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Analysis of Euripides’ Medea

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 13, 2020 • ( 0 )

When Medea, commonly regarded as Euripides’ masterpiece, was first per-formed at Athens’s Great Dionysia, Euripides was awarded the third (and last) prize, behind Sophocles and Euphorion. It is not difficult to understand why. Euripides violates its audience’s most cherished gender and moral illusions, while shocking with the unimaginable. Arguably for the first time in Western drama a woman fully commanded the stage from beginning to end, orchestrating the play’s terrifying actions. Defying accepted gender assumptions that prescribed passive and subordinate roles for women, Medea combines the steely determination and wrath of Achilles with the wiles of Odysseus. The first Athenian audience had never seen Medea’s like before, at least not in the heroic terms Euripides treats her. After Jason has cast off Medea—his wife, the mother of his children, and the woman who helped him to secure the Golden Fleece and eliminate the usurper of Jason’s throne at Iolcus—in order to marry the daughter of King Creon of Corinth, Medea responds to his betrayal by destroying all of Jason’s prospects as a husband, father, and presumptive heir to a powerful throne. She causes a horrible death of Jason’s intended, Glauce, and Creon, who tries in vain to save his daughter. Most shocking of all, and possibly Euripides’ singular innovation to the legend, Medea murders her two sons, allowing her vengeful passion to trump and cancel her maternal affections. Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’s Oresteia conspires to murder her husband as well, but she is in turn executed by her son, Orestes, whose punishment is divinely and civilly sanctioned by the trilogy’s conclusion. Medea, by contrast, adds infanticide to her crimes but still escapes Jason’s vengeance or Corinthian justice on a flying chariot sent by the god Helios to assist her. Medea, triumphant after the carnage she has perpetrated, seemingly evades the moral consequences of her actions and is shown by Euripides apotheosized as a divinely sanctioned, supreme force. The play simultaneously and paradoxically presents Medea’s claim on the audience’s sympathy as a woman betrayed, as a victim of male oppression and her own divided nature, and as a monster and a warning. Medea frightens as a female violator and overreacher who lets her passion overthrow her reason, whose love is so massive and all-consuming that it is transformed into self-destructive and boundless hatred. It is little wonder that Euripides’ defiance of virtually every dramatic and gender assumption of his time caused his tragedy to fail with his first critics. The complexity and contradictions of Medea still resonate with audiences, while the play continues to unsettle and challenge. Medea, with literature’s most titanic female protagonist, remains one of drama’s most daring assaults on an audience’s moral sensibility and conception of the world.

Euripides is ancient Greek drama’s great iconoclast, the shatterer of consoling illusions. With Euripides, the youngest of the three great Athenian tragedians of the fifth century b.c., Attic drama takes on a disturbingly recognizable modern tone. Regarded by Aristotle as “the most tragic of the poets,” Euripides provided deeply spiritual, moral, and psychological explorations of exceptional and domestic life at a time when Athenian confidence and certainty were moving toward breakup. Mirroring this gathering doubt and anxiety, Euripides reflects the various intellectual, cultural, and moral controversies of his day. It is not too far-fetched to suggest that the world after Athens’s golden age in the fifth century became Euripidean, as did the drama that responded to it. In several senses, therefore, it is Euripides whom Western drama can claim as its central progenitor.

Euripides wrote 92 plays, of which 18 have survived, by far the largest number of works by the great Greek playwrights and a testimony both to the accidents of literary survival and of his high regard by following generations. An iconoclast in his life and his art, Euripides set the prototype for the modern alienated artist in opposition. By contrast to Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides played no public role in the life of his times. An intellectual and artist who wrote in isolation (tradition says in a cave in his native Salamis), his plays won the first prize at Athens’s annual Great Dionysia only four times, and his critics, particularly Aristophanes, took on Euripides as a frequent tar-get. Aristophanes charged him with persuading his countrymen that the gods did not exist, with debunking the heroic, and with teaching moral degeneration that transformed Athenians into “marketplace loungers, tricksters, and scoundrels.” Euripides’ immense reputation and influence came for the most part only after his death, when the themes and innovations he pioneered were better appreciated and his plays eclipsed in popularity those of all of the other great Athenian playwrights.

