Medea

Medea kills the children to spite Jason. The core focus of the play is on the fact that Jason is going to marry a Greek princess, and Medea, who is a foreigner, will be relegated to “mistress”...

The Nurse's role in Medea is to bring the audience into the world of the play. In the prologue of the play, she gives the historical background, provides commentary on these events, and introduces...

One of the reasons as to why Medea is such a compelling character is because she does not have one particular tragic flaw. Her tragic condition is the result of a convergence of flaws. I think...

I believe the play should teach us to recognize the reality that some women can be so filled with resentment and hatred for a man who has abandoned or otherwise mistreated them that they will turn...

Psychiatrists have identified a condition they have termed the Medea Complex, deriving the name from the ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, just as Sigmund Freud derived his term "Oedipus Complex"...

Medea is a very complex character, which is what makes her such an endless source of fascination. Neither completely heroic nor totally villainous, she has both good and bad sides to her...

Medea follows the traditional structure of a Greek tragedy: prologue, parodos, first episode and stasimon (also known as choral ode), second episode and stasimon, third episode and stasimon, fourth...

Creon fears Medea because he senses that the latter will take revenge upon him, his daughter Glauce, and his new son-in-law, Jason (formerly Medea's husband). Above all, Creon fears that Medea will...

The unities of action (a single plot), of time (the action of the play occurs within a single day), and of place (the action of the play occurs in a single location), although attributed to...

The Chorus in Euripides's Medea serves many of the same functions as the chorus in other Greek tragedies of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. The chorus acted as a collective narrator, providing...

Medea is a complex character in that she shares many similarities and differences with other Ancient Greek women of the time period. It should be noted that although Medea is technically set in...

Medea opens with a highly partial description of the circumstances from the nurse. She says that Jason has betrayed both Medea and his children and that Medea has reminded him of his promises to no...

In Medea, the nurse stands lamenting as a way to set the tone of the play and to introduce the situation to the audience. The nurse recounts the events that have happened before the immediate...

It is very hard to read this play and remember that the audience is supposed to cheer on or at least feel catharsis with the end of the play. I think you can find the answers to your question by...

The Medea of Euripides lacks the keen focus of pure vengeance that Seneca portrays in his version of her. Of course, Euripides must eventually get around to the theme of vengeance and the fury of a...

First of all, Euripides presents Medea as a wronged woman, cruelly and callously discarded by the man she loves. Medea had made great sacrifices for Jason, and yet now she finds herself a stranger...

The story of Medea and her dangerous passion for Jason, and the extreme actions she commits as a result, represent a warning to the original audience of Euripedes. One of the central themes is that...

Medea plays on the weaknesses of those around her and uses flattery and self-deprecation to advance her plans. The first instance of Medea's cunning is in her manipulation of Creon. She plays upon...

Clint Eastwood says a great line in the film "Unforgiven" about this very concept. Eastwood's character is going to kill a very corrupt and evil sheriff. The sheriff, with his last words, says,...

Actually, if you research Euripides you will know that he was not well accepted among his peers or Greek society in general, as he tended to speak up for the voiceless in his society (namely Women...

The character of Medea in this play is very quickly established as a figure who is both an outsider in that she does not belong in Corinth, and also as a barbarian through the extent of her...

Medea has agency, which is a very important feminist value, and one that was notable by its absence in ancient times. Abandoned by her lover, Jason, and having turned her back on her homeland,...

This question strikes me as rather challenging, since I probably would not consider her a victim of the gods nor would I consider her as being cursed by the gods. Later in the play, Medea will have...

It's not entirely clear that Medea can be described as a tragic heroine. For one thing, she's far from being a noble character with a tragic flaw. She's the architect of almost everything bad that...

Two women other than Medea also play significant roles in the play: Glauce, Jason’s second wife, and the Nurse. There is also a chorus, composed of women of Corinth. In Medea, Euripides has taken a...

