NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
... to them (think Hamlet). Medea, however, is a play that conspicuously lacks any such self-conscious recognition of error by its characters; no one develops a mature perspective on his or her own actions. As the nurse reveals to us, Jason abandons Medea on a whim. Although this abandonment precipitates disastrous results to himself and all those surrounding him, Jason never acknowledges his responsibility for the suffering he has created. Like the nurse here, he simply wishes things had never happened.
The predominant mood of the play is denial, and the nurse's tone in these opening moments resonates with everything that will follow. The story of Jason and the Argonauts was already well-known to Euripides' audience, perhaps second in popularity only to Homer's accounts of the Trojan war. In keeping with Euripides' overriding themes, the nurse selects only those elements that echo with the succeeding action, particularly Medea's cleverness, guile, and willingness to sacrifice connections to family and kingdom in order to pursue the flights of her passions. Unlike Jason, who uses deceptive rationalizations to avoid facing the consequences of his own actions, Medea simply rides her passions unthinkingly. Even before Creon banishes Medea, she is already a perennial exile, unconcerned with the chains of responsibility that bind her. The most visible signs of abandoned responsibility are Jason and Medea's children; shuttled around the stage, used in a murder plot, and then murdered themselves, their silent characters will be masterfully handled by Euripides as testimony of the play's most significant absence -- accountability.
Thus, the nurse's opening lament establishes both the tone of denial and theme of lost accountability that pervade the entire play. Lines 17 - 130 Summary The nurse testifies to the degree of emotional shock Jason's 'betrayal' has sparked in Medea: she refuses to eat and spends her days bed-ridden, pining away her fate, especially her newly-awakened sense of homelessness. The long journey that brought her to Corinth has now left her with nothing. Medea's bitterness grows to such a degree that she even despises the sight of her children. The nurse becomes afraid that some vicious plot is brewing in Medea's mind. The boys, oblivious to the intrigue that surrounds them, exit the house with their tutor and end the nurse's meditations.
The tutor shares the nurse's sympathy for Medea's plight, but also points out that the worst news has yet to reach her: there is a rumor circulating among men in the city that Creon plans to banish Medea and her children from Corinth. Medea's first words are cries of helplessness issued from inside the house, off-stage. She wishes for her own death. The nurse fears the possible effects of this inflexible mood and sends the children inside to shelter them. In another off-stage cry, Medea curses her own children and their father, Jason, ultimately wishing the death and destruction of the entire household. The nurse responds to Medea's anger in a soliloquy that expresses the incomprehensibility of Medea's wish to punish her own children for Jason's offense.
She attributes part of Medea's stance to her queen-like mentality, which accustoms itself to issuing commands and never compromising its own will, even when it is consumed by a state of rage. Against these tendencies of the wealthy, the nurse preaches the virtues of a 'middle way, neither great or mean' (line 126), which can supply the foundation for a peaceful and ordered life, unmarred by the conflicts now afflicting her master and mistress' home. The nurse's own status as a slave has availed her to the possibilities of this other, more humble life. Commentary After planting the crucial backdrop to the story, the play immediately introduces us to Medea's total despair upon being abandoned by Jason, offering in the process Euripides' fundamental psychological insight that victims of an intense emotional wound (Medea) not only turn against those who inflict it (Jason) but against their entire world of emotional attachments (her children). Euripides frames this insight in Medea's two opening cries: the first (lines 95 - 96) displays her suicidal helplessness, while the second (lines 110 - 114) expresses a wish / curse that every trace of her love for Jason be severed. By placing Medea off-stage, Euripides allows the audience to concentrate on her words and grasp them as a cipher to her whole character.
When she eventually emerges in the flesh, the tenor of these initial remarks will cast a shadow over all her succeeding character development. Against some interpretations of Medea, which claim she struggles between her devotion as a mother and her desire for revenge, we could infer from her first cries that her children's murder is fated from the beginning -- the natural consequence of Medea's overwhelming emotional shock. The nurse ominously foreshadows that the 'rage's trying inside Medea will not 'relax' until it has received an outlet, and the only real hope is that she can target an enemy rather than a friend (lines 94 - 95). Euripides' tragedies often present ordinary human beings under the sway of extraordinary forces that must be respected and understood, if not wholly accepted. While the nurse may preach the virtues of a 'middle way, ' Medea's character testifies to the fact that such a cautious life remains unavailable to those preyed upon by fearsome impulses. The nurse interprets Medea's excesses as the product of a sense of royal entitlement, her queen-like need to command.
