Medea's Actions Were Horrifying And Inhumane
Reverse Psychology in
The Medea
Gunika Datt
Candidate #: 0001760041
January 17th, 2014
Word Count: 1492
1
Medea Reflective Statement
Medea’s approach to revenge was strange. By killing her children, she causes herself and Jason unnecessary anguish but she wins that battle of pain because she gains her revenge and saves her children from future misery. In class, we discussed whether Medea was right in killing her children. I believed that Medea’s actions were horrifying and inhumane but as the discussion escalated, I began to understand
Medea’s motherly instincts towards her children. As a mother, Medea suffered an ultimatum; she could leave her children behind and subject them to abuse from the …show more content…
enemies of her past, or she could relieve them of future agony by murdering them.
Parents have a natural instinct to give children their best chance. Medea chose to murder her children in order to liberate them from pain.
In Greece, men preferred this patriarchal ideal of a silent and obedient wife, who stayed within the confines of the home. Great scholars such as Aristotle believed that
“the male rules and the female is ruled”; his ideas spurred the general social practice in
Greece. There was also a famous, old saying in Greece, where a man thanked God that he was not uncivilized, a slave or a woman. In Athens, men preferred their women to stay home because socialization with other men lead to the possibility infidelity and this would affect the paternity of the child. According to Athenian law, if paternity could not be determined, then the child could not be a citizen. In this sense, Corinth was identical to Athens. If these harsh restrictions are placed on a Grecian woman, imagine the restrictions on a foreign woman, who would most likely be even more confined and isolated. 2
Euripedes depicts Medea as noble, strong and selfsacrificing, much stronger than her male counterparts. Medea mourns Jason’s betrayal but at the end of her soliloquy, she is proud to be a woman because men underestimate her, which allows her to deceive them. Medea is also very clever; she exploits her enemy’s weakness.
Manipulation, cleverness and independence are typical masculine qualities that Medea possesed. Through the interactive oral, I was able to better understand that Medea’s revenge was catalyzed by restrictions such as status, stereotypes and the misinterpretation of women in the ancient Greece. They combined to make a woman’s life difficult at that time in history. Word Count: 387
3
Reverse Psychology in
The Medea
“If the elements in a person as well as in a society or a state are balanced and strong, one finds harmony and health, beauty and grace,” says Achim Eckert. This is contrary to the play,
The Medea by Euripedes, where the audience follows the protagonist, Medea, as she challenges her role in a contemporary, patriarchal Greek society. Medea’s masculine characteristics outweigh her feminine traits, this imbalance in her personality is caused by the lesser status she gains as a foreign women in an ancient Greek society. In relation to ordinary women and her male counterparts, Jason and King Creon, Medea does not follow the path of all the other women in Corinth. This personality imbalance affects King Creon and Jason, who stray from the standard masculine characteristics. The author challenges these stereotypes, but in displaying the consequences of defying one’s stereotype, he reinforces them.
The journal article “Diary of a Greek Housewife,” explores a regular day in a
Grecian woman’s life. When opening a discussion, the husband “tells [his wife] she should not bother about the affairs of men” (Diary) and she “pretends to agree” because
“she is too hungry to argue” (Diary). The “feeblespirited[ness]” (Euripides 807) and
“stayathome” housewife stands for the feminine stereotypes that Medea challenges.
While the housewife devotes her day to rearranging hair and freshening perfume,
Medea dedicates her last day in Corinth to seek vengeance against the Corinthian royals and Jason. By challenging her stereotype, Medea takes the first step towards her masculine self and tips the scales creating a personality imbalance which is the result of a societal imbalance. Furthermore, in the poem, “Women” by Semonides of Amorgos,
4
the author interprets women according to different beasts, to explain a woman’s nature.
Within the stereotype that women inferiority, there are substereotypes to explain different kinds of women. Semonides uses each beast to explain a type of woman.
When applying this logic to Medea, her cleverness pertains to the fox that Semonides describes because she exploits the Corinthian King’s weakness, his daughter, in order to take her revenge. In this sense, Medea is the opposite of a weasel, she uses her alluring quality to manipulate those around her. In addition, Medea’s masculine side is seen battling her feminine side when she tries to convince herself to commit infanticide.
