Essays on Medea

The Greco-Roman myth is characterized by familial power struggles which mean that power structure was primarily hereditary as power revolved around one family. Familial power structures are reflected by the way Zeus allocated responsibilities to his sons and daughters. The gods, such as Zeus father, killed their sons for fear that they would usurp them while there were also incidences where gods would be dethroned from power. The Greco-Roman myth reflects the way power struggles interfere with the functioning of the society and the extent to which those in authority are willing to go in sustaining their authority and ...

People can be blind to love, truth, or reality in general. The reason can be strong emotions or an intention to escape a traumatizing situation. At the same time, the outcomes of such blindness are usually tragic. Euripides was a master of creating dramatic plays that encapsulated the strongest emotions of a person by engaging them into the traumatizing actions and experiences. Particularly, the topic of blindness is particularly vividly represented in Euripides’s “Medea” (Euripides 17). She is overwhelmed with her frustration and anger on Jason’s betrayal and humiliation. In the swirl of a blind rage Medea ...

Witchcraft can be defined as the use and application of magical powers typically obtained from sorcery or evil spirits in performing unbelievable things. Or it can as well be defined as the invocation and exercise of alleged powers which are supernatural in nature in controlling events or people with the involvement of magic or sorcery. Therefore, a witch can be described as an individual who performs these supernatural scenes. In most cases, the unavoidable element of witchcraft is the infliction of painful feeling to one party in efforts of satisfying the wants of the other party. These painful inflictions ...

Throughout the play, Medea is a varied character who attains numerous characteristics compared to women of his times. She, therefore, received different treatment from the society. Why was she a different being? One, Medea was obsessed with supernatural powers, a trait that made her so unique and distinct. Nonetheless, she was unscrupulous, spiteful, and compelled with retaliation. Because of the daily encounters in her life experiences, the situations that arose could have been thought to have played a critical role in shaping certain characteristics and actions by Medea. Most people were scared of her, including the males in the ...

Classic English Literature

At first glance, it seems that there is nothing in common in the Euripides’ play “Medea” and the Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”. But is that really so? In this essay we will examine this issue and will show that they have a similar theme, by drawing a parallel between these two dramas. First of all, I want to stress that both plays are psychological tragedies. “Medea” is a tragedy with a pronounced psychological orientation, due to the great interest of Euripides to the identity of the person with all her contradictions and passions. As a good psychologist, Euripides ...

Alphonse Macharia Mucha was a decorative artist and painter from Czech Republic. He is famous for his distinct style in art. He came up with many designs, postcards, advertisements, illustrations, and paintings. He mostly painted theatrical scenery. His works of art were previously known as The Mucha style but later on became Art Nouveau meaning new art in French. Most of Mucha’s art works featured young women, classic robes, with lavish flowers surrounding them. In most of his works, Mucha made use of pale pastel colours. Mucha used most of his art works to express himself. He even stated ...

Medea is a play written by Euripides is an ancient Greek tragedy. It was first produced in 431BC and it is based upon the myth of Medea and Jason. Centered on the barbarian protagonist, Medea finds her position in two areas. One, the revenge she takes against Jason her husband. Jason is found to have betrayed Medea and their children for another woman. To make her revenge perfect, Medea is willing to sacrifice everything. Secondly, she finally finds her position in the Greek world. Medea is a woman of extreme emotion and extreme behavior. She sacrifices everything for the love of ...

The Ancient World was always an important literature field depicting mythological heroes and events. It was the ancient literature that became an important heritage of Europe. A deep implication is often hidden in every work. Gods, demi-gods, strong warriors were the main characters highlighted in the ancient literature. For example, Homer's Iliad and Euripides' Medea possess some bright and memorable heroes that should be singled out. Thus, let us take a look at the major characters of the above mentioned works. Being a protagonist of Homer's Iliad, harsh and unforgiving warrior Achilles is one of the most complex characters ...

Euripides’ Medea is a play that is based on a tragedy where a woman revenges on her husband (Jason), who had betrayed her by marrying another woman. Medea is the protagonist in the play who in the initial stages arouses a reader’s sense of sympathy and admiration because of the situation she is passing through. However, as I continued reading though, my feeling sorry for her changed. She was not justified to kill her children as a revenge on her husband. Even if the husband abandoned her, the method and extent of her revenge ultimately worked to her disadvantage. In fact, media’s ...

