Love In Greek Mythology Research Paper

Love in Greek mythology helps mold its characters. Love is like a bud that suddenly grows in their hearts. Upon discovering this, they must decide what to do with it; whether that may be to leave it to die, or to nurture it. Because the flower will die, that influences their actions in myths. Many people are afraid to get close to the person they desire for one reason or another, such as Medea when she realizes she loves Jason, a stranger. Sometimes people are idolized such as how Apollo pursues Daphne and how Selene desires Endymion. Even if love comes and is expressed in many different forms, in Greek myths love is certainly a passionate emotion that helps define a character.
Love is quite a selfish emotion sometimes when it is mostly …show more content…
This will most likely lead to a conflict, as it does with Medea and Jason. Medea’s love for Jason was so bizarre that the only way the Greeks could explain it was that it was the product of the God’s interference. Because Cupid “should make the daughter of the Colchian King fall in love with Jason” (128), her love does not arise from a place of rationality and her actions reflect that. Medea puts the stranger above her own family and leaves her old life to help him achieve his goals; even to the point where "She killed her brother"(132) and threw his dismembered body overboard. Her actions are impulsive and she doesn't get anything from them but she does them because she is under Cupid's spell. Whether Jason's love for Medea ever existed is questionable. When he sees that her actions are solely governed by her feelings and passion for him, he takes advantage of it. After Medea proves to be no longer useful to Jason, he leaves her for the princess of Corinth to gain more political power. Even if Jason at one point ever loved Medea, it was not because he loved her as a person, but he loved her as if it was an obligation. She had done so much for him, but even so as time went on, the life she helped him achieved has become a normality for him, because "he thought of ambition only, never about love or gratitude"(133). Medea’s expectation for her marriage to succeed was foolish. Because Jason's and Medea’s love for each other arose for different reasons, they did not have mutual feelings for each other and Jason’s love and passion were not equal to her's. Jason paid the price when she kills his new bride and