She says to herself, Oh, arm yourself in steel, my heart! Do not hang back
[…] do not think of them,
How sweet they are, and how you are their mother. Just for
This one short day be forgetful of your children,
Afterward weep; (Euripides 12421248) This illustrates a shift where the personality imbalance is prominent. Medea’s need for vengeance outweighs her motherly instincts indicating that her masculinity overtakes her femininity; at the cost of her children, who are the symbol of her motherhood and femininity. These two sides of Medea’s personality are like the sea who is twofaced in
Semonides’ poem. Medea is schemes against her husband and the royal family, this makes her a mix of ape and bee according to Semonides because she was beelike while aboard the Argo, when she aided Jason on many occasions. Still, she becomes more similar to an ape due to the horrors that Jason experiences while being the object
5
of Medea’s rage. Euripides’ work disagrees with Semonides’ work because Euripides’
Medea is a combination of some qualities that Semonides describes rather than just one. By comparing regular women to Medea, one can see that by challenging her stereotype, Medea sacrifices her children for vengeance.
Euripides also uses Jason to highlight Medea’s masculine character.
Medea
takes control of her predicament. In comparison to men, women are not expected to retaliate against anyone. This is more often left to the men instead of women. Although
Medea cannot be a man, she discerns her ability to take revenge like a man would in her position. Medea defies the feminine stereotypes of feebleness and passivity by taking control of her life. Similarly, to engage in combat is deemed a man’s task while the woman is expected to stay within the seclusion of the home. Medea defies this basic
Greek norm when she says that she “would very much rather stand/ Three times in the front of battle than bear one child” (Euripides 250251). Moreover, manipulation is the key to Medea’s revenge; she uses a blend of masculine and feminine qualities to exploit
Jason. She cleverly, appeals to his arrogance in order to distract him while she takes her revenge. In their previous argument, Jason claims that his second wedding is a
“clever”(Euripides 548) and “wise” (Euripides 549) move that he made in the interest of
Medea and their children. He also says that, “it would have been better far for men/ To have got their children in some other way, and women/ Not to have existed. [...]”
(Euripides 573575). Medea appeals to Jason’s reasoning and pretends to agree with him. She says, “Why am I set against those who have planned wisely?”(Euripides 874).
She admits to having a “great lack of sense” and that her “anger was foolish”. Medea’s
6
most effective lie, “we women are what we are—perhaps a little/ Worthless” (Euripides
889890) compromises Jason’s opinion because she gives the impression that Jason was right and she was not. This works to her advantage since Jason believes that the balance between husband and wife has been restored and he Jason suspects nothing of her plot to ruin him. In Medea’s soliloquy, she plans Jason’s ultimate suffering because she will not submit to the rules of a patriarchal Greek society. Let no one think me a weak one, feeblespirited,
A stayathome, but rather just the opposite,
One who can hurt my enemies and help my friends;
For the lives of such persons are most remembered. (Euripides 807810) Men are the ones who generally strive to be remembered, which is why they take part in battle. By displaying such a trait in a woman, Euripides emphasizes the importance of following one’s stereotype because of the consequences Medea faces.
Medea is not the only character who defies the Greek norm; King Creon and
Jason abandon their masculine qualities as well. In the play’s beginning, King Creon approaches Medea with an unshakeable resolve to send her into exile. Originally, he displays his masculinity by refusing to listen to any of Medea’s protests. This quality gradually plummets when he tells Medea he is “afraid that [Medea] may injure [his] daughter” (Euripides 283).
Medea appeals to the King’s love for his daughter and claims that she needs a day to find “support for [her] children” (Euripides 342) and asks the king to “pity” them. Even though Creon “prefer[s] to earn [her] hatred now/ Than to be softhearted and afterward regret it” (Euripides 290291), he allows Medea to remain in
7
Corinth for a day since he believes that she “can do none of the things [he] fear[s]”
(Euripides 356). The Corinthian king enters Medea’s household as a man with a full masculine character but leaves as a lesser man because Medea manipulates him.