Critic Eric Havelock has summarized the Euripidean dramatic revolution as “putting on stage rooms never seen before.” Instead of a palace’s throne room, Euripides takes his audience into the living room and presents the con-fl icts and crises of characters who resemble not the heroic paragons of Aeschylus and Sophocles but the audience themselves—mixed, fallible, contradictory, and vulnerable. As Aristophanes accurately points out, Euripides brought to the stage “familiar affairs” and “household things.” Euripides opened up drama for the exploration of central human and social questions embedded in ordinary life and human nature. The essential component of all Euripides’ plays is a challenging reexamination of orthodoxy and conventional beliefs. If the ways of humans are hard to fathom in Aeschylus and Sophocles, at least the design and purpose of the cosmos are assured, if not always accepted. For Euripides, the ability of the gods and the cosmos to provide certainty and order is as doubtful as an individual’s preference for the good. In Euripides’ cosmogony, the gods resemble those of Homer’s, full of pride, passion, vindictiveness, and irrational characteristics that pattern the world of humans. Divine will and order are most often in Euripides’ dramas replaced by a random fate, and the tragic hero is offered little consolation as the victim of forces that are beyond his or her control. Justice is shown as either illusory or a delusion, and the myths are brought down to the level of the familiar and the recognizable. Euripides has been described as drama’s first great realist, the playwright who relocated tragic action to everyday life and portrayed gods and heroes with recognizable human and psychological traits. Aristotle related in the Poetics that “Sophocles said he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were.” Because Euripides’ characters offer us so many contrary aspects and are driven by both the rational and the irrational, the playwright earns the distinction of being considered the first great psychological artist in the modern sense, due to his awareness of the complex motives and ambiguities that make up human identity and determine behavior.

Tragedy: An Introduction

Euripides is also one of the first playwrights to feature heroic women at the center of the action. Medea dominates the stage as no woman character had ever done before. The play opens with Medea’s nurse confirming how much Medea is suffering from Jason’s betrayal and the tutor of Medea’s children revealing that Creon plans to banish Medea and her two sons from Corinth. Medea’s first words are an offstage scream and curse as she hears the news of Creon’s judgment. The Nurse’s sympathetic reaction to Medea’s misery sounds the play’s dominant theme of the danger of passion overwhelming reason, judgment, and balance, particularly in a woman like Medea, unschooled in suffering and used to commanding rather than being commanded. Better, says the Nurse, to have no part of greatness or glory: “The middle way, neither high nor low is best. . . . Good never comes from overreaching.” Medea then takes the stage to win the sympathy of the Chorus, made up of Corinthian women. Her opening speech has been described as one of literature’s earliest feminist manifestos, in which she declares, “Of all creatures on earth, we women are the most wretched,” and goes on to attack dowries that purchase husbands in exchange for giving men ownership of women’s bodies and fate, arranged marriages, and the double standard:

When a man grows tired of his wife and home, He is free to look about for someone new. We wives are forced to count on just one man. They say, we live safe at home while men go to battle. I’d rather stand three times in the front line than bear one child!

Medea wins the Chorus’s complicit silence on her intended intrigue to avenge herself on Jason and their initial sympathy as an aggrieved woman. She next confronts Creon to persuade him to postpone his banishment order for one day so she can arrange a destination and some support for her children. Medea’s servility and deference to Creon and the sentimental appeal she mounts on behalf of her children gain his concession. After he departs, Medea reveals her deception of and contempt for Creon, announcing that her vengeance plot now extends beyond Jason to include both Creon and his daughter.

There follows the first of three confrontational scenes between Medea and Jason, the dramatic core of the play. Euripides presents Jason as a selfsatisfied rationalist, smoothly and complacently justifying the violations of his love and obligation to Medea as sensible, accepted expedience. Jason asserts that his self-interest and ambition for wealth and power are superior claims over his affection, loyalty, and duty to the woman who has betrayed her parents, murdered her brother, exiled herself from her home, and conspired for his sake. Medea rages ineffectually in response, while attempting unsuccessfully to reach Jason’s heart and break through an egotism that shows him incapable of understanding or empathy. As critic G. Norwood has observed, “Jason is a superb study—a compound of brilliant manners, stupidity, and cynicism.” In the drama’s debate between Medea and Jason, the play brilliantly sets in conflict essential polarities in the human condition, between male/female, husband/wife, reason/passion, and head/heart.