Medea and Clytemnestra are both wronged women who carry out acts of brutal revenge. The differences between the two women lie in their responses to their respective situations. Although both seek...

When a person watches a tragic play, the events of the play produce in that person a wide range of emotions, including happiness, pity, fear, sorrow, revulsion, and so on. In his Poetics, Aristotle...

I have edited your question, assuming that you are asking what it is that Aegeus wants from Medea, not what he wants from himself. I will also tell you what Medea wants from Aegeus, because...

Before we consider Medea's choice to use violence as a solution to her situation, we need to take a very quick look at another Greek play, Oedipus Rex. In Oedipus Rex, the playwright Sophocles...

Foreshadowing is a literary device that can be employed to give readers and audience members hints at what is to come. Foreshadowing can be created through "imagery, language and/or symbolism"...

The Nurse's opening prologue to Medea serves to quickly inform the audience about the details leading up to the main action of the play. A lot of background information is presented in this opening...

Medea and Odysseus are two unusual characters to compare, as the first character is the creation of the fifth-century playwright Euripides and the second character is the creation of the...

I think that there is much in the drama that makes it a revenge tragedy. The act that Medea takes against Jason for his transgressions is revenge enough. Yet, where I think that the revenge...

Aegeus is the King of Athens. He passes through Corinth hoping that the Oracle of Delphi will help cure his inability to produce children. Medea discovers his dilemma and agrees to give him some...

The Aegeus scene is important to the theme of the play in several ways. On the first level, it is central to the plot: it givies Medea a place of refuge which facilitates her escape from Corinth....

Euripides had a tradition of not just supporting the cause of women, but also of slaves, and it is interesting that in some ways the Nurse in this play is presented as being the most sensible and...

The term "revenge tragedy" refers to a genre developed in England in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, that is the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries AD. Medea and Phaedra are works from...

The ancient Greek tragedy Medea by Euripides would not be of much interest to modern readers were it not for the fact that it dramatizes a conflict which has existed throughout history and is...

I think that the subtext of the question is fascinating. Certainly, Medea is fairly manipulative and self- serving in how she assists Jason to escape from his challenging predicaments, even...

Medea, as portrayed by Euripides and other ancient authors, was not intended as a positive role model in any manner whatsoever, nor is she an example of female empowerment. If anything, she is...

I agree with the earlier comment that Euripides' shaping of the character of Glauce is rather non-existent. The only glimpse we get of Glauce's character comes at around line 1135ff, when she...

In Greek myth, Jason was a hero who led the Argonauts on a quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece for the king of Iolcus, Pelias. On this journey, Jason met the sorceress Medea, and the two eventually...

They are definitely not happy, but they're also slow to take action against Medea. They cry out, "wretched, evil woman! and "hard and wretched woman," so they clearly reject the...

Both Medea and Jocasta commit morally reprehensible acts in relation to their children, albeit for different reasons. Medea is traditionally presented as the epitome of evil for the murder of her...

The significance of Medea's first monologue lies in her statement of her own position in this conflict with Jason. At the beginning of the play, her nurse opens the scene by summarizing the...

As Jason enters for the first time, the antagonism between husband and wife is already evident. Jason's first words reflect this in terms of speaking of Medea's "evil" condition. Their antagonism...

Euripides' "Medea" presumes that the audience is familiar with the story of "Jason and the Golden Fleece" in which Jason first met Medea. In this story, King Aeetes, Medea's father, assigns Jason...

When considering this question, students will first need to think about the ancient source in which they are encountering Medea. Several different sources tell the story of Medea killing her...

The answer to this interesting question is explained in Medea's speech following her interview with Aegeus in which he promises her sanctuary and swears "by the Sun-god's holy beam and by all...

It is hard to construct a defense for Medea. Euripides portrays her as a monster—he writes her as selfish, vengeful, and evil. The murder of her children is seen as unforgivable. However, I think...