Medea and Jason's contrasting perspectives in Euripides' tragedy

Medea and Jason

Medea by Euripides

Euripides play Medea is one of the most discussed pieces of literature of the Ancient Greece. Based on the myth of Jason and Medea, Euripides' play provides material for very interesting interpretations from the modern perspective. While the context in which the play was first produced must be taken into consideration, the work has modern imports that must have been missed by the original audience of Euripides. Thus, the most intriguing character of the play is certainly the eponymous Medea, a complex and strong personality whose psychology and motives are very hard to unravel. In the historical context in which the play was originally embedded, the plot had very important philosophical connotations, related to the subject of revenge especially. For the modern spectator, the psychological and sociological matrixes of the play are the most interesting aspects. The complexity of the situation presented in the tragedy obviously defies a simple interpretation. Certainly, the most poignant question posed by the text is whether the terrible acts of Medea could be justified in any way, or whether her guilt is greater than that of Jason. Understood strictly in the initial context, the heroine is almost a fiend, an evil creature devoid of humanity. However, a modern interpretation can disclose another side of the matter, and demonstrate that some sense can be found precisely in the irrationality and absurdness of Medea's outrageous deeds.

The plot of the play is well-known: betrayed by her husband Jason, who takes a new wife of royal blood to ensure a better social and political situation for himself, Medea seeks revenge. Her wrath and her hot temper determine her to murder not only Jason's new bride and her father, king Creon of Corinth, but her own children too, so as to hurt her former husband in the direst manner possible. The act of a mother killing her own offspring is probably the culmination of all crimes. In this respect, Medea's acts can never be justified from a moral point-of-view. Euripides evidently exploited this point to enhance the impact that the tragedy would have on the audience. The modern reader is even more repelled by the ghastly murder. However, with the tools provided by modern psychology, we can divine an explanation for Medea's reaction. It can never be asserted thus that Medea was in any way 'right' in performing any of the murders, and least of all that of her children. No spectator could be lenient on Medea, as her inhumanity, her deceitfulness and cold-blooded precision with which she fulfills the murderous plans can only induce the audience to feel revulsion towards her. If we analyze the situation from a moral point-of-view, Jason would definitely appear to be the one who is less guilty, since his only fault is that he leaves his Barbarian wife to take a 'better' woman, who will bring him a more advantageous social position. However, if Medea's acts are unaccountable from a moral point-of-view, they do have a psychological justification. Jason's fault is by no means slight: his act of abandoning his wife and children to contract a better marriage shows him to be selfish and heartless. Also, the reasons he gives for his act are petty and dishonest: he tells Medea that he intended to favor the family and his children, by increasing their fortune. He thus acts from an economical and political instinct, disregarding the value of a marriage commitment. As Medea thus cleverly emphasizes, Jason takes full advantage of his privileged position as a male, and acts according to his selfish, individualistic purposes: "If...our husbands live with us without resenting the marriage-yoke, our life is enviable. Otherwise, death is preferable. A man, whenever he is annoyed with the company of those in the house, goes elsewhere and thus rids his soul of its boredom...But we must fix our gaze on one person only. Men say that we live a life free from danger at home while they fight with the spear...I would rather stand three times with a shield in battle than give birth once."(Euripides 1994, p. 342) Medea thus pertinently observes the injustice and incongruity of the gender division in her contemporary Greek society. What in Jason's view appears to be a minor and unimportant event, his remarrying, is for Medea the whole ground for her identity and existence. In the patriarchic society, the woman was reduced to her role as a mother and a wife, having no freedom of action or even of being as an individual. Thus, without justifying Medea's actions morally, this abandonment can be seen as a major trauma for the woman. Regarding the play from a modern point-of-view, we can say that Medea did not act solely out of blind jealousy or out of a huge desire for vengeance. In her description of the marriage to Jason, it is obvious that Medea equates her role as a wife and a mother