Before the second round with Jason, Medea encounters Aegeus, king of Athens, who is in search of a cure for his childlessness. Medea agrees to use her powers as a sorceress to help him in exchange for refuge in Athens. Aristotle criticized this scene as extraneous, but a case can be made that Aegeus’s despair over his lack of children gives Medea the idea that Jason’s ultimate destruction would be to leave him similarly childless. The evolving scheme to eliminate Jason’s intended bride and offspring sets the context for Medea’s second meeting with Jason in which she feigns acquiescence to Jason’s decision and proposes that he should keep their children with him. Jason agrees to seek Glauce’s approval for Medea’s apparent selfsacrificing generosity, and the children depart with him, carrying a poisoned wedding gift to Glauce.

First using her children as an instrument of her revenge, Medea will next manage to convince herself in the internal struggle that leads to the play’s climax that her love for her children must give way to her vengeance, that maternal affection and reason are no match for her irrational hatred. After the Tutor returns with the children and a messenger reports the horrible deaths of Glauce and Creon, Medea resolves her conflict between her love for her children and her hatred for Jason in what scholar John Ferguson has called “possibly the finest speech in all Greek tragedy.” Medea concludes her self-assessment by stating, “I know the evil that I do, but my fury is stronger than my will. Passion is the curse of man.” It is the struggle within Medea’s soul, which Euripides so powerfully dramatizes, between her all-consuming vengeance and her reason and better nature that gives her villainy such tragic status. Her children’s offstage screams finally echo Medea’s own opening agony. On stage the Chorus tries to comprehend such an unnatural crime as matricide through precedent and concludes: “What can be strange or terrible after this?” Jason arrives too late to rescue his children from the “vile murderess,” only to find Medea beyond his reach in a chariot drawn by dragons with the lifeless bodies of his sons beside her. The roles of Jason and Medea from their first encounter are here dramatically reversed: Medea is now triumphant, refusing Jason any comfort or concession, and Jason ineffectually rages and curses the gods for his destruction, now feeling the pain of losing everything he most desired, as he had earlier inflicted on Medea. “Call me lioness or Scylla, as you will,” Medea calls down to Jason, “. . . as long as I have reached your vitals.”

Medea’s titanic passions have made her simultaneously subhuman in her pitiless cruelty and superhuman in her willful, limitless strength and determination. The final scene of her escape in her god-sent flying chariot, perhaps the most famous and controversial use of the deus ex machina in drama, ultimately makes a grand theatrical, psychological, and shattering ideological point. Medea has destroyed all in her path, including her human self, to satisfy her passion, becoming at the play’s end, neither a hero nor a villain but a fear-some force of nature: irrational, impersonal, destructive power that sweeps aside human aspirations, affections, and the consoling illusions of mercy and order in the universe.

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Medea: Feminism in a Man's World Amanda Cook

Although Euripides was known for his propensity to challenge tradition and complacency, his Medea was quite controversial when it was introduced in 431 B.C. in Classical Greece (ca. 479-323 B.C. ). Athenian society, a man's world by organization, had no place for women outside of the home. When a girl was young, she was ruled over by her father, and after he chose whom she would marry, her new master was her husband, and she "received much male advice on the subject of staying home and being quiet" (Bowra 85). Women basically shared an equal status with slaves in Athenian society, having no privileges and certainly no power other than that power held within the home over servants. The culture expected women to display great virtue and to fully submit to their husbands. Not only is Medea a woman, she is also a foreigner, placing her at an even lower status. Nevertheless, she exercises power over her husband as well as every other character whether female or male, and she does so using extreme violence. Written in what certainly could be called a male-dominated society and time, Euripides' Medea is a feminist piece and Euripides' himself, traditionally believed to be a misogynist, is quite the opposite.

GradeSaver provides access to 2312 study guide PDFs and quizzes, 10989 literature essays, 2751 sample college application essays, 911 lesson plans, and ad-free surfing in this premium content, “Members Only” section of the site! Membership includes a 10% discount on all editing orders.

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Feminism In Medea

Medea is one of Euripides’ plays written in 431 BC. Medea, described within the text as an abandoned wealthy woman, decides to take revenge on her husband, Jason for leaving her with their two children. Medea’s actions are considered by many to be monstrous even though she was betrayed by her husband, who took another woman as a lover. Medea’s revenge is assisted by the goddess Hera, who disguised Medea as an old priestess and sent her to meet Jason in Corinth.

