Greek Human Nature

All human beings suffer; it is the integral part of their life and their consciousness. A human being consists of a broad variety of features, desires, and thoughts that are often opposite to each other in their essence and cause a lot of contradictions. To understand the essence of a human being, it is necessary to observe a lot, and it is possible also to read the works of authors who had genuinely deep insight into the mysteries of human nature such as Euripides’s Medea, Trojan women, Homer iliad, and greek tragedies 3 by david grene and Richmond lattimore. Even the authors of Ancient Greece realized how complicated a man is, and in the Greek plays it is possible to find the image of a real man that is demonstrated in its true colors in
its cruelty, violence, devotion, and hate. Even modern readers sometimes consider that the characters in the Greek plays might be unnaturally cruel, severe, and emotional, but it is important to understand that all these features are typical for many people; they only manage them in different ways. The Greek plays teach us that being a human implies a permanent inner struggle of the opposite features and desires, specifically, people can betray but cannot forgive the betrayal of the other, they can act meanly but they always want to justify themselves, they can endure a lot of suffering but do not want to understand and mercy the others who suffer. The characters of Greek plays can be analyzed to understand these aspects and how they should be managed in the right way. Both human and divine characters in Greek plays act in accordance with the essence of genuine human nature, they use the supernatural power but keep human soul with its best and worst manifestations.
To begin with, Medea is an example of a character that suffered a lot from her husband who betrayed her and left her alone with her children which are also his children, and Medea went through a very bad situation because she started to feel about a past guilty when she killed her family for her husband and now she is betrayed by her husband after all what she did to him as she says.She could not think about a better solution rather than killing her innocence children, creon, and creon’s daughter who is jason’s next bride.
Furthermore, Medea throw her hate and suffering to her children who do not have any part of their father’s betrayal as she says to them.The readers of the plays are provided with all the edges of human beings, for instance, being a human implies understanding the pain of the betrayal but being able to betray nevertheless. Euripides in his plays illustrated it both by male and female characters. In fact, it is necessary to pay attention to the way how ancient Greek authors were able to depict women accurately demonstrating the ambivalence of their nature in the play Medea by Euripides. The author could depict all the possible varieties of female behavior, and in some cases it might be difficult to understand and perceive the fact that women are genuinely able to act in a way that is shown in the play Medea, for instance. The common image of a woman is typically associated with weakness, tenderness, and unconditional maternal love, but all these
stereotypical features were destroyed by the author who understood the inner recesses of the female soul. Euripides demonstrated that the full unqualified devotion is dangerous as those who loved with all passion of the soul would be able to revenge in the terrible way in case of treason. In fact, it can be equally related also to the males. Medea killed her own children and the new wife of Jason along with her father for the betrayal. Both of them were able to perform the mean and evil actions, but wanted to revenge the betrayal with the double cruelty.
Of course, not all people send the poisoned gifts to the former husband and his new wife, not all people kill own children to make their father suffer, not all start the war and destroy the cities if their wife behaved in the wrong way. But people are able to do it, such cruelty is a part of their nature and only if people understand this fact they will be able to manage it. The genuine price of a betrayal can vary from a pain experienced by one single person to the death and grief of the hundreds of other people. Only the understanding of the fact that the other human being is potentially capable of the genuine cruelty might prevent people from making each other suffer. Even Medea was trying to justify herself, she was not able to perceive own guilt and she thought that other people provoked her. The plays of Euripides teach the readers that the actions of any person always have consequences, even the decision that seems to be not important at all are able to lead to the tragedies, but people still do not want to understand it while acting in a wrong way.
Trojan Women play also teaches us that to be a human also means trying to protect and excuse oneself even if the fault cannot be argued or if there is no way to end their suffers, they will blame others to convince them self that they do not deserve the pain and suffer of any kind of fault .
There are two characters who suffered the most in Trojan women play from the fault of losing the war between Greek and Troy which are Hecuba as she says and Hector’s wife, because both of them suffered from the lost of their husbands and children. The Greek army decided to kill Andromache’s son because he is son of a heroic father as Andromache says. It is evident that Hecuba and Andromache are blaming their husband and children for their suffering and
pain.
On the other hand, people are rarely able to declare their guilt and perceive the fact that they caused a tragedy, the common condemnation of others is a heavy burden for the human soul. In this regard, standing in front of the former deceived husband, Helen is trying to persuade him that she was not acting in accordance with her own desire. She is able to blame the gods and people just to make her husband believe her even considering the fact that she understood own guilt as she says. People always justify themselves, only the very strong ones are able to tell the others about own guilt. Even despite all Helen’s arguments, Menelaus did not believe her.
In the Sophocles’ play Antigone, two opposing sides, two brothers, are involved in a civil war meant to dethrone the king. Unfortunately, the brothers die after continued fighting which lasts several days. Another conflict later crops out as Creon, who was the new leader of Thebes, decides to honour one of the brothers and subject the other to public shame by issuing a decoration that his corpse is to remain unburied to serve as a meal for birds and dogs to eat. Furthermore, his corpse is not to be sanctified as demanded by the holy rites of the region. Antigone and Ismene, who are sisters to the dead brothers, also find themselves in a conflicting situation, unable to decide whether to steal their brother’s corpse for proper burial or not. Ismene is determined not to steal, and this is evident when she says. Antigone is convinced that they should give their brother a descent send-off, but his sister, Ismene, is reluctant and does not see the possibility of executing the plan, particularly considering how their brother’s dead body was being guarded. Ismene is also unable to stop her sister from taking actions of burying her brother. Nevertheless, Antigone follows her plan, and by the time Creon seeks advice from the Theban elders over his decision on Polyneices’ corpse, a report is delivered to him by a sentry that the body has been offered a symbolic burial and funeral rites. After investigations, Antigone is discovered as the person who had gone against the king’s orders, and as such, an order is issued to bury her alive. As a result, Tiresias, a blind prophet, condemns Creon’s actions and accuses him of being corrupt and inhuman. Burdened with pain and anguish, Antigone hangs herself, an act that prompts Haemon to take his life as well. The latter, therefore, shows the unceasing human conflict that was experienced in the play.
The decision by Creon to bury Antigone alive has caused continued conflict in both families. The unresolved conflict has manifested itself in many ways and caused suffering to all the parties involved. Antigone’s death leads to conflict in Creon’s house due to differences in opinions of the act by Creon. His action directly brings conflict in his house as his son Haemon plans to stab him to death for letting his lover die. Unable to kill his father, he decides to kill himself, which extends the conflict into Creon’s house. The play, therefore, portrays a situation in which human conflict never comes to an end. What may be thought as a solution leads to more conflict.

The Greek authors in the plays demonstrate that any being a human implies making a permanent choice between the light and dark parts of own essence. The characters from the plays being under the impact of their rage, anger, and hard feelings, and it is also typical for people to choose bloody revenge, to blame others, and make other people suffer instead of applying critical approach to own behavior. The Greek tragedies shows the readers about the consequences of own actions