with her identity as an individual. These things are inseparable for a woman living in a patriarchic society. As such, when Jason simply abandons the family, the harmony and coherence in Medea's life disappear. She obviously cannot conceive of herself as an individual and begin an independent life of her own. For Medea, Jason's act is a threat to her own identity. Moreover, if we make a parallel between Medea and Toni Morrison's Sethe in Beloved, we will discover a very similar case: in a fit of desperation, Sethe kills her own baby daughter to save her from slavery. As in Medea's case, Sethe obviously assumes a right that she does not have: that of life and death over the child she herself engendered. One of the reasons that Medea kills her two children is also the fact that she feels bound to protect them from the enemies that would pursue them because of her mother's crimes. Even if it is an atrocious deed, the murder of the children by their mother can be partly accounted for in Freudian terms because of the strong bound that exists between the mother and the children at an early stage of their infancy. Due to the forced role imposed on her by the patriarchal society, Medea cannot perceive well the boundaries of her own identity. She simply identifies herself with her role as a mother: "How wretched my self-will has made me! It was all in vain, I see, that I brought you up, all in vain that I labored and was wracked with toils, enduring harsh pains in childbirth."(Euripides 1994, p. 381) Surely, the outward purpose of Medea's murder is to accomplish the most dreadful revenge against Jason. On a more subtle psychological level though, it becomes clear that Medea's incontrollable acts are determined by her identity crisis once abandoned by her husband and exiled from the city. Moreover, Jason's attitude is obviously degrading for Medea and for women in general. After leaving his family with no further consideration for his own act, he attempts to be generous by offering Medea money to have in her exile: "Still, even after this I have not failed my loved ones but have come here in your interests, woman, so that you might not go into exile with your children penniless or in need of anything: exile brings many hardships with it. Even if you hate me, I could never bear you ill-will."(Euripides 1994, p. 352) His intentions seem good but his offer is obviously corrupt: he acts again by merely envisaging the economical aspect of the situation, and without feeling any remorse for his deed. Furthermore, he slights his former wife even more when he reminds her of her 'Barbarian' origins, and tries to take full credit for the fact that he has brought her to the civilized world, where she had the chance to put her cleverness to value: "But in return for saving me you got more than you gave, as I shall make clear. First, you now live among Greeks and not barbarians, and you understand justice and the rule of law, with no concession to force. All the Greeks have learned that you are clever, and you have won renown."(Euripides 1994, p. 354) Jason also fails to admit that Medea actually saved his life before, and that he is repaying her in a base manner. Moreover, his interpretation of Medea's reaction obviously lacks understanding: he insults her by attributing her jealously merely to the fact that she has lost some sexual advantages: "But you women are so far gone in folly that if all is well in bed you think you have everything, while if some misfortune in that domain occurs, you regard as hateful your best and truest interests. Mortals ought, you know, to beget children from some other source, and there should be no female sex. Then mankind would have no trouble."(Euripides 1994, p. 356) Jason's attitude towards women is obviously degrading. Thus, although Medea commits horrible murders, her actions can be understood, if not justified, from a modern point-of-view. Although appearing to act in cold blood, Medea is obviously driven by the irrational forces of her subconscious when he murders her children. On the one hand her act is a reaction towards the threat that a hostile society poses against her identity. On the other hand, he murder is a revenge against her husband's infidelity. The fact that Jason tries to lessen his own deed and make it seem but a reasonable thing that any woman 'with sense' should merely accept, points at the fact that he shamelessly pursues his own goals without considering the damage he does to the others: "Jason: Did you really think it right to kill them because of a marriage? Medea: Do you imagine that loss of love is a trivial grief for a woman? Jason: For a woman of sense, yes. But you find everything a disaster."(Euripides 1994, p. 396) Thus, it can be said that although Jason's acts are not as brutal as Medea's revenge, on a subtler level, they are traumatizing and annihilating. He does not kill anyone, but, in a way, his deeds are just as deadly.