Medea tricks the men of Corinth into poisoning their new wife, Glauce, by giving her a beautiful dress for her wedding day. Medea then murders her two children by chopping them up into little pieces and boiling them in a cauldron that appears to be a spoil from the wedding feast. In Euripides’ version of this story, Medea takes revenge on Jason but there are three alternative endings where Medea either kills herself or remains alive with friends leaving the ending ambiguous according to those who believe that she committed suicide versus those who refuse to accept this as fact.

Medea is considered by many to be one of Euripides’ great plays leaving Medea as an ambiguous character that remains memorable to audiences, due to Medea’s choice to take revenge on her husband. It has been said that Medea was written in order for Euripides, a male iconoclast during the time, to criticize women and their more traditional roles. Medea is also described within the text as being abandoned without children or family with the only possession she had taken from Corinth being her dowry which consisted of gold and royal apparel.

Medea is described within the text as having an authoritative voice when speaking with Jason which sets up Medea’s initial argument about why she must leave Corinth. The introduction also uses Medea’s son in order to recollect Medea’s thoughts of her murdered children. Medea is described in the text as having murderous thoughts when speaking about Jason and Medea, given Medea’s negative feelings towards Jason after their divorce. It has been said that Medea is Euripides’ most complex female character within the Medea plays written by Euripides who receives much more autonomy than other women during this time period.

Medea also reflects on events taking place in Greece at the time with Corinth becoming allied with Sparta during the Peloponnesian War which occurred between 431-404 BC (Euripides (Author), 2014). According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Medea was an abandoned wealthy woman who took revenge on her husband for leaving Medea with two children. Medea’s revenge was assisted by the goddess Hera who disguised Medea as an old priestess and sent Medea to meet Jason in Corinth.

Medea tricked the men of Corinth into poisoning their new wife Glauce by giving her a beautiful dress for her wedding day which Medea had poisoned. Medea then murdered her two children by chopping them up into little pieces and boiling them in a cauldron that appeared to be a spoil from the wedding feast (Funk & Wagnalls, 2013). Medea is one of Euripides’ Medea plays written in 431 BC which became famous because it challenges expectations for women this time period. Medusa is said to have only taken revenge on her husband after Medusa’s husband, Jason, took another woman as a lover.

Medea killed Medusa’s two children which has been described as monstrous even though Medusa was betrayed by Medea, who took another man as a lover. Medea is considered an ambiguous character because she takes revenge on Medus’s new lover but there are three different endings where Medea either kills herself or remains alive with friends leaving the ending ambiguous according to those who believe that Medusa committed suicide versus those who refuse to accept this as fact (Rowell, 2014).

Medea challenges readers’ expectations of women during Euripides’ time period because Medusa received autonomy and had murderous thoughts like many men at the time Medusa was written. Medus received autonomy and had murderous thoughts like many men during Euripides’ time period Medea was written. Medusa also reflects on events taking place in Greece at the time with Corinth becoming allied with Sparta during the Peloponnesian War which occurred between 431-404 BC (Funk & Wagnalls, 2013).

Medea kills her own brother as well as her husband’s new love (Jason) to save herself and her children. Her feminism is both explicit and implicit throughout the story; Medea believes in an empowered sexual relationship, showing that she values herself as an individual more than Jason does. Medea also goes against Greek tradition by leaving Corinth after marrying Jason and going with him to another country (a taboo).

Medea’s explicit feminism makes it clear that Medea has little patience for those who do not understand or acknowledge her strength, power, and capabilities as an individual. Medea holds great power in the play through her intelligence, determination, and cunning. Medea’s implicit feminism is seen through Medea’s ability to manipulate situations around her. Medea has great control over her servants (her sorcery skills) as well as authority over Jason (because he fears Medea).

Medea also shows that she values herself more than anyone else, both with confidence in what she says and does/ how powerful she is, but also with willingness to kill herself if it means protecting her children. Medea holds so much power in the story because Medea knows that for someone like her there are no consequences, Euripides suggests this by saying “The gods have given you a strong will”.

During this time, Greece’s most prominent playwrights wrote many tragedies that focused on human suffering caused by war (war themes include: plague, famine, death of family members, defeat). Medea reflects these issues as well as its theme of feminism. At this point in history, women were seen as second class citizens. Medea challenges views about Medea and other women in the play Medea: Medea challenges interpretations of her character and those of other women by Euripides: Euripides’ Medea is a strong female leads that overcomes adversity and oppression.