Jason in hopes of advancing his station through marriage, provokes Medea’s anger and fuels her revenge. To the audience, he presents himself as aloof especially when he tells Medea, “in so far as you helped me, you did well enough./ But on this question of saving me, I can prove/ You have certainly got from me more than you gave” (Euripides
533535). He tries to defend his actions; “confident in his tongue’s power to adorn evil”
(Euripides 582), Jason uses irrelevant reasons such as living amongst the civilized, allowing Medea fame and honour, in order to justify the kingdom and family she gave
up for him. Jason’s selfishness and whiny justifications of his actions, make him a weak and apathetic character. This figure is inconsistent to the previous image of a hero, illustrating that by straying from his stereotype and Jason pays the price, with a Grecian man’s most precious treasure: his sons. Euripides affirms that an imbalance of masculinity and femininity within a person, reflects on their society, denying its proper function. The Medea is a powerful text, full of characters that defy their stereotype in society. Euripides uses the characters of
The Medea as tools to reinforce stereotypes.
The author applies masculinity to Medea, this is seen in contrast to “
Diary Of A Greek
Housewife” and “Women” by Semonides, where Medea abandons her feminine side unlike the housewife and proves Semonides wrong since she is a blend of different women rather than only one type. Because of Medea’s personality imbalance, she
8
affects the behaviour of Jason and King Creon, who become ruled by her instead of vice versa. Euripides gives Medea a masculine side in order to prove his idea that challenging one’s stereotype leads to dire consequences. The reverse psychology in
The Medea presents itself, when Euripides questions society in order to demonstrate the extreme price of opposing it.
9
Works Cited "Diary Of A Greek Housewife." n. page. Print. Euripides,
"The Medea" in The Complete Greek Tragedies: Euripides III
. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995. 56 108. Print. Semonides of Amorgos. "Women." Diotima, n.d. Web. 16 Jan 2014.
<
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/sem_7.shtml
>.
Greek Philosophy on the Inferiority of Women. (n.d.). Web. 2 Dec, 2014.
<
http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/infe_gre.asp
>.
10
The Medea
Gunika Datt
Candidate #: 0001760041
January 17th, 2014
Word Count: 1492
1
Medea Reflective Statement
Medea’s approach to revenge was strange. By killing her children, she causes herself and Jason unnecessary anguish but she wins that battle of pain because she gains her revenge and saves her children from future misery. In class, we discussed whether Medea was right in killing her children. I believed that Medea’s actions were horrifying and inhumane but as the discussion escalated, I began to understand
Medea’s motherly instincts towards her children. As a mother, Medea suffered an ultimatum; she could leave her children behind and subject them to abuse from the …show more content…
enemies of her past, or she could relieve them of future agony by murdering them.
Parents have a natural instinct to give children their best chance. Medea chose to murder her children in order to liberate them from pain.
In Greece, men preferred this patriarchal ideal of a silent and obedient wife, who stayed within the confines of the home. Great scholars such as Aristotle believed that
“the male rules and the female is ruled”; his ideas spurred the general social practice in
Greece. There was also a famous, old saying in Greece, where a man thanked God that he was not uncivilized, a slave or a woman. In Athens, men preferred their women to stay home because socialization with other men lead to the possibility infidelity and this would affect the paternity of the child. According to Athenian law, if paternity could not be determined, then the child could not be a citizen. In this sense, Corinth was identical to Athens. If these harsh restrictions are placed on a Grecian woman, imagine the restrictions on a foreign woman, who would most likely be even more confined and isolated. 2
Euripedes depicts Medea as noble, strong and selfsacrificing, much stronger than her male counterparts. Medea mourns Jason’s betrayal but at the end of her soliloquy, she is proud to be a woman because men underestimate her, which allows her to deceive them. Medea is also very clever; she exploits her enemy’s weakness.
