Gender Stereotypes In Euripides 'Medea'

Historically females have been portrayed as being weak and submissive, obeying their male counterparts (fathers/husbands etc) and staying in the background looking after the home and the children. To be freethinking was unheard of; all decisions were made by the male which the female had to comply with, whether or not she wanted to. This went for everything from arranged marriage to who she could associate with. There was also the generalisation that women were incapable of rational thought and prone to madness. Sons were considered more important than daughters, as they were the heirs and would continue the family name, and, of course, they were males who were regarded as strong, dominant and rational. In this essay, I shall be comparing and
contrasting how works from two different genres – the Greek Tragedy ‘Medea’ penned by Euripides in 431 BC and Jean Rhys’ 1966 novel ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ – represent femininity and their stance on feminism of that time.
Medea was based on the legend of the marriage between Jason, of Golden Fleece fame, and Medea princess of Colchis, sorceress and child of the gods.
Having given up her country, committed murder and made herself an outcast, for the love of Jason, Medea was rightly angry when she was cast aside in favour of another younger woman. Recognising the prejudice and indifferent treatment to women of that time, Euripides used Medea as a representation of all women’s feelings and experiences, embodying pain, jealousy, passion and unfairness, especially in a family breakdown. Medea became a spokeswoman for them but he creates her as an antithesis of the common idea by giving her a mind of her own, power and hold over the male characters; using her femininity to charm and manipulate, which was inconceivable in those
days.
Medea is of the classical Greek Tragedy structure with a prologos, prologue before the entry of the Chorus (male performers who commented on the action of the play from the Orchestra); epeisodion episodes of dramatic action; exodus the formal end of play marked by the exit of the Chorus; parados the first song sung by the Chorus and stasimon the rest of the Chorus songs. It must be remembered that women were not allowed on stage, so all performers were men, wearing masks and costumes therefore there cannot be a psychological profile of Medea, only a representation of femininity by the actor playing her part. The audience is first introduced to Medea, not in person but by her wailings and laments behind the ‘skene’ This is a backdrop in the centre of the stage and this building represents Medea's home. In front of this house the nurse of Medea's children brings the audience up to date with events and her monologue is regularly interrupted by Medea’s cries from the inside. It not until the Chorus arrives, that Medea comes out. Instead of the weeping, distraught woman that is expected, she emerges calm , level-headed and with plans for revenge. In the main Euripides uses stichomythia to show Medea's swings from submissive to dominant. With Creon, who recognises her as a dangerous, spiteful woman, she does this within 14 lines (298 – 310). When she argues her case to Aegeus and kneels at his feet she shows the vulnerable exile needing help and uses blackmail to get him to agree to take her into his country. Jason, in typical male fashion, cannot understand why Medea is being so awkward, if she would just be meek , obedient and keep quiet like other women, she would be able to stay in her home. In response to this, Medea appears to come to her senses and asks if she can show respect to her love rival by sending her children with gifts. The poisoning occurs and Medea, completely over the edge and insane, commits the ultimate sin, she murders her own sons to get perfect revenge. Now she is all powerful, dominating and masculine, shown by her arranging the boys funerals, something usually done by the male of the household. Her exit emphasises this, as she flys off in a fiery chariot looking down on Jason, the once proud hero now emasculated by a female.

The novel Wide Sargasso Sea was written as a prequel to Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’ , Rhys began writing it in 1940 but it wasn’t completely published until 1966. Set in Jamaica circa 1840, it explores womanhood, slavery, racial identity, voodoo (obeah) and insanity through Antoinette, the white Creole daughter of ex-slave owners. In an age where females were portrayed in novels as being self restrained, composed and rational heroines, Antoinette was atypical; she had a wild, unstable character, distinctly lacking in the conventional feminine traits of neatness and obedience at least until she attended the convent, where she was taught how to act like a lady. Pushed away by her mother, who was wrapped up in her son, and struggling to belong somewhere, Antoinette relied on the black slave, Christophine, as a mother figure. Being largely masculine Christophine had some dominance over her charge and it was from her Antoinette learnt about obeah . Rhys looks at arranged marriages, and in this case, she has Antoinette going unwillingly into marriage, even daring to try and call it off. This emphasises the masculine part of Antoinette, as females were expected to smile sweetly and go through the actions of marriage. Although the husband was paid a dowry, it was believed that the wife was owned by the man; Antoinette didn’t agree, she believed she had bought her husband which was quite unique thinking in that age. Her reluctance or incapability to be the usual lady like wife, led her husband to dislike her and this got worse when he discovered that she might have a half brother who was of mixed race, he felt he had been ‘sold’ tainted goods. When she realised her husband did not love her it is to Christophine she went pleading to be given help in the form of obeah. She makes it obvious she cannot follow Christophine’s advice of leaving her husband, as she had nowhere to go, having handed everything over to him when she became his wife.This shows how susceptible she was, feeling out of control of the situation and desperate to hang on. However, the use of poison on her husband made him hate her and regard her as the pawn of evil Christophine. That Antoinette’s father had slept with a black woman, previously seemed to disgust him, yet didn’t stop him from bedding the black slave girl Amelie not out of desire but more from a need to prove his masculinity to himself. Thus Rhys shows how the female was nothing more than an object to be used for mens needs. Eventually, circumstances lead Antoinette to become insane, especially when she discovers that life in England isn’t the paradise she expected and that she is still an outcast. But Wide Sargasso Sea, is an unstructured modern novel, having no real beginning, no middle and no end, therefore no closure, so we are left with the scene of Antoinette burning down the home and no knowing whether she survives or not.

In conclusion, to compare and contrast two different genres and how they represent the femininity of women, is not easy.
We can see the same wily, manipulative female in both Medea and Wide Sargasso Sea, how circumstances cause women to act in irrational, insane ways and the lengths they are prepared to go to get their own way . Euripides left the judgement of Medea to his audience, it was up to them to decide if she deserved sympathy as a foreigner in her husbands country, no longer wanted by anyone or if she was indeed a terrible, self loving witch. Perhaps the fact he was male and wrote for an all male cast, makes her seem more evil than desperate, for how can a man ever truly understand a female emotion? Jean Ryhs however, humanises Antoinette and makes us feel sorry for her, but at the same time makes her an object of ridicule and portraying white women in general as weak, helpless creatures who are tightly bound into society, whereas the black women although ex-slaves and seemingly without anything materialistic, are free to do whatever they
wish.