Medea as Tragic Hero: Euripides and Aristotle's Poetics

Introduction: Aristotle and the Tragic Hero

The pattern of the tragic hero was first defined by Aristotle. His work The Poetics discusses the art of Greek tragedy and defines the rules for a tragic protagonist. By examining these rules alongside the Medea of Euripides, we can see how Euripides observes or breaks the classic pattern. The argument here is that Euripides observes more rules than he violates, the better to emphasize those aspects in which he differs from the Aristotelian norm.

The Unities of Time, Place, and Action

The first part of the pattern of a tragic hero is discussed by Aristotle in Poetics Chapter V. Here, Aristotle defines what would come to be known as "the unities":

"They differ, again, in their length: for Tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas the Epic action has no limits of time." (Poetics V)

This means that a Greek tragedy will always have — or should have — the same basic structure: the play has a "unity" of time, because it all takes place within Aristotle's "single revolution of the sun." The tragedy additionally features a unity of place (i.e., there is only one set) and a unity of action (i.e., there is only one plot).

The Medea of Euripides observes all three of these unities: the whole tragedy takes place in a single day, in one location outside Medea's house in Corinth, and it tells the story of Medea's revenge on Jason for deserting her. Even though Medea is not the first character to appear or speak, the Nurse's opening speech presents Medea to us by way of introduction:

"…While Medea, his hapless wife, thus scorned, appeals to the oaths he swore, recalls the strong pledge his right hand gave, and bids heaven be witness what requital she is finding from Jason. And here she lies fasting, yielding her body to her grief, wasting away in tears ever since she learnt that she was wronged by her husband, never lifting her eye nor raising her face from off the ground."

This immediate initial introduction establishes Medea as the Aristotelian tragic protagonist.

Recognition and Reversal of Fortune in Medea

The Aristotelian pattern for the tragic hero continues with the outlining of the plot. For Aristotle, the tragic hero must have two key elements in the plot: recognition (or anagnoresis) and reversal of fortune (or peripeteia). He defines the first in Poetics Chapter IX:

"Recognition, as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune…things of the most trivial kind may in a sense be objects of recognition. Again, we may recognize or discover whether a person has done a thing or not." (Poetics IX)

In Medea, this recognition occurs late in the play, as Medea recognizes that Jason has deserted her permanently. This realization resolves her to kill her children in revenge, as she describes before exiting the stage:

"O my babes, my babes, let your mother kiss your hands. Ah! hands I love so well, O lips most dear to me! O noble form and features of my children, I wish ye joy, but in that other land, for here your father robs you of your home. O the sweet embrace, the soft young cheek, the fragrant breath! my children! Go, leave me; I cannot bear to longer look upon ye; my sorrow wins the day. At last I understand the awful deed I am to do; but passion, that cause of direst woes to mortal man, hath triumphed o'er my sober thoughts."

The fact that Medea then commits the murder is the reversal of fortune. These two elements demonstrate that Euripides observes the traditional pattern for tragic protagonist in the plot of Medea.

The Four Rules of Character

Poetics Chapter XV outlines the specifications for character in the pattern of the Greek tragic hero. These entail several distinct rules, which must be considered individually. Aristotle states:

"In respect of Character there are four things to be aimed at. First, and most important, it must be good. Now any speech or action that manifests moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character: the character will be good if the purpose is good. This rule is relative to each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valor; but valor in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness is inappropriate. Thirdly, character must be true to life: for this is a distinct thing from goodness and propriety, as here described. The fourth point is consistency: for though the subject of the imitation, who suggested the type, be inconsistent, still he must be consistently inconsistent." (Poetics XV)

The first of these rules is, intriguingly, violated by Euripides. Medea as he presents her is not a good or virtuous character — her purpose in killing her children is petty. Moreover, Medea is a princess, and so her actions are not worthy of her rank. Her actions do not technically violate the second rule of "propriety," however, because the murder itself takes place off-stage: it is literally "ob-scene" and only revealed when the children are already dead, as Jason's speech makes clear:

"Ladies, stationed near this house, pray tell me is the author of these hideous deeds, Medea, still within, or hath she fled from hence? For she must hide beneath the earth or soar on wings towards heaven's vault, if she would avoid the vengeance of the royal house. Is she so sure she will escape herself unpunished from this house, when she hath slain the rulers of the land? But enough of this! I am forgetting her children. As for her, those whom she hath wronged will do the like by her; but I am come to save the children's life, lest the victim's kin visit their wrath on me, in vengeance for the murder foul, wrought by my children's mother."

Whether Medea is true to life in accordance with the third rule depends on whether one believes the exotic witchcraft and murder elements are accurate representations of human behavior. The fourth rule, however, is not violated: Medea is nothing if not consistent throughout the play.

Conclusion: Euripides and the Aristotelian Pattern

The fact that Medea is a woman and the tragedy concerns a marriage means that traditional issues of female suppression — such as accusations of witchcraft or child-murder — are represented on stage, while Euripides permits Medea to descend into wickedness. This is excused, or explained, by the fact that Medea is a foreigner and a witch. Euripides transforms being a woman into a larger form of estrangement, and thus deliberately violates certain rules of the pattern of the tragic hero. Yet, as this analysis demonstrates, he observes as many rules as he violates according to Aristotle's definition of the pattern in the Poetics.

Works Cited

Aristotle. The Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher. Internet Classics Archive. Accessed 15 April 2011. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html

Euripides. Medea. Translated by E. P. Coleridge. Internet Classics Archive. Accessed 15 April 2011. http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/medea.html