Medea

In this particular passage of Medea, Jason confronts Medea immediately after she has murdered their sons, finally reaping what he has sown for his ignorance and abuse of Medea throughout the play up to that point. Throughout the scene, the tactics of these respective characters are clear – Jason hoping to shame Medea out of guilt for murdering their children, Medea hoping to use the murder of the children to prove a point about Jason’s infidelity and “to cause [him] pain” (line 1401). After seeing that Jason cannot get anywhere with Medea, even to get him to “touch the soft ...

Women in Ancient Greece

OUTLINE I. Introduction Thesis: Plato’s Symposium, Euripides’ Medea and Lysias’ Murder of Eratosthenes demonstrate that women had no place in Ancient Greek culture, other than to produce children and run a household. II. Plato’s Symposium A. Pausanias begins his speech describing two types of love: heavenly and common. Common love is a physical type of love, something to be had between a man and a woman. B. Aristophanes, a comedian, gave a speech about humans being split in two by Zeus and because of this we are always looking for our other half. Men who want women, and ...

Introduction

Virgil was an important poet in the Roman Empire. He was born in Italy, but finally got settled in Rome. Virgil was a favorite amongst the patrons in his time and gained a lot of wealth, fame and emperor’s favors simply because of his writing. Virgil lived through several tumultuous wars and regime changes (one of Octavian’s regimes as well, who was also called as Augustus later). Always being in the good books of the emperor Augustus, Virgil started working on his most famous book the Aeneid, which also immortalized the reign of Augustus. The Aeneid is the story ...

Iraq

Introduction Iraq is a country that is located in Western Asia. According to the website of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Its official name is the Republic of Iraq. It is surrounded by the countries of Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. Its capital is Baghdad, which is also its largest city (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014). According to the website of the White House, the country, however, enjoys a narrow coastline of length on the northern section of the Persian Gulf, which is adjacent to the Mesopotamian Alluvial Plain, otherwise known as the Tigris-Euphrates River System, the home of the Fertile ...

(326 words) As a king, Oedipus had the responsibility of protecting the people from the curse in Thebes. With the crop and animals dying, people are finding it difficult to cope with the strenuous life. The priests believed that Oedipus was the only person who would save Thebes since he had earlier saved them from the Sphinx. The only way to save the people would be murdering those who were responsible for the death of Laius; however, Oedipus gets confused after learning from Tiresias that he was the killer(Puchner & Martin 206). Oedipus thinks that there is a conspiracy ...

Literature as a socializing force

Literature texts have been used throughout the centuries as a socializing tool. This is because it generally describes customs of the time which includes social behavior expectations. While today we have Internet and movies, there were times where these did not exist. The form of entertainment was solely through literature. The way it was exhibited was in the form of plays that the general public could participate. This was the case of the Greek Civilization. Literature of that time describes how everyday life was, how women and men behave and how different groups of society behaved. Because of the ...

Question One

The playwright that I support is Art by Yasmina Reza. In this play, Art regards the catastrophic outcome on three friends, and when one of the buys a work that is expensive —a huge painting containing white lines on a canvas that was white. This play relates more to our play because everyone in Art is selfish and self- centered. In our play, instead of recognizing the elephant in the room, which is the suicide, everyone’s focus is on their own issues just like in the Art where three men engage in an continuing debate over the worth of the painting, ...

Gender is a social construct, not tied to sex in any neat, definitive manner and hence, amenable and open to (re)construction in order to challenge power relations. This paper explores gendered power relations in Euripedes’ Medea and Sophocles’ Antigone, in an endeavour to explicate upon how such relations manifest themselves in the text, and thereby, shape, influence and contribute to an understanding of the overwhelmingly misogynist and patriarchal social reality of ancient Greece. The paper also seeks to take issue with the use of language as mediating an elucidation and plurification of meaning/s in the text, and aiding in ...

Riverside Theatre presents an epic illustration of a well and specifically designed arrangement meant to accommodate the diverse activities. The range of events of events from concerts conferences, speaker presentations, ceremonies and graduations clearly highlights the importance attached to the theatre itself. The stage management and the latest lighting effects bring the epic presentation that reveals a dramatic revelation of opportunities. The lighting effects feature an operable wall that perfectly attaches the audience to the centre stage. This helps in the staging techniques that help in the live performance. The artistic paintings on the stage help in the communicating of ...

The play “Medea” is very unique in its unique portrayal of women. Euripides states, “Surely, of all creatures that have life and will, we women/ Are the most wretched. When, for an extravagant sum,/ We have bought a husband, we must then accept him as/ Possessor of our body. This is to aggravate/ Wrong with worse wrong. Then the great question: will the man/ We get be bad or good? For woman, divorce is not/ Respectable; to repel the man, not possible.” (Euripides) This line takes place immediately after we see how the men in the story treat their ...