Medeo defies societal norms and stereotypes placed on women to achieve an honorable goal. Medea became a powerful, independent woman through education and self-realization. Today, Medea is viewed as a feminist work for its depiction of female empowerment. The themes in Medea show the effects war has on people’s lives which includes its impact on daily life such as family values and relationships (including love). Euripide was one of the first people to write about Medea’s role as a mother.

Medea’s teaching her sons about courage and strength is one example of this. Medea deviates from the standard housewife archetype by engaging in violence, murder, sorcery, politics, and revenge. Medea uses her feminine wiles to gain power over others which includes channelling spirits and using herbs for potions. Medea’s knowledge of ancient medicine was used against Creon without physically harming him (similar to modern day massages). Medea exhibits self-awareness throughout act four; Euripides describes Medea as “knowing what she is doing”.

Medea also purposely chooses Jason because he will give her opportunities for advancement (such as marriage into royalty). Medea’s intelligence and power is what Medeo wants her to be. Medea has no reason to commit suicide even though narrative suggests Medea dies by hanging herself in a “spiral dance”. Medea’s death is not self-inflicted; Creon throws Medea down from the roof to kill her. Medea’s body was never recovered so it would make sense for Medeo commit suicide and disappear because she had nothing left in Corinth.

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Theme of Feminism in the Euripides' Play Medea

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Medea’s monologue to the Chorus illustrates the injustices that befell women of that current system:

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Medea Feminist Essay

Euripides's Medea seen through a feminist lens Euripides's play, Medea, is ideologically conflicted meaning that there are some feminist ideas present while also reinforcing patriarchal ideology in parts of the play. The play is reinforcing patriarchal ideology slightly more than it is undermining it. Medea is shown to be a strong and independent woman who does what she wants and doesn't let anything stand in her way. She is shown to be feeling angry and acting hysterically throughout the play and her behavior is irrational. Euripides also portrays her like a 'bad girl' stereotype that is talked about in the feminism criticism handout. Medea shares qualities from a traditional male as well as a traditional female. She is strong and decisive which are said to be male traits in a patriarchal society and she is also emotional like a woman was said to be. Patriarchal ideology is a society that favors men over women. There is inequality between them and it makes life for women very difficult. Women who live like this aren't able to get jobs or vote or even be seen doing something that was said to be manly. They wouldn't be able to be strong and independent and would also be seen as having a bad life if she didn't have a husband for her to praise. Men wouldn't be able to do anything that is said to be girly either. He wouldn't be able to cry, show emotion or act too caring towards people. Life would have many restrictions and women would have to fight for their rights to be able to do things like men can. In the play patriarchal ideology is reinforced because it shows Medea as being a hysterical woman. It shows Jason as being a strong man who is supposedly trying to protect his family and keep them safe. Medea is shown to be emotionally unstable which is supporting the idea that this is a trait of a woman. It shows them in a bad sense. She could even be seen as going crazy due to her behavior that is represented throughout the play. When she finds out that her husband, Jason has left her she starts to scare the people around her, making them think that she may be destructive. At the very beginning of the play the nurse describes how her emotion overcomes her. " She hates her children, does not enjoy seeing them. I'm afraid she may be planning something rash. Her mind is dangerous. " (Euripides 37) This description is displaying Medea's hate and how she is so angry that she is not thinking straight. Medea couldn't even look at her children and think kind thoughts about them because they reminded her of Jason who had dishonored her. She was extremely offended by Jason and was trying to ask the gods for help to rid her of the suffering. Medea was explaining to the chorus which is full of women, that men treat women so badly; with no respect and was trying to show them that she was even worse off than them because her husband had just left her. She wanted their sympathy and got it by being hysterical and practically going crazy over the matter. All this rash, unwanted behavior portrayed Medea as being stereotypically a 'bad girl' who is said to be violent, aggressive, worldly and monstrous. Medea was shown having these qualities and didn't accept her traditional gender role. The feminism criticism handout explains how Jason probably sees her. Jason probably thought that Medea wasn't good enough and that he deserved someone better that was more of a 'good girl' who obeys patriarchal rules of society. Jason was shown to be rational and his choice to leave Medea was quite smart. After seeing her horrible actions the identity of a traditional woman in Medea was definitely gone. Although there were many patriarchal ideas in the play; feminist ideas are presented too. By showing Medea to be an independent woman who is resolving her problems you can see that gender roles are switching a little and that women are becoming more equal to men. Patriarchal ideology is undermined when Medea acts very strongly. She kills her children and she doesn't let her love for them get in the way. Even though this was a kind of stupid thing to do because it made her sad, she could at least act tough and not let her hysterical emotion overcome her and make her back out of what she had set out to do. During this time she is decisive and stands up for herself being very courageous. It was basically revenge on Jason for leaving her and she wanted to make him suffer horribly. She has a very interesting idea that is very clever too. When she sends gifts to Jason's new wife, the princess, and secretly poisons them so the princess will die when she first puts them on, she is being very sneaking and also brave because this is a huge crime that she is committing and making her help her in her evil is just truly daring. It was a very effective

