Medea: a woman more sinned against than sinning

Medea

Euripides, one of the great Greek playwrights of yesteryears, even today, remains a constant favorite among readers, more so than Sophocles or Aeschylus could ever become. The reason for this phenomenon is that Euripides more often than not, believed in sacrificing or sidelining propriety and correctness in favor of metaphorical and rhetorical displays of verse, and this may be what made him better known than most of his contemporaries of the middle Ages, when the Classical Greek tragedies came into their own. Euripides's treatment of the genre referred to as the 'tragi-comedy', therefore, is well-known for being tame at times, and completely rhetorical at others and the reader often gets a feeling that he is reading the speeches of a great orator than the work of a poet. Euripides was a trained athlete, and was also a famed painter; however, it was his poetry that won him great acclaim and wealth during his lifetime. (Euripides and his Tragedies)

The play 'Medea' was one of the better known works written by Euripides, and the story of the drama revolves around the woman 'Medea' who was betrayed by her own husband, Jason. Medea had in fact left her home and her father and embraced Jason and followed him to his home, and also borne his children. However, Jason forsakes Medea and gets himself betrothed to another woman, Glauce, the daughter of the ruler of Corinth, Creon. After the betrothal is an accomplished fact, Creon takes over and orders the banishment of Medea so that she may not, in a fit of jealousy and rage against her husband Jason who has left her, bring about any harm onto her own child. Medea does not accede willingly, and begs in vain to be spared this injustice, but to no avail. However, she is granted a short reprieve of one single day, and this proves to be the undoing of Creon. ('Medea', a Summary and an analysis of the Play by Euripides)

Jason arrives at this point of time and reproaches Medea for not having obeyed the orders of the Sovereign, and that she had in fact brought this punishment upon herself because of her furious temper and her extreme jealousy and rage. Medea replies by reminding Jason of all that she had done for him, including the betrayal of her own husband, and also the casting of Pelias in such a bad light that he had been killed by his own daughters. Medea states, "I am the Mother of your Children. Whither can I fly, since all Greece hates the Barbarian?" ('Medea', a Summary and an analysis of the Play by Euripides) However, Jason has his answer down pat, and he says that it was not Medea, who was actually responsible for saving him from his enemy Pelias, but it was rather, "love," and he also states that Medea had in fact enjoyed more love from him than she herself had given him all through their many years together. Jason says that he had in fact brought Medea from a barbaric land into Greece, where she became well-known and revered for her infinite wisdom, and that even if a person is indeed blessed by the Muses, it is, in fact, to no avail, because, unless there were to be Fame accompanying the Muses, there would be no purpose.

He also emphasis that it was not for love that he was marrying the daughter of Creon, but for the purpose of gaining wealth and riches, which in turn would be gained by his sons when the time came. The final point that Jason makes is that Medea need not leave in a state of need; in fact, she can avail of as much as she wants, and his friends would be appointed to take care of the woman in later years. However, these paltry gifts do not seem attractive to Medea, and she refuses them with scorn. She says, "Marry the maid if thou wilt; perchance full soon thou mayst rue thy nuptials." ('Medea', a Summary and an analysis of the Play by Euripides)

It is at this point that the ruler of Athens, Aegeus, arrives at Corinth, and Medea decides to appeal to this man for help, who in turn promises that Medea would indeed be able to find refuge in Athens. This reassurance on the part of Aegeus strengthens Medea's resolve for wreaking revenge on Jason and his own, and she has him summoned. She falls at his feet and begs for his forgiveness, and requests that she may be given a chance to redeem herself, as she had uttered words in anger and not out of any other motive. The only way to redeem her, she states, is by asking her children to stay, and take to the Princess Glauce a robe and also a golden crown, and pray for her protection. Jason feels that these are reasonable requests, and they are granted, however, no sooner than the gifts are delivered than the messenger who had delivered them rushes back saying that the Princess and her aged Father had both died in great agony because Medea had doused the robes with a poison so great that the Princess had felt that she was being consumed by fire, and when her father had rushed to save his daughter, he had been consumed by the same poison too.

It is after this that the play takes on even greater proportions of tragedy, as Medea leads her children to slaughter herself, just so that no one else may kill them in revenge later. The agonizing scene in which the Mother makes the decision to take her own children's lives is a heart rending one, and this is seen in these lines from the play: "In vain, my children, have I brought you up...and you will never more your Mother see, nor live as ye have done beneath her eye...Ah! Me, what shall I do...why should I seek to wring their Father's heart, when that same act will doubly wring my own?" ('Medea', a Summary and an analysis of the Play by Euripides) Jason arrives at the scene after Medea makes her decision to slay her own children and carries out the act, after which she takes refuge in Athens. Medea however appears to Jason in the Chariot of the Sun, and revels that she has wreaked an apt vengeance on Jason, her unfaithful husband, by killing both his bride-to-be, as well as his children. ('Medea', a Summary and an analysis of the Play by Euripides)

There are some who feel that Medea is a 'witch' and that she has done the 'unspeakable', which is the murder of her own two children, whose father is her estranged husband Jason, on whom she wants to wreak her revenge for his betrayal. (Medea by Euripides) However, there are some others who feel that Medea is a woman more sinned against than she is a sinner in the real sense, and the reasons for this are many. For example, when Medea is brought out of the room in which she had been incarcerated, she delivers a monologue on the general plight of women, which can be taken as a perfect example of all the indignities that she herself had suffered as a woman. She says that women, though they are generally acknowledged as creatures that are capable of thoughts and feelings, are made to suffer from horrible indignities and ignominies, the least of which is 'marriage', which serves no other purpose than bring about a certain degree of servitude among women.

However, marriage is a necessity, but the man, even from within the boundaries of the marriage, feels free to indulge all his various desires with his various friends and other contacts, but a woman is forbidden from doing so, and expected to live only for her husband and her family and for no one else. Also, while men must bear 'arms', women must bear 'children', and in this, Euripides demonstrates clearly his true feelings for women in general. It is very obvious that the playwright was a staunch supporter of women, even though this was displayed inconsistently through his career, and had in fact a deep insight and interest in the position of women, and al the ways and means that people were capable of using in making a woman suffers indignities at the hands of man. Therefore, in Medea, the woman is definitely more sinned against than she is a sinner, and it is very clear also that Greece was a male-order dominated world, and the woman was expected to be subjugated by her superior, man. (Classic Note on Medea)