis where eventually Hera makes her immortal because she rebukes Zeus. • Medea then marries Achilles and lives eternally in the Elysian fields.

15. What ever happened to Jason? • Jason doesn’t fair as well. He is no longer a hero and dies in obscurity when a piece of his ship falls on him.