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The Female Discourse and Patriarchal World of Medea

Categories: Medea

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Works Cited

Bates, William Nickerson. "Euripides: A Student of Human Nature." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: GALE, 1998.
Bowra, C.M. & The Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS. Classical Greece. New York: Time Incorporated, 1965.
Durant, Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.
Euripides. "Medea." Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: Norton, 1997. 435-465.
Flaceliere, Robert. Daily Life in Greece at the Time of Pericles. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
Lauter, Paul. "Flannery O'Connor." Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 2112-2113.
Mack, Maynard. "Euripides." Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: Norton, 1997. 433-434.
Marowski, Daniel G. "Medea." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: GALE, 1998.
Rosenmeyer, Thomas G. "The Masks of Tragedy: Essays on Six Greek Dramas." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: GALE, 1998.

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Feminism in Medea

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Throughout history, the focus of media and literature was on “his”tory and rarely on “her”story. Majority of the protagonist in literature and popular media have been males. Nevertheless, not all works of literature focused on a male protagonist, for example in Euripides “Medea”, Medea was portrayed as a strong female protagonist with modern feminist characteristics, she can be rivaled to Odysseus from the great Greek Epic, “The Odyssey” by Homer in terms of the intelligence, a difference between the protagonists’ theme of revenge, and thus leads to discrepancies in the actions of these heroes because of their gender.

“Medea” is one of the earliest works of Athenian tragedies that would be categorized as modern feminism because it speaks to our age directly (Medea the Feminist). Throughout “Medea” she showed that she can be as strong as a man with her “most famous feminist statement in ancient literature” (Medea the Feminist). “I would rather face battle three times than go through childbirth” (Medea, line 245-256). This was an emphasis of gender roles, where men would go to war and women would be taking care of children or be used just for the essence and role of making children.

War was glorified in order to win honor for the nation and for themselves as males, but in the point of view of Medea, war was nothing. It was not considered something of honor and males should not be considered heroes, but rather she asserts that a women’s life requires more courage than of their male counterparts do (Medea the Feminist) due to the pain of giving childbirth. Medea was also considered as a feminist because she was able to speak out her thoughts regardless of what others say. She speaks out of the inequality of men and women in during her time to the women of Corinth(Medea, Line 226-233).

In essence, she voices her opinion about disparity between men and women in Corinth: women have to sell themselves in order to just have “some men” that later will be a dictator over their body (Medea, line 230). She does not want to have a man to be a dictator over her body and pay the heavy dowry just to be married. She wants to in charge of her own body and be able to speak for herself with her own ideas.

Medea was able to do something that a lot of females were not able to do in fear of being ridiculed. She was able to speak of her own opinions and not fear of what others would say about her. Her speech to the women in Corinth was something that all Corinth women can relate to, she was able to speak of the inequality that was dealt with during that time like: why are men honorable and a hero because they went to war and won, instead females should be honorable and be considered a hero because they risk their life to give someone else a life through childbirth.

A similarity between Odysseus and Medea is in their intelligence. In particular, in one of the most famous scenes from “The Odyssey”, Odysseus was cunning towards the cyclops, Polyphemus. Amongst his long journey, Odysseus and his men are at sea and they become hungry and are in dire need of food. They find a treasure trove of food, thus leading them to stay in the cave and feast away. Until Polyphemus returns and starts to eat Odysseus’ men one by one out of anger.

Odysseus could not let this happen to his men, so he creates a plan and asks Polyphemus to try a sample of his wine from his ship. Soon enough, the cyclops becomes very drunk. The cyclops asks for Odysseus’s name and Odysseus replies that his name is Noman. Polyphemus then says that he will eat Noman last. As Polyphemus gets increasingly drunk, Odysseus pulls out a spear and stabs the cyclops’ only eye (The Odyssey, Book 9). Polyphemus says, “My friends! Noman is killing me by ticks, not force” (The Odyssey, Book 9).

