Medea, Cruel Monster Or Heart Broken Mistress - 955 Words

Medea, Cruel Monster or Heart-Broken Mistress? Euripides’ Medea is a play that focuses on Medea, first wife of Jason, and her path to vengeance when he abandons her for another woman. We can sympathize with some of Medea’s actions and feelings while others we despise. For, deserting his own children and my mistress, Jason has taken a royal wife to his bed, ... She lies without food and gives herself up to suffering, Wasting away every moment of the day in tears. (17-18, 24-25) Jason has abandoned Medea and his own children in order to marry Glauce, the daughter of the king of Corinth. Jason appears to care only for raising his own standing in Corinth, forsaking his wife and children. These lines from the Nurse show the way Medea is affected by Jason s betrayal, she does not eat and spends her days lying in bed lamenting her fate. This is where we begin to empathize with Medea, the long journey that brought her to Corinth and cost her dearly, has now left her with nothing, her sacrifices worthless. MEDEA: Ah, wretch! Ah, lost in my sufferings, I wish, I wish I might die! (96-97) The first words we hear from Medea are her cries of helplessness coming from inside her house. In her first words she wishes for her own death to escape her suffering. These first few lines of Medea’s show us the level of pain and anguish she is experiencing. Seeing how she feels, wanting only to end her pain, we can sympathize with her as she has lost quite literally everything of value toShow MoreRelatedsecond sex Essay13771 Words   |  56 Pagesexterminating the males. The bond that unites her to her oppressors is not comparable to any other. The division of the sexes is a biological fact, not an event in human history. Male and female stand opposed within a primordial Mitsein, and woman has not broken it. The couple is a fundamental unity with its two halves riveted together, and the cleavage of society along the line of sex is impossible. Here is to be found the basic trait of woman: she is the Other in a totality of which the two components