Medea and Romeo and Juliet
Violence in a Literary Context
There have always been different representations of violence within classical literature. Euripides' Medea and William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet both show unique images of past culture's violence acceptance and widespread use of it within their cultural mores. Euripides aims to shock his audience with the murder of Medea's own children; however, he gives her sympathy and allows Medea to justify herself based on the amount of pain and violence she herself had to endure. Shakespeare uses an outrageous militia-like system of home justice used by both major families to show how the ideology of violence begetting violence can have serious consequences on those we love.
Medea, in Euripides' play, had to suffer banishment and betrayal. In turn she redirected the violence bestowed upon her unto her children, which she murdered both to protect them from a life of misery as well as to spite her treacherous husband Jason. It was perfectly dignified in their culture for Jason to violently betray Medea, but when she is the instrument of violence, the audience is shocked. Although Euripides does sympathize with her, Medea still is left to the fate of the mother who murdered her children. This familial violence represents the violence of the culture on a larger scale. Euripides wants to shock the audience in order to show that violence should not be acceptable in any form what so ever.
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet also has an anti-violence message. The unlawful fighting and murdering which happens between the city's largest and most powerful families leads to the death of the innocent Romeo and Juliet. The death of the young lovers aims to show the audience that a universal ideology of unchecked violence can only lead to more pain and suffering. However, through Romeo and Juliet's death, the violence within the context of the play is curbed. Both families come to see the error of their ways, despite this realization being much too late to save their children. At the end, the play makes it clear that violence is in now way morally acceptable, despite many melodramatists attempt to make it so in modern cinema history. Violence always breeds more violence.