Odysseus’ clever plan of telling Polyphemus that his name was Noman helped his crew of men to leave. If it was not for Odysseus’ quick thinking of a decisive plan of getting Polyphemus drunk and letting him think that his name is Noman, Odysseus would not be able to leave with the rest of his man. If it was not for the play on words for his name, the rest of the cyclops would come to surround Odysseus and his men. Just like Odysseus, Medea shows her intelligence through her actions. Creon, the king of Corinth, wants to exile Medea right away from the city.

Medea begs to stay for one more day (Masters of Manipulation, 325) by saying, “Just let me stay here for one more day so I can work out my plans for exile and make some arrangements for my sons […] show me some pity. You have children yourself […]”(Medea, line 337-340). Medea is able to use the element of pathos to manipulate the emotions of Creon in order to convince him to let her stay for one more day. She asks him to pity her as she would have nothing left after she leaves Corinth. She would have to start all over again and become a stranger at another city.

This led to Creon’s downfall because within that one day, Medea did not let her guard down and killed the princess and the king with her poison. Both protagonists were intelligent and cunning in their own ways. By being intelligent and making decisive plans; they are able to manipulate their enemy into believing them, which leads to both of their enemies’ downfall. To Medea, she needed one more day to plan out her revenge and with the time that Creon gave her, she was able to plan accordingly and arrange an escape route for a new home.

For Odysseus, he had to do what he knew best which was to be cunning and save his men from disappearing one by one. If it was not for the quick actions and manipulation of both protagonists, they would either die or be exiled. However, because Medea was a female, her actions were seen as evil and inappropriate. Since Odysseus was a male, his actions were justified, honored, and seen as heroic. Even though both protagonists were cunning and deceived someone else in order to get their way, Medea is criticized for wanting to kill Jason’s wife because she is a female and females are not supposed to be “dark”.

The women of Corinth said to the Nurse of Medea’s children, “If she would meet us […] she might let go of the rage in her heart, and soften her harsh temper.” (Medea, line 170-174). In other words, the women of Corinth perceive Medea’s course of action to kill her children as out of “rage”, even though her actions were justified. Medea follows this course of action in order to execute revenge against Jason for his wrongdoings of leaving and divorcing her, as well as to bring honor back to her name.

The women of Corinth see Medea following a course of evilness. On the other hand, Odysseus is seen as a hero by saving his own life and the life of his men because he was an important male leader. His purpose of killing the cyclops was to set his men and himself free in order to return home. By doing so, Odysseus is seen as a hero while Medea is seen as being destructive, even though she follows a similar course of action.

A difference between Odysseus and Medea is in their theme of revenge: Odysseus wants revenge for his honor and family, while Medea wants revenge for love and lust. Medea speaks of her plans of revenge to the women of Corinth while describing how she felt lonely and disowned by her husband, “So I have just one thing to ask of you: if some plan or scheme occurs to me by which I can get back at my husband and the king and his daughter, Jason’s new wife, say nothing” (Medea, line 251-259). Her plan arises from the pain and neglect she faced from Jason.

To her, love was everything and the only thing she had after she left her family. She is a foreigner from Colchis, so the only thing familiar to her ever since she immigrated to Corinth was Jason. However, Jason became so caught up with his prophecy of becoming a king of a land that he left Medea. Powered by the pain, she vow for vengeance. In order to hurt Jason for leaving her and breaking their vow of marriage, she decides to kill their sons as revenge. Medea says, “It is the surest way to wound my husband.” (Medea, line 801).

She wanted to kill her children as a way to hurt Jason because by killing the sons, Jason will have no one left that would love him and be by his side. In order to revenge for the pain and neglect she felt from Jason, the death of the children will hurt him the most because afterwards he would have nothing of his blood. Odysseus also seeks out revenge but his revenge has a different motive. After Odysseus reaches Ithaca, he meets Athena, who tells him everything that was happening with the suitors and his estate back home.

Odysseus becomes enraged and becomes determined to get revenge for what happened to his home. He says, “So, goddess, now weave me a strategy to pay them back. Stand by me, give me courage, and the drive to fight as when I broke the shining crown of Troy. If you will join me with that zeal and help me, goddess-queen, I could do battle against three hundred men at once.” (The Odyssey, Book 13, Line 385-391).