Manipulation, cleverness and independence are typical masculine qualities that Medea possesed. Through the interactive oral, I was able to better understand that Medea’s revenge was catalyzed by restrictions such as status, stereotypes and the misinterpretation of women in the ancient Greece. They combined to make a woman’s life difficult at that time in history. Word Count: 387
3
Reverse Psychology in
The Medea
“If the elements in a person as well as in a society or a state are balanced and strong, one finds harmony and health, beauty and grace,” says Achim Eckert. This is contrary to the play,
The Medea by Euripedes, where the audience follows the protagonist, Medea, as she challenges her role in a contemporary, patriarchal Greek society. Medea’s masculine characteristics outweigh her feminine traits, this imbalance in her personality is caused by the lesser status she gains as a foreign women in an ancient Greek society. In relation to ordinary women and her male counterparts, Jason and King Creon, Medea does not follow the path of all the other women in Corinth. This personality imbalance affects King Creon and Jason, who stray from the standard masculine characteristics. The author challenges these stereotypes, but in displaying the consequences of defying one’s stereotype, he reinforces them.
The journal article “Diary of a Greek Housewife,” explores a regular day in a
Grecian woman’s life. When opening a discussion, the husband “tells [his wife] she should not bother about the affairs of men” (Diary) and she “pretends to agree” because
“she is too hungry to argue” (Diary). The “feeblespirited[ness]” (Euripides 807) and
“stayathome” housewife stands for the feminine stereotypes that Medea challenges.
While the housewife devotes her day to rearranging hair and freshening perfume,
Medea dedicates her last day in Corinth to seek vengeance against the Corinthian royals and Jason. By challenging her stereotype, Medea takes the first step towards her masculine self and tips the scales creating a personality imbalance which is the result of a societal imbalance. Furthermore, in the poem, “Women” by Semonides of Amorgos,
4
the author interprets women according to different beasts, to explain a woman’s nature.
Within the stereotype that women inferiority, there are substereotypes to explain different kinds of women. Semonides uses each beast to explain a type of woman.
When applying this logic to Medea, her cleverness pertains to the fox that Semonides describes because she exploits the Corinthian King’s weakness, his daughter, in order to take her revenge. In this sense, Medea is the opposite of a weasel, she uses her alluring quality to manipulate those around her. In addition, Medea’s masculine side is seen battling her feminine side when she tries to convince herself to commit infanticide.
She says to herself, Oh, arm yourself in steel, my heart! Do not hang back
[…] do not think of them,
How sweet they are, and how you are their mother. Just for
This one short day be forgetful of your children,
Afterward weep; (Euripides 12421248) This illustrates a shift where the personality imbalance is prominent. Medea’s need for vengeance outweighs her motherly instincts indicating that her masculinity overtakes her femininity; at the cost of her children, who are the symbol of her motherhood and femininity. These two sides of Medea’s personality are like the sea who is twofaced in
Semonides’ poem. Medea is schemes against her husband and the royal family, this makes her a mix of ape and bee according to Semonides because she was beelike while aboard the Argo, when she aided Jason on many occasions. Still, she becomes more similar to an ape due to the horrors that Jason experiences while being the object
5
of Medea’s rage. Euripides’ work disagrees with Semonides’ work because Euripides’
Medea is a combination of some qualities that Semonides describes rather than just one. By comparing regular women to Medea, one can see that by challenging her stereotype, Medea sacrifices her children for vengeance.
Euripides also uses Jason to highlight Medea’s masculine character.
Medea
takes control of her predicament. In comparison to men, women are not expected to retaliate against anyone. This is more often left to the men instead of women. Although
Medea cannot be a man, she discerns her ability to take revenge like a man would in her position. Medea defies the feminine stereotypes of feebleness and passivity by taking control of her life. Similarly, to engage in combat is deemed a man’s task while the woman is expected to stay within the seclusion of the home. Medea defies this basic
Greek norm when she says that she “would very much rather stand/ Three times in the front of battle than bear one child” (Euripides 250251). Moreover, manipulation is the key to Medea’s revenge; she uses a blend of masculine and feminine qualities to exploit
Jason. She cleverly, appeals to his arrogance in order to distract him while she takes her revenge. In their previous argument, Jason claims that his second wedding is a
“clever”(Euripides 548) and “wise” (Euripides 549) move that he made in the interest of
Medea and their children. He also says that, “it would have been better far for men/ To have got their children in some other way, and women/ Not to have existed. [...]”
