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Several of Sudiata's features make him stand out as a uniquely Malian hero. He achieved his goals through the necessary assistance of shamans and sorceresses whose traditions are time-honored. Those shamanic references rest comfortably beside Muslim mythos and tradition. Religious belief, practice, and moral discourse in the Sundiata is a complex hybrid of shamanic and Muslim faiths. The blend is also evident in the diverse cultures of Western Africa that gave rise to the epic.
Muslim references and messages also add nuances to the epic, revealing much about the evolution of West African culture. The Sundiata is therefore a window into Malian and Ghanese cultures. For example, polygamy is one of the most salient themes of the Sundiata, one of the social trends that unite traditional African and Muslim cultures and which sets them apart from European,...
The jealousies and betrayals that emerge within the polygamous social structure have a strong bearing on Sundiata's fate. He is sent into exile due to the conniving influence of one of his step-mothers.
Just as in the Sundiata, sorcery and magic also play primary roles in the development of Greek heroes including the heroine Medea and in the ancient heroes of all cultures. Magic is portrayed as potentially dangerous: a gray area. Sundiata uses magic to his favor but some of the problems Sundiata must overcome are also due to black magic. Moreover, like Oedipus prophesy plays an important part in the character's life and in the development of the epic's plot. The magical arts are more central to the West African tale than they are in most classical Greek tales, making the Sundiata stand out as a quintessentially West African tale.
Medea relates a story about the power of love, which induces sacrifice as well as jealousy and feelings of revenge aroused by betrayal. Medea, the principal character, is a woman, who is so smitten by her love for Jason that she forsakes her family, country and people to live in "...the land of Corinth with her husband and children, where her exile found favour with the citizens to whose land
Medea Villianness, Victim, or Both? Medea has emerged from ancient myth to become an archetype of the scorned woman who kills her own children to spite her husband, who must then suffer the fate of outliving them. The story itself is horrific, and yet it remains strangely fascinating, and into the mouth of its maniacal heroine many writers have given philosophies which were too subversive to be voiced in open discourse. Many
Medea also uses her children by having them deliver poison in the disguise of gifts, as no one would expect the children to have ill intentions. The children present the gifts as a request to let them avoid banishment, but in reality the gifts have been sent not to aid the children's situation at all. Throughout the play Medea acts like a puppet-master using the children to get her
This double standard is prominent in Medea, for example when Jason admits that it is normal for women to get very angry when their husband is being unfaithful, yet he expects Medea to forget about it. (Euripides, ln 908-910) This is yet another way in which Medea parallels the position of women in our society today who are also expected to keep their feelings hidden. Medea has an inclination towards
Freudian theory believes that extreme suffering removes own from the tamed state which each individual resides within civilization, "Just as satisfaction of instinct spells happiness for us, so severe suffering caused us if the external world lets us starve, if it refuses to state our needs," (Freud 28). Medea is so affected by her suffering that she removes herself from everyday life, "She lies without food and gives herself
"As a female foreigner whose relationship with Jason was only formalized with the birth of the children, Medea would have been viewed as an irregular companion, and after Jason's betrothal to Glauce, she would be reduced to the status of concubine." (Guastella in Claus) This makes them a helpful tool in securing her bond to Jason. Another means by which they can be useful props for Medea is when she