The Golden Fleece In Medea, By Euripides

The Greeks, like many other cultures around the world, have their own set of beliefs, rituals, and practices. Ancient Greeks believed in many gods, goddesses, heroes, and monsters that ran and justified their social system. The Greeks practiced polytheism, animism, and pantheism to explain how humans and animals came to be, and how the world was created. By reading the Greek myth Medea, by Euripides, it is shown that ancient Greeks had a male-dominated society. In this play, Medea, a Barbarian, scornful woman, rebels against the norm of ancient Greek submissive women by killing her two sons to achieve the ultimate vengeance against her husband, Jason, that cheated on her. Still to this day, this play is one of the most radical pieces of …show more content…
The Golden Fleece is another mythological story that was written prior to the play Medea and explains how Jason, the hero, and Medea, the sorceress, met. The goddess of love, Aphrodite, made Medea fall in-love with Jason so Medea could help Jason with her magic and witchcraft to get through his quest to find the golden fleece. In the myth, The Golden Fleece, written prior to the play Medea, it is explained that Medea in reality had no option but to fall profoundly in-love with Jason. Medea is not culpable for being so crazily in-love with Jason and having the urge to do anything and everything to make him feel as miserable as she is. What Euripides tries inflicting on his audience is that even though it was out of control to slaughter her own children, it was Medea’s ultimate show of affection to Jason, because even though she loved her kids, she wanted to hurt Jason as much as he hurt …show more content…
Why was the setting in Corinth and not in Athens where most Greeks lived? Ancient Greeks were not allowed to write about tragedies in their home-lands because they believed that if they wrote about tragedy in their land, it would actually occur there. Ancient Greeks also changed the times of their plays and literature of very mystical times in the past for the same reason: they don’t want tragedy happening in their time. In conclusion, this Greek myth, Medea, written by Euripides, gives us insight into Ancient Greek beliefs, morals, and principals. Medea was like any other woman, but she became a mad woman when she realized she lost the person she cared about the most, Jason. What Euripides tried getting across to his Athenian audience by saving her with a last minute deus ex machina, was that just because she was a woman, didn’t mean she didn’t have the right to revolt. Euripides understood women oppression back then, and in his own way, released women of it in this