Injustice In Medea's First-Degree Trial

You control and decide the fate of all mortals. Medea is one of those many mortals whose future lies in your hands. Everyone, including my client, deserves a fair sentence for her crimes. I, her defense attorney, have presented her case and will now offer my closing argument. In the case of the defendant, Medea, one controversial issue has been her sentencing. On one hand, many maintain that Medea committed first-degree murder and therefore deserves life without parole. On the other hand, some believe that Jason provoked Medea, and so her sentence should be lighter. Still others assert that both Jason and Medea should be convicted and sentenced to the full extent of the law. Although my client has been found guilty of the first-degree murders …show more content…
As Professor James Svendsen explicitly states in “A Study Guide for Euripides' Medea,” “The play presents us with a woman alienated and victimized in a world controlled by men” (Svendsen, James). In Greece, where male-dominance is the norm, others fear and shun Medea, a strong woman with magical abilities. Because she is a female in a patriarchal society, she is mistreated, and more so since she is a foreigner. In Euripides’s play, Medea complains to the local women of Corinth about how foreigners like her try to fit in. However, since she is a stranger to the Greek customs and has magical abilities, she can not conform to their ways (“Women's Life in Greece”). Despite her efforts to adjust to the Greek life, she fails because she is from a barbaric country. Her magical abilities only work for a while and then Jason leaves her. Not able to blend in with the Corinthians, she becomes understandably frustrated, which adds to the emotions the aforementioned betrayal brought. She did not choose to have any of these characteristics, but she is still discriminated against, causing her to feel lonely in an unwelcoming foreign