Odysseus wanted Athena to be by his side so that he can justify the killing of 300 men. He wanted justice for his wife and family because of everything the suitors did, from depleting their stock to decreasing his estate value. Odysseus makes a decisive plan with his son Telemachus to make a competition that no one can win except him: to be able to string his bow and arrow, then release it to go through several axe heads. He goes into the competition and strings his bow effortlessly and and releases his bow from his arrow through each axe head (The Odyssey, Book 22).

After completing the competition, Odysseus starts his revenge by killing Antinous first as an example of what is about to happen to everyone else. Odysseus says, “Dogs! So you thought I would not come back home from Troy? […] You did not fear the gods who live in heaven, and you thought no man would ever come to take revenge. Now you are trapped inside the snares of death.” (The Odyssey, Book 22, Line 35-40). Odysseus was fuming by what happened at his estate and he states everything he heard from Telemachus and Athena when he arrives back at Ithaca.

In essence, Odysseus said that everything the suitors did was a sin and they will be punished by death. The revenge was enacted in order to bring back honor to his name and his family because his suitors were taking over his land and his son Telemachus did not have enough power and authority to persuade the suitors to leave. The only way the suitors would leave the family alone was if Odysseus came back, but by the time Odysseus came back it was already too late. The suitors already took control of the majority of Odysseus’s estate and used up all of Odysseus’s resources. The only way to revenge for his honor was to kill all the suitors that ruined his estate and try to woe his wife while he was still alive.

For Odysseus, his revenge is justified because he is a male and since he is a male, this is what was expected of him. Odysseus reclaims his land, honor, and dignity through revenge. Medea reclaims her dignity and honor back as well, but because she is a female, her actions are deemed as unjustified and inappropriate. Dignity is of importance to men, but it is of importance to women too. To Medea, her dignity was on the line because Jason divorced her and married the princess in order to secure his spot as king.

However, by being a woman, Medea is depicted as being evil for killing the princess and Creon but to Medea, all she was doing was reclaiming her honor. This can be compared to how Odysseus reclaims his honor by plotting revenge against the suitors, which resulted in the death of all the suitors. No one criticized Odysseus’s actions of killing 300 suitors because it was deemed as appropriate and it was what Odysseus had to do to restore his dignity and to bring justice back to his estate and wife. It can be concluded that Medea’s course of actions to regain her honor and dignity may be regarded as appropriate and justified had she been a male, but because she was a female her actions were seen as unjustified and inappropriate.

In conclusion “Medea” by Euripides is a text of feminist work and is regarded as a proto feminist work during modern times because of the strong characterization that Euripides gave to Medea. Medea was a character fearless, intelligent, cunning, and calculating. These characteristics are what classify Medea as a work of Modern Feminism, for her to speak out about the unequal treatment when it comes to marriage between a male and female, intelligent and cunning in her way of creating a revenge for her love, and calculating in her way of being able to carefully think of a plan and execute it all in one day.

Without these characteristics of Medea she would just be a female that would just be a normal Corinth women being by the side of their husband and not care about what is really happening in reality. These characteristics of Medea can be compared to the great Greek Epic, “The Odyssey” by Homer because both protagonists are intelligent, but seek revenge for different reasons. With their skills of manipulation, they were able to complete their revenge for their honor. For Medea her skills of manipulation by lying to Creon that she just needed one day to prepare for her children’s future without her, lead her to a gateway of planning a plan and finishing it all in a course of one day.

She was able to kill the princess and Creon without leaving her house. For Odysseus he was able to manipulate the suitors that he was just somebody like them (a suitor) wanting to try the arrow competition and to see if he can just throw an arrow across the axe and when he did he started his warning of revenge of killing the rest of the suitors. Although Medea is a feminist work she is often criticized for her actions compared to the character Odysseus. There is a double standard to everything a female does compared to males in real life and in literature.

Her actions were seen to be evil and unjustified while Odysseus was seen as a heroic and his actions were justified just because he was a male. The perception of a female is to be loyal, docile, listening to everything their husband says and do, but when Medea plans for revenge for her dignity and honor her actions were deemed to be inappropriate and evil because it was to kill Jason’s current wife. But, Odysseus actions were justified because he had to reclaim his honor and land by killing all the suitors that invaded it. Both characters revenges were for their honor and dignity but because of the perspective that females are supposed to be behaving and innocent (angelic) her actions were unjustified and Odysseus actions were justified and deemed heroic.

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The Effects Of Feminism In Medea

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Literary Theory and Criticism

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