Religion in modern times is centered on the individual. The giant megachurches that host services every Sunday (or Saturday, if Sunday is a bit inconvenient) feature huge screens that show worshipers the song lyrics, so they don’t have to worry about finding the song in a hymnal. They show the Bible verse of the day, so worshipers don’t have to dig that Bible out and find it. The sermons, by and large, focus on ways that the information in the Bible helps people have more rewarding lives. Outside Christianity, the focus seems to be on ways to get yourself ...

Analysis of chorus in Oedipus

The chorus is like a peanut-gallery. Sophocles uses this group of Thebans to comment on the play action and foreshadow future events. In a play, the chorus plays a very vital role, it adds complexity and depth to the storyline and adds spice to the message that the author intends to portray. It is inaccurate to think that the chorus interferes with our understanding of the play. Even though the chorus adds complexity, this does not mean that it will distract the audience understanding of the play. The role of the chorus in Oedipus and Madea is that it extends our inner ...

First question: This piece of literature poses a challenge to the traditional notion where the women were not given chances to be the protagonists in the play. In this drama the heroine was murdered an issue that greatly affects the conscience of human beings. This drama is a mythical since it brings out the perception of women in the society and the various roles that they play despite the fact that they are believed not capable of performing some tasks and responsibilities just because they are women. The author has tried to make some contemporary issues irrelevant or of less importance ...

“Medea” and “Twelfth Night” are all examples of how the role of women has changed throughout society. Women in these plays stood up against oppression and took their lives into their own hands. These works offer insight into the strength of women characters and the struggle for women’s rights in today’s society.

The Role of Women in Medea

If one line could describe the play, it would be 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'. Ideas about complex relationships remain the theme of the play. The plot revolved around Medea who is credited with helping Jason retrieve the Golden Fleece and portrayed as a ...

There are some themes in the visual and performing arts that stand the test of time. Despite thousands of years, hundreds of wars, and political upheaval spanning from one end of the globe to the other, there are topics that artists address again and again. One of the most enduring themes in the history of dramatic literature is that of Revenge. The concept of Revenge is present in Euripides’ Medea, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the musical Chicago, written by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse. While the theme of Revenge is present in the literature of each era, the playwrights’ ...

Introduction

This paper describes Medea as a classical and famous work translated by Rex Warner. The book covers a short, concise and strongly unnerving story of Jason’s wife, Argonauts leader, and an unsettling revenge plot against her unfaithful husband and her child. Nurse, a slave in Medea’s house, helps the audience to understand the account of misogyny or a forewarning of the retaliation of a wronged woman. Medea as the main character is described as a “Machiavel without a country to rule" (4). At the beginning of the scene, Medea is portrayed as a suicidal woman. She prefers to herself as a wretch, an intolerable mother ...

Part 1

Euripides’ Medea puts up a very strange and ambiguous idea of morality and justice. Even though Medea commits horrendous crimes we are made to question who exactly is the villain in the play. It makes us question the set patterns of justice. She is a witch who to some may only have lured her husband to herself through witchcraft, however because of the dramatic action that is taking place one is continuously forced to think about the other side of the story. Isn’t Medea being driven to do what she does? Wouldn’t most people simply collapse if they were ...

At the scene where Jason agonizes for the death of his children and the cruelty that Medea is showing him for not letting him touch the corpses of his children, the Messenger behind the heavy door eagerly listens to the unusual scene happening beyond the door. He too is weeping inside because of what Medea came to be. The messenger, although a witness to the murder of the royal family can only do so much, for he can only hate Medea for what she had done, but cannot lay a finger on her for some reason. As the Messenger listens to ...

Abstract

The paper discusses the story of Medea in the Euripides’ play. The work also provides a brief description of the play’s plot and then focuses on the ambivalent position of Medea in it. She is both the victim and the aggressor. The paper explains in detail in what circumstances Medea behaves like a villain and where she appears to be only a victim of the cruel rules of the society. Quotations from the play are used to support the ideas expressed in the paper.

The Medea is one of the most well-known plays of the ancient times. It was written by ...

Comparison of Medea in Euripides and In Imagining Medea

Role of Women in Ancient and Modern Society

There has been a significant difference between the roles played by the women in both the ancient and the modern society. This has been enormously been influenced by the virtue that the time has changed and the introduction of technology. The roles that were initially were only subjected to the male in the community are nowadays performed by even the women. This has been seriously been influenced by civilization. Although the process has been gradual, in some communities women are still not allowed to perform some other duties. The difference in the ...