(Euripides 573575). Medea appeals to Jason’s reasoning and pretends to agree with him. She says, “Why am I set against those who have planned wisely?”(Euripides 874).
She admits to having a “great lack of sense” and that her “anger was foolish”. Medea’s
6
most effective lie, “we women are what we are—perhaps a little/ Worthless” (Euripides
889890) compromises Jason’s opinion because she gives the impression that Jason was right and she was not. This works to her advantage since Jason believes that the balance between husband and wife has been restored and he Jason suspects nothing of her plot to ruin him. In Medea’s soliloquy, she plans Jason’s ultimate suffering because she will not submit to the rules of a patriarchal Greek society. Let no one think me a weak one, feeblespirited,
A stayathome, but rather just the opposite,
One who can hurt my enemies and help my friends;
For the lives of such persons are most remembered. (Euripides 807810) Men are the ones who generally strive to be remembered, which is why they take part in battle. By displaying such a trait in a woman, Euripides emphasizes the importance of following one’s stereotype because of the consequences Medea faces.
Medea is not the only character who defies the Greek norm; King Creon and
Jason abandon their masculine qualities as well. In the play’s beginning, King Creon approaches Medea with an unshakeable resolve to send her into exile. Originally, he displays his masculinity by refusing to listen to any of Medea’s protests. This quality gradually plummets when he tells Medea he is “afraid that [Medea] may injure [his] daughter” (Euripides 283).
Medea appeals to the King’s love for his daughter and claims that she needs a day to find “support for [her] children” (Euripides 342) and asks the king to “pity” them. Even though Creon “prefer[s] to earn [her] hatred now/ Than to be softhearted and afterward regret it” (Euripides 290291), he allows Medea to remain in
7
Corinth for a day since he believes that she “can do none of the things [he] fear[s]”
(Euripides 356). The Corinthian king enters Medea’s household as a man with a full masculine character but leaves as a lesser man because Medea manipulates him.
Jason in hopes of advancing his station through marriage, provokes Medea’s anger and fuels her revenge. To the audience, he presents himself as aloof especially when he tells Medea, “in so far as you helped me, you did well enough./ But on this question of saving me, I can prove/ You have certainly got from me more than you gave” (Euripides
533535). He tries to defend his actions; “confident in his tongue’s power to adorn evil”
(Euripides 582), Jason uses irrelevant reasons such as living amongst the civilized, allowing Medea fame and honour, in order to justify the kingdom and family she gave
up for him. Jason’s selfishness and whiny justifications of his actions, make him a weak and apathetic character. This figure is inconsistent to the previous image of a hero, illustrating that by straying from his stereotype and Jason pays the price, with a Grecian man’s most precious treasure: his sons. Euripides affirms that an imbalance of masculinity and femininity within a person, reflects on their society, denying its proper function. The Medea is a powerful text, full of characters that defy their stereotype in society. Euripides uses the characters of
The Medea as tools to reinforce stereotypes.
The author applies masculinity to Medea, this is seen in contrast to “
Diary Of A Greek
Housewife” and “Women” by Semonides, where Medea abandons her feminine side unlike the housewife and proves Semonides wrong since she is a blend of different women rather than only one type. Because of Medea’s personality imbalance, she
8
affects the behaviour of Jason and King Creon, who become ruled by her instead of vice versa. Euripides gives Medea a masculine side in order to prove his idea that challenging one’s stereotype leads to dire consequences. The reverse psychology in
The Medea presents itself, when Euripides questions society in order to demonstrate the extreme price of opposing it.
9
Works Cited "Diary Of A Greek Housewife." n. page. Print. Euripides,
"The Medea" in The Complete Greek Tragedies: Euripides III
. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995. 56 108. Print. Semonides of Amorgos. "Women." Diotima, n.d. Web. 16 Jan 2014.
<
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/sem_7.shtml
>.
Greek Philosophy on the Inferiority of Women. (n.d.). Web. 2 Dec, 2014.
<
http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/infe_gre.asp
>.
10