It may be more correct, however, to view Media as a vehicle for something greater, as someone chosen by the gods (or the cosmos, for Euripides was often thought an atheist) to reveal inconvenient truths about human nature. Lines 130 - 213 Summary The chorus, composed of Corinthian women, turns towards the house and addresses Medea. They try to reason with Medea and convince her that suicide would be an overreaction. The fickleness of a husband's love is an ordinary occurrence; rather than merit self-torment, it should be dealt with and forgotten. Still within the palace walls, Medea remains unyielding and calls on the gods Themis and Artemis to sanction the death of Jason and his new wife. Because Medea accuses Jason of breaking an oath (his marriage vows), the nurse recognizes the gravity of Medea's threat; no one less than Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, watches over oaths and ensures their compliance.
Entering the house in order to encourage Medea to talk with the chorus in person, the nurse performs another soliloquy, this one accusing the 'men of old times' (line 190), who invented music, of foolishness. Created as an accompaniment to banquets and celebrations, their songs can never dispel the sorrow caused by broken homes -- they have no real power, positive or negative. After the nurse enters the house, the chorus remarks that Themis, a goddess Medea invoked in her tirades against Jason, has already watched over her in the past -- that is, during the various stages of the journey bringing her from the far-ends of Asia to Hellas, or Greece. The function of the chorus varies slightly in every ancient Greek tragedy. At times, the chorus is an active participant in the drama; at others, it can be merely a commentator or spectator. The chorus in Medea displays qualities of both, but its central task is to pass value judgments on the behavior of individual characters -- its voice stands as the arbiter of objectivity in the play, supplying us with the most normative perspective on the events as they transpire.
After having expressed a general sympathy with Medea earlier, the chorus now warns her against indulging in her emotions too severely, as her turmoil, while real, is a 'common thing. ' Medea lacks this common sense perspective. The score of advisors that counsel her to refrain from indulging in her emotions only underscores Euripides' conceit that underneath common human problems (such as marriage breakup) rest potential forces that, although normally controlled, are capable of exploding into such extraordinary catastrophes as those recounted in his play. The chorus's viewpoint, then, though the most sensible, does not fully account for Medea's situation. As she puts it, she has left life behind (line 146) and become the conveyor of a higher, more cruel order of justice. Her appeals to the gods, especially as the protectors of oaths, reinforce her sense of purpose.
The chorus' common sense perspective provides a useful counterpoint to Medea's far-reaching vision, and the interplay of each stands as a key source of unresolved tension in the play. The brief essay on music that Euripides inserts into the nurse's speech (lines 190 - 200) may superficially appear out of place, and the playwright was not above interjecting irrelevant commentary into his dramas. It's interesting, however, that the nurse's basic point is that music (and, by extension, all the arts the Greeks thought to be inspired by the Muses, including tragedy) does not hold the power to transform us emotionally; if we are sad, we will stay sad, if happy, we will stay happy. One of the hallmarks of tragedy is its supposedly cathartic effect -- that is, by experiencing immense sorrow, we are purged of it. Euripides questionable status as a tragedian (see context and analysis) can be linked to the lack of catharsis evoked by his plays, and the nurse may be serving as his mouthpiece in this soliloquy, pointing to his plays as self-conscious explorations of the limits of his art.
Euripides found a lack of authenticity behind the traditional form of tragedy, and his plays extended the art to explore new and different expressive possibilities. Lines 214 - 447 Summary Restraining her grief and displaying self-control, Medea emerges from her house to address the chorus in a long speech. She begins by condemning those who are quick to judge silent people without first learning their true character. Continuing in this vein of abstract dissertation, Medea laments the contemptible state of women: they are forced to become their husbands' possessions in marriage (with no security, for they can be easily discarded in divorce), they must endure the pains of childbirth, and they are kept from participating in any sort of public life (unlike men, who can engage in business, sport, and war). Once their home is taken from them, women like Medea are left with nothing.
Medea makes a single plea to the chorus -- that Jason be made to suffer for the suffering he has inflicted upon her as a woman. The chorus agrees that Jason deserves punishment. Having heard Medea's reproaches against Jason, Creon approaches the house to banish her and her children from Corinth, a course of action that had been rumored earlier. Creon fears that Medea may use her infamous cleverness to seek revenge against him, Jason, and his daughter Glauce, whose hand Jason has taken in marriage.
Medea claims that her reputation as a clever woman inspires enmity in both the ignorant and the intelligent; the former find her incomprehensible and ineffectual, while the latter are jealous of her powers. Pointing out that the grudge she bears is directed against Jason, rather than Creon and his daughter, Medea pleads with the king to allow her to remain in Corinth, where she will endure her sufferings without protest. Creon is distrustful and unyielding, but ultimately agrees to provide Medea with one more day to make pr...
Free research essays on topics related to: medea, common sense, jason, emotional shock, medea's
Research essay sample on Emotional Shock Common Sense
