Medea

Medea is an unusual tragedy, at least among the very small number of such plays that have survived. It does not involve the protagonist falling from a high position by means of a tragic flaw....

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...

Medea killed Pelias (or drove his daughters to kill him) because he refused to relinquish the throne of Iolcus, meaning that he stood in Jason's way and hers. This is one of several events in...

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...

In Euripides' play, first staged in 431 BCE, the playwright makes a "witch" his title character. Medea is a sorceress of the highest caliber. Most of the supernatural aspects of the play occur near...

As the tragic heroine in Euripides's tragic play Medea, Medea should be a sympathetic character, but her antagonistic behavior in the play makes it very difficult for anyone to feel true sympathy...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The use of magic in Medea is a subject of contentious debate in academia. None of the words used by Euripides accurately translate into "magic" or "witch" in the senses in which we use them today....

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 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 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,...

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...

According to Aristotle in Poetics, a tragic hero in an ancient Greek tragic play suffers from a tragic flaw (hamartia) that causes their tragic downfall. The tragic hero also undergoes a reversal...

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...

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...

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...

Because, in her revenge, she kills innocents. Her children are not at fault for their father's infidelities. Medea not only exacts revenge on Jason, but makes the children pay with their lives as...

Medea is a tragic hero. She is generally considered to fit in this category because she embodies the primary characteristics of such a hero. Medea has valid motives for her actions but is brought...

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...

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...

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....

Peripeteia refers to a character's experience of a sudden reversal of fortune. In classic tragedy, a character from a high rank usually experiences this, such as Oedipus the king, who goes from a...

The Chorus pivots in its emotional reaction to the events of the drama. At the exposition, the Chorus shows sympathy to the wrongs done to Medea. They express lament to what has happened to her....

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...

Throughout her speech, Medea uses the first person plural, including her audience with herself, claiming to speak for all women and to share the same tribulations. This is a daring strategy, since...

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...

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"...

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...

I would argue that he does because he forces us to consider whether vengeance is really the same thing as justice. Most people at some point have probably wanted to carry out revenge on those...

Exile seves as a useful metaphor for Medea's emotional states in the play by emphasizing the lack of options open to her. In one of her most powerful monologues, she asks her former husband: Where...

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...

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...

In Ancient Greek mythology, Hecate was the goddess of magic, witchcraft, and the night. In Euripides's Medea, it's no exaggeration to say that she provides the title character with the very...

Medea was written by Euripides in 431 BCE. The play was performed at the annual Festival of Dionysus in Athens, where it was not well-received. Although the play is based on the ancient Greek myths...

In Medea, both Medea and Jason take matters way too far. They were once happily married, but then Jason became ambitious for more power. He decides to throw aside Medea and marry a woman of...

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...

Psychiatrists have identified a condition which they have termed the Medea Complex. Several articles on the subject are accessible on the internet, including those on the reference links below. An...

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...