Medea’s Godlike Character
As humans, we experience an array of emotions, but our emotions can only take us so far. In the tragic play Medea, Euripides uses Medea’s emotions such as rage, jealousy, and pride to create her complex character, which is more godlike than human.
Medea is an ancient Athenian tragedy, and it’s vital to realize that emotions may have been interpreted differently in 431 B.C.E, when Medea was first performed (Puchner, 784). Even in ancient Greek literature, it is possible that a “single term has many senses” (Cairns, 50). Jealousy for example, is a difficult term to analyze in ancient Greek literature, and this is specifically because “Greek has no term that corresponds exactly to our ‘jealousy’” (Cairns, 53). Therefore …show more content…
Power is seen as a divine trait all throughout Greek literature. Technically the whole play is proof of Medea’s overall power. She kills Jason’s new bride along with the new bride’s father, and she gets her ultimate revenge on Jason at the end of the play, but one specific situation when Medea is proving to hold power is when Creon is warning Medea of her exile. While he is telling her to leave, she creates a helpless image by begging and pleading Creon for one more day before he forces her exile. Creon of course gives into Medea’s pleading, and soon after he leaves Medea tells the course that “Yes, things are all amiss. Who could deny it? Believe me, though, that’s not how it will end” (Puchner, 795). Her statement is simply implying that even though Creon is exiling her and taking charge, she still has a plan and holds power over the entire situation.
In this same scene Medea mentions her plan to use drugs to destroy her enemies. She simply states that this was her “skill by nature” (Puchner, 796), and soon after revealing her plan she refers to Hecate, a goddess involved in witchcraft, as her accomplice (Puchner, 796). She also mentions that Hecate “dwells within [her] inmost heart” (Puchner, 796). This may indicate that her inner divine self is beginning to grow outward. Also, if Medea’s skills are “by nature” doesn’t that put …show more content…
It is evident that throughout the play Medea is placed higher than everyone else, which is why she seems to be separate from everyone else throughout the play. Even in the beginning of the play the chorus mentions that they rarely see her face (791), and her wisdom definitely sets her above the intelligence of everyone else. We see how clever she is when she summons Jason and manipulates him into letting their children deliver poisoned gifts to his new bride (Puchner, 814). This could be argued that she just thinks she is better than everyone because of her wisdom, but through analysis, it is unmistakable that Euripides is setting her apart from the other human like characters so he can build up her godlike character. He finally reveals her true divine self when he puts her in a flying chariot at the end of the play. This in turn allows the audience to see that she is indeed above the other human characters. Also, it is important to look at how Medea was lifted up during the acting out of the play. She is lifted up in a mechanism known as a mechane which was often used in Athenian tragedies for divine appearances (Puchner, 820). This means that the audience would have connected Medea’s character to other divine
As humans, we experience an array of emotions, but our emotions can only take us so far. In the tragic play Medea, Euripides uses Medea’s emotions such as rage, jealousy, and pride to create her complex character, which is more godlike than human.
Medea is an ancient Athenian tragedy, and it’s vital to realize that emotions may have been interpreted differently in 431 B.C.E, when Medea was first performed (Puchner, 784). Even in ancient Greek literature, it is possible that a “single term has many senses” (Cairns, 50). Jealousy for example, is a difficult term to analyze in ancient Greek literature, and this is specifically because “Greek has no term that corresponds exactly to our ‘jealousy’” (Cairns, 53). Therefore …show more content…
Power is seen as a divine trait all throughout Greek literature. Technically the whole play is proof of Medea’s overall power. She kills Jason’s new bride along with the new bride’s father, and she gets her ultimate revenge on Jason at the end of the play, but one specific situation when Medea is proving to hold power is when Creon is warning Medea of her exile. While he is telling her to leave, she creates a helpless image by begging and pleading Creon for one more day before he forces her exile. Creon of course gives into Medea’s pleading, and soon after he leaves Medea tells the course that “Yes, things are all amiss. Who could deny it? Believe me, though, that’s not how it will end” (Puchner, 795). Her statement is simply implying that even though Creon is exiling her and taking charge, she still has a plan and holds power over the entire situation.
In this same scene Medea mentions her plan to use drugs to destroy her enemies. She simply states that this was her “skill by nature” (Puchner, 796), and soon after revealing her plan she refers to Hecate, a goddess involved in witchcraft, as her accomplice (Puchner, 796). She also mentions that Hecate “dwells within [her] inmost heart” (Puchner, 796). This may indicate that her inner divine self is beginning to grow outward. Also, if Medea’s skills are “by nature” doesn’t that put …show more content…
It is evident that throughout the play Medea is placed higher than everyone else, which is why she seems to be separate from everyone else throughout the play. Even in the beginning of the play the chorus mentions that they rarely see her face (791), and her wisdom definitely sets her above the intelligence of everyone else. We see how clever she is when she summons Jason and manipulates him into letting their children deliver poisoned gifts to his new bride (Puchner, 814). This could be argued that she just thinks she is better than everyone because of her wisdom, but through analysis, it is unmistakable that Euripides is setting her apart from the other human like characters so he can build up her godlike character. He finally reveals her true divine self when he puts her in a flying chariot at the end of the play. This in turn allows the audience to see that she is indeed above the other human characters. Also, it is important to look at how Medea was lifted up during the acting out of the play. She is lifted up in a mechanism known as a mechane which was often used in Athenian tragedies for divine appearances (Puchner, 820). This means that the audience would have connected Medea’s character to other divine