One of the reasons as to why Medea is such a compelling character is because she does not have one particular tragic flaw. Her tragic condition is the result of a convergence of flaws. I think that these can be summarized by the idea of Medea not recognizing any balance in her emotions. She fled her father's home with an intensity of emotions invested in Jason that were never calculated nor any type of deliberation present. This same abandon is seen when Medea kills her brother. It is also evident when Medea cannot accept that Jason has stopped loving her and loves another. While Medea does consider the implications of killing her own children, it is to no avail as the intensity of her emotions overcomes all reason. When the Nurse understands…
The “barbarian” princess and witch Medea met the Argonaut hero Jason while he was in Colchis on his quest for the Golden Fleece. She fell in love with Jason and used her magical knowledge to aid him in the seemingly impossible tasks set by her father King Aeetes as the price for obtaining the Golden Fleece. She fled Colchis with Jason back to his home at Iolcus in Thessaly, but they were soon forced to flee once more to Corinth, where they lived in relative peace for some ten years, during which time they bore two sons. Jason, however, looking to better his political position, deserted Medea in favour of an advantageous marriage with Creusa (known as Glauce in Greek), the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.…
Medea - Protagonist of the play, Medea's homeland is Colchis, an island in the Black Sea, which the Greeks considered the edge of the earth--a territory of barbarians. A sorceress and a princess, she used her powers and influence to help Jason secure the Golden Fleece; then, having fallen in love with him, she fled her country and family to live with Jason in Iolcus, his own home. During the escape across the Mediterranean, she killed her brother and dumped him overboard, so that her pursuers would have to slow down and bury him. While in Iolcus, she again used her devilish cleverness to manipulate the daughters of the local king and rival, Pelias, into murdering their own father. Exiled as murderers, Jason and Medea settled in Corinth, the…
play explains that Medea has no objection to murdering when it suites her, as she has killed both her brother and Jason's…
In the Greek play Medea, there are two protagonists, Medea and Jason. Medea, who is the wife of Jason has fallen in love with him and has left her country to be with him. After all this loyalty, Jason decides to divorce Medea and marry the king’s daughter; Glauce. Medea becomes filled with fury and anger and wants to kill her husband and the king’s daughter. We can also say that she becomes suicidal. Jason on the other hand, only seeks his own benefits because he has married the King’s daughter just to gain benefits for himself and leaves the woman he used to love.…
This is a difficult question, because there is more than one character that can be blamed for the tragedies that occurred. First of all there is Jason who could be blamed, because he betrayed Medea by marrying the daughter of king Creon. Medea was hoping to spend a happy life with him and she betrayed her family by killing her own brother only to support Jason. Therefore he is somehow responsible for the anger that Medea feels.…
- Medea helps Jason become the a King Iolcus by killing her own brother who she dismembers, King Pelias of Iolcus who she tricks his daughters in killing their father in attempt to rejuvenate him (make younger) by cutting him up putting him in a boiling pot of water. In return, she gets dumped by Jason for a princess named Creusa who is the daughter of King Creon of Corinth. Medea feels betrayed and she gets revenge by sending a poisonous dress to Creusa that burns her flesh and also kills her father when he tries to take it off. To cause more pain towards Jason, Medea also kills her two sons that they had together.…
One of the similar characteristics MEDEA and traditional tragedy have in common is the need for a hero. Which is someone caught in a series of tragic circumstances and knows that there no turning back from the action that they have taking, also they are flawed in some way. MEDEA shows all of those characteristics throughout the play. MEDEA first murder her brother and betrayed her family for Jason, than move to Greece with Jason where he decided to marry another woman leaving her with a bunch of empty promises, than she threaten the king and his daughter so she was banish from their land and lastly she plans to kill Jason new wife and her kids to punish Jason for betraying her. MEDEA biggest flaw is her pride and her need for revenge. It’s the need for these things that cause MEDEA to act in such a vicious way. MEDEA may not be a typical hero but she is a tragic hero because she was done wrong and corrected those actions by getting revenge.…
