Student Question
What does Medea's escape at the end of the play suggest about the gods?
Quick answer:
Medea's escape at the end of the play suggests that the gods are either sympathetic to her plight as a wronged woman or are protecting their own, given her divine lineage as the granddaughter of Helios. The intervention by Helios, who provides a chariot for her escape, implies that the gods' actions transcend human understanding and justice, as highlighted by the Chorus's reflection on the unpredictability of divine will.
The ancient Greek tragic play Medea was written by Euripides (c. 484-407 B.C.), and it was first performed at the City Dionysia (the Festival of Dionysus) in Athens in 431 B.C. According to accounts of the time, Medea was not well-received at the Festival, due primarily to the way in which Euripides changed the Medea legend to include the sensationalistic event of Medea's vengeful killing of her own children.
In the ancient Greek legend, Medea and her children were killed by the people of Corinth for Medea's murder of King Creon and Princess Glauce.
In Euripides's Medea , it appears that Medea escapes punishment or even any negative consequence for her bad behavior, not only for killing her children but also for a lifetime of violence which culminated in the play with the murders of Jason's wife, Princess Glauce; her father, King Creon; and Medea's two young sons, Mermerus and...
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Pheres.
It's is not altogether unusual that Medea didn't suffer directly for these murders. The tragic heroes of many ancient Greek plays suffer a tragic fall, but their punishment is often limited to the tragic fall itself. Like Oedipus, they go on living, albeit under significantly changed circumstances. Those who suffer the ultimate tragic fall, like Antigone, die as the result of self-inflicted but otherwise undeserved punishment.
Medea's fate seems wholly disproportionate to the gravity of the murders she committed, particularly the murder of her sons, which is viewed as particularly heinous.
The sun god, Helios, sends a chariot of winged dragons to rescue Medea from the people of Corinth. She's carried away to bury her children at the mountain of the goddess Hera, the Queen of the Gods, then she's taken to Athens to live out her life.
By the direct intervention of the gods, Euripides seems to be suggesting that the gods are sympathetic to Medea's plight: that of the wronged women driven to revenge by the oppression of a male-dominated society.
Another consideration might be that, no matter where their sympathies lie—either with Medea or with the many people she killed—the gods protect their own. Medea is a niece of Circe, a goddess of magic, and Medea is a granddaughter of Helios, the sun god who sent the chariot of winged dragons to rescue Medea.
This is emphasized in the closing lines of the play, in which the Chorus remarks on the inability of mere humans to understand the minds of the gods.
CHORUS. And the end men looked for cometh not,
And a path is there where no man thought:
So hath it fallen here.
As a side note, according to one version of the Medea legend, Medea continued her murderous ways in Athens. She married Aegeus, and they had a son together. Medea attempted to poison Aegeus's long-lost son, Theseus, on his return to Athens in order to secure her own son's inheritance.
After her failure to kill Theseus, Medea fled back to Colchis, where her father, Aeëtes, was King. Aeëtes had been deposed by his brother Perses, and Medea killed Perses in order to restore the kingdom to her father.
Aside from her own children, who she killed out of revenge against Jason, Medea seems to have killed anyone who crossed her, and she also killed innocent people, including her brother, Absyrtus, to thwart anyone who attempted to hold her accountable for her murders.
Medea seems never to have suffered any remorse for any of the people she killed, and she even says that the remorse she felt for killing her own children was overshadowed by the joy she felt at having taken the ultimate revenge against Jason.