Medea the Heroine
Heroism is defined as the qualities of a hero. Qualities of a hero can be bravery, cleverness, determination, and selflessness. Euripides, born in 480 BCE, is a Greek playwright. As a writer of Greek tragedy, Euripides, plays depict strong female characters with a focus on their inner lives and motives. Written in 431 BCE, Medea is considered one of the greatest works. The play Medea is a great example of his focus on the positives of women. Medea lives in a Misogynistic society whose respect and acknowledge for women is not viewed as very high. Women have very few rights, in the eyes of men the main purposes of women in Greek society were to do housework such as cooking and cleaning, and bear children. They could not vote, own property, or choose a husband, and had to be represented by men in all legal proceedings. The intention of the play Medea focuses on a strong former princess and refugee from Colchis. In the play Medea, Medea just found out that her husband Jason is leaving her for the princess of Corinth. Finding this information brings out the worse in Medea and she is on the path to make her enemies pay just like the motives of every hero. Between the main character, Jason and Medea, Medea can be seen as the protagonist or antagonist. The play mostly focuses on the emotional wounded Medea on the path of revenge. Medea’s life story opens one’s eyes to have a sense of respect for her because of her heroic did for women that lived in the time period.
Media’s character life story was definitely not an average one. Medea shows the kind of bravery women had in those days where it probably was not acknowledged she declares how brave she was saying to Jason saying “I saved your skin, as all the Greeks know who boarded the Argo with you, when you were sent to master the fire-breathing bulls with yokes and to sow the deadly field; and the dragon which guarded the golden fleece and, never sleeping, protected it with its many coils, I...