According to Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Envy lives in a place “forever without any fire, forever enveloped in darkness” (Ovid 2.764). This description seems appropriate for the way envy makes people feel: in the dark and lacking knowledge. Envy appears in most of the texts from this semester and often points out important feelings of characters that relate to either plot developments or themes of the work. In this paper I will discuss the role of envy in the works we have read this semester.
Envy in Euripides’ Medea draws attention to the theme of gender struggles in the play. Medea envies many of the other characters in the play because she is disenfranchised because of her gender. The most prominent example of this is, in her first speech to the Corinthian women, when Medea notes how difficult it is to live as a woman. She says that “women are the most beset by trials of any species that has breath and power of thought” (Euripides 230-231). Her …show more content…
When Raphael is speaking to Adam and Adam asks why Satan rebelled against God, Raphael explains that, after God announced that The Son would be his “right hand” (Milton 5.606), Satan was “of the first / If not the first archangel great in pow’r, / In favor, and preëminence, yet fraught / With envy against the Son of God” (Milton 5.659-662). Raphael reveals here that Satan thought he would remain the highest in God’s favor and felt envious when The Son was named as someone even he had to obey. Satan seems to have wanted that position instead of The Son attaining it. This contrasts what Satan has said his intentions were in the beginning of the poem, where he argued God was a tyrant, showing Satan really just acted out of envy. Without this envy, however, Satan would not have the motivation to continue his streak of destruction and cause the fall of mankind. Satan’s envy motivates all his actions to get revenge on
Envy in Euripides’ Medea draws attention to the theme of gender struggles in the play. Medea envies many of the other characters in the play because she is disenfranchised because of her gender. The most prominent example of this is, in her first speech to the Corinthian women, when Medea notes how difficult it is to live as a woman. She says that “women are the most beset by trials of any species that has breath and power of thought” (Euripides 230-231). Her …show more content…
When Raphael is speaking to Adam and Adam asks why Satan rebelled against God, Raphael explains that, after God announced that The Son would be his “right hand” (Milton 5.606), Satan was “of the first / If not the first archangel great in pow’r, / In favor, and preëminence, yet fraught / With envy against the Son of God” (Milton 5.659-662). Raphael reveals here that Satan thought he would remain the highest in God’s favor and felt envious when The Son was named as someone even he had to obey. Satan seems to have wanted that position instead of The Son attaining it. This contrasts what Satan has said his intentions were in the beginning of the poem, where he argued God was a tyrant, showing Satan really just acted out of envy. Without this envy, however, Satan would not have the motivation to continue his streak of destruction and cause the fall of mankind. Satan’s envy motivates all his actions to get revenge on