Medea is a poem of pain, grief, drama and full of tragedy. Medea is an epic Greek poem that the purpose of tragedy is to excite pity and fears from the readers. Medea went through all difficult situations after Jason broke all his oaths. Medea left a life, her land, her home behind which she wanted to continue living with Jason. She did not expect that Jason would be an unfaithful husband. Medea was submerged in deep pain and grief, after Jason married to the daughter of Creon, the royal princess.…
In Medea, a play by Euripides, Jason possesses many traits that lead to his downfall. After Medea assists Jason in his quest to get the Golden Fleece, killing her brother and disgracing her father and her native land in the process, Jason finds a new bride despite swearing an oath of fidelity to Medea. Medea is devastated when she finds out that Jason left her for another woman after two children and now wants to banish her. Medea plots revenge on Jason after he gives her one day to leave. Medea later acts peculiarly as a subservient woman to Jason who is oblivious to the evil that will be unleashed and lets the children remain in Corinth. The children later deliver a poisoned gown to Jason's new bride that also kills the King of Corinth. Medea then kills the children. Later, she refuses to let Jason bury the bodies or say goodbye to the dead children he now loves so dearly. Jason is cursed with many catastrophic flaws that lead to his downfall and that of others around him.…
not care because all she wants is her husband. Jason soon realizes that Medea is…
Her grief that results from Jason leaving are clear in lines such as, “Oh, oh! What misery, what wretchedness! What shall I do? If only I were dead!” (Euripides 20) and “…but this blow that has fallen on me was not to be expected. It has crushed my heart. Life has no pleasure left, dear friends. I want to die” (Euripides 24). While Medea’s despair is clearly present, it is also apparent how this despair transforms into anger. As is the case with a living person, Medea’s thoughts turn away from pitying herself and towards exacting revenge. She builds up an anger that will only be soothed by punishing those who have wronged her. She tells the chorus, “Today three of my enemies I shall strike dead: father and daughter; and my husband” (Euripides 28). As the story continues, Medea’s grief and anger give her the depth a real person would…
Medea displays several characteristics of feminism by giving power to a woman. Medea’s husband, Jason, has married another woman. Then, Creon banishes Medea and her two sons from Corinth. However, she is not the kind of woman who sits back and weeps when betrayed, but rather plans revenge, finding a way to kill them all. She does not feel the need to lower her self-worth in comparison to that of a man's and within this, are the signs of feminism. Through the school of feminist criticism and analysis, Medea suggests that women do not see themselves in stereotypical constructed roles and responsibilities.…
The character Medea can easily be seen as the villain of her own play having brutally murdered her own children as well as King Creon and his daughter. It is difficult to understand why someone would go to such lengths of revenge for someone divorcing them but Medea is a complex character whose unyielding motivation is what drives the play. It is also tempting to dismiss her actions as crazy, however using the word crazy implies that there are no reasons for the things she does when in fact there is. Throughout the play Jason acts as a manifestation of everything Medea sees wrong with regards to the male-female relationship. If anything Medea is a calculating and cunning individual who puts her own principles above anything else including her own children. In fact the underestimation of her by other characters often leads to their own doom.…
Medea, of Euripides' play Medea, represents the destructive quality of possessive desire often portrayed by Greek women. Medea becomes enraged by Jason when he leaves her to be with the daughter of the King of Corinth. She reacts by destroying everything around him. She destroys his new wife, her father the King, and even goes as far as to kill her own two children she had with Jason in order to hurt him. Medea rationalizes her actions by saying if she cannot have Jason, the thing she wants the most in life, then he cannot have the things that matter the most to him in his life. Medea illustrates her nature of possessive desire for Jason with the line, "At last I understand that awful deed I am to do; but passion, that cause of direst woes to mortal man, hath triumphed o'er my sober thoughts (Euripides 104). From this you can see that Medea is only concerned with herself and her desires as opposed to her famil; she kills her own children to hurt her husband.…