S.T
English 150
Rich
2/24/14
MEDEA: One Wicked Woman
While in the class we went over the poem by Euripides, titled MEDEA, before reading it I was starting to have a soft spot for the woman in ancient Greece. We had read about how Hectors wife & daughter were now slaves, how Penelope had to wait and take on all the men trying to claim her husband’s throne. So it was a shock to me to read this poem. Jason I felt was an “ass” but all the men in those times were so it was not as surprising. This led me to the question: Who was the greater Villain in this story, Jason or Medea?
Although both Jason and are rotten characters I feel that Medea's actions are greater in number and are more violent along with the fact that what was expected of woman during that time was so much meeker/ gentler that Medea is the wickedest.
Throughout the myth, Medea's actions keep getting worse and worse. Her actions are cruel and vicious. However, while I can understand some of the aspects that made her go insane, she lost her husband to a younger woman, & for she was struck in love by Eros. Even so, the blame cannot be completely taken away. Medea shows her evilness time and time again throughout the myth, starting with her betrayal to her father, King Aretes, and her homeland. She helps Jason cheat so he can pass the trials and obtain the Golden Fleece. Then she leaves the island with him.
Again, she shows her true evilness by killing her own brother. There are two ways this event has been told. One way she does this is that she leads him into a trap, ending with Jason killing him. The other is that her brother comes willingly and she cuts him into pieces and then throws him into the ocean, so that her father is forced to pick up the pieces, thus allowing the Argonauts to escape. Another way she shows her maliciousness is by making Pelias' daughters kill Pelias. Even though Jason asked her to do this, the way she does so is truly shocking.
She tells the daughters of Pelias...