JASON or MEDEA....who really is to blame?

[RyanH]

Many critics have labeled the legendary Medea as a villian---since she ended both Jason's and her children's lives. But after reading Euripides' Medea again this weekend, I'm not quite so sure that's an accurate assessment. Instead, similar to Mrs. Yates (who also ended her children's lives) Medea was compelled by other factors, not by a lack of love for her family and her children:

--Medea was self-sacrificing. She murdered here brother to assure Jason's success in stealing the Golden Fleece--an unselfish act.

--Aboard the ship Argos, Jason's life is spared because of Medea's intelligence and skill.

--Although Medea loves Jason and makes notable sacrifices, Jason reciprocates his love by beginning an affair with Kreon's daughter. Medea becomes the victim of men and marriage.

--Jason seems unconcerned over his children's death, turning his thoughts toward being "childless" and having more.

--Jason abandons both Medea and his children.

--Medea had no rights in Athens.

Thoughts?

Ryan.

 

[havoc]

The name Jason translates to healer. peace

 

[Peyote Killa]

The name Jason translates to healer. peace

How the hell do you know that shit of the top of your head?

 

[saint808]

Wow Ryan... I just love your pseudo-intellectual take on things... I mean you re-read Medea once again... and you weren't even forced. Medea still commited murder and in the time period that it was written those things happened more often than not. I think the reason she is considered a villain is that eventually the more society became patriarchal the easier it was to blame her....

 

[WODIN]

The issue is this. You trust your spouse to provide a safe haven for your children as you have done for her. The children are defensless for the most part and totally trusting of a person who is their primary care giver over a relatively long period of time.

So many levels of betrayal and deceipt are at play in this drama. I still see medea and yates as evil individuals who should be beheaded and poked with hot irons.

 

[RyanH]

The issue is this. You trust your spouse to provide a safe haven for your children as you have done for her. The children are defensless for the most part and totally trusting of a person who is their primary care giver over a relatively long period of time.

So many levels of betrayal and deceipt are at play in this drama. I still see medea and yates as evil individuals who should be beheaded and poked with hot irons.

Come on Wodin...you don't see Medea as "compelled" at all? Afterall, Jason did abandon his family while Medea made sacrifice after sacrifice for both Jason and her family. The traditional characterizations of Medea as just an "evil, mad woman" ignore the forces at work in that play.

As for Mrs. Yates and Medea, I do believe there are strong similarities. Although, Medea's society was much more patriarchal (as Saint mentioned) than the society Mrs. Yates is a part of.

 

[musclebrains]

I confess to an intense curiosity about this play. I saw a very strange flamenco version of it two years ago in Sevilla and in 1998 I saw an amazing production in Milano which was a kind of postmortem review of the drama and its many rewritings by a eight "witnesses," one of whom was Bill Clinton. Medea has been depicted as everything from an evil witch to an innocent maiden.

Euripdes' version of the story received last place in the 431 BC competition. Its defense of Medea outraged the Athenian drama judges. But the reason primarily was that the play defends a FOREIGN woman in opposition to an Athenian citizen, Jason.

The play also must have confronted the Greek belief in revenge. The Greeks believed you did not find peace until you got revenge, particularly in the violation of blood ties. In the Oedipus cycle, Oedipus dies at peace only after he has assured the destruction of his sons, for example. (The mythological basis of this, which turns up in Oedipus at Colonus, is the tranformation, though revenge, of the Furies into the Eumenides.)

The play is remarkable for all the reasons you cite, Ryan. It concerns jealousy, love and passion but situates their examination within the context of the patriarchal and xenophobic Athenian state. So, it is about the effect of the state. We do not excuse the murder of children, of course, but they are daily sacrificed in countless ways to those acting as the transmitters of culture: parents.

 

[RyanH]

MB--
Like many great writers and artists, Euripides' work was only universally appreciated after his death. In fact, while he was living, much of his work was the subject of jokes. The whole construction of the play was unconventional for the time: Medea wasn't from Athens (as you mention), she commits the most heinous crimes in Greek mythology (yet saved by the Greek gods at the end of the play), she was a woman with absolutely no rights, and she never turned to the Gods for help as everyone else did, all because she believed she had done nothing wrong.

When you combine all of these factors, you find a lot of tension which creates great drama as well as an indictment on the society of that time. The play also dramatizes sheer disorder, not just the disorder of family, but disorder within the whole world---something that always frightens us.

I'm interested in what the eight "witnesses" thought of the play--if you recall.

 

[musclebrains]

Most of the witnesses were other commentators on the legend -- such as, from antiquity, SEneca (avoid all passion and women!) and Ovid (queen of the witches in his eyes; he wrote a play that's lost). Other more recent witnesses: Christa Wolf and Hsomething Muller, both East Germans. The latter, as I recall, has Medea accusing her children of being evil hypocrites. Wolf, like many feminist readers of the legend, sees it as an argument for the matriarchy. (The East German fascination points to the play's treatment of the state.) Bill Clinton appeared as a (farfetched) link between Monica's cum-stained dress and the dress Medea uses to annihilate Glauce, in order to look at real politics.

 

[cockdezl]

"Many critics have labeled the legendary Medea as a villian---since she ended both Jason's and her children's lives. But after reading Euripides' Medea again this weekend, I'm not quite so sure that's an accurate assessment. Instead, similar to Mrs. Yates (who also ended her children's lives) Medea was compelled by other factors, not by a lack of love for her family and her children:"

Never read the story, but from your brief synopsis, here is my take: she is a murderous bitch. Your feeble belief that people are controlled by external forces and not by conscious thought, shows why you will make a good lawyer. You will probably have a lengthy career letting murderers and rapists back out on the street, since of course they were under the sinister control of the world.

Please explain how Mrs. Yates loved her children, yet murdered them? In your mind all one has to do to love others is say so, -never mind the actions. Here is the lesson of the day "People are not what they say they are, they are what they do".

"--Medea was self-sacrificing. She murdered here brother to assure Jason's success in stealing the Golden Fleece--an unselfish act."

Hmmmm...sounds like the act of an altruist. Still the definition of murderous.

"--Aboard the ship Argos, Jason's life is spared because of Medea's intelligence and skill.

--Although Medea loves Jason and makes notable sacrifices, Jason reciprocates his love by beginning an affair with Kreon's daughter. Medea becomes the victim of men and marriage."

Ahhh...here we go again, the victim mentality. Simply the rationalization of evil acts by foolish people.

"--Jason seems unconcerned over his children's death, turning his thoughts toward being "childless" and having more.

--Jason abandons both Medea and his children."

So Jason is an adulterous asshole, what is your point? How does this explain Medea's likewise heinous acts?

"--Medea had no rights in Athens. "

Neither should you. Ummm....in the US that is, I could care what you have in Athens.

"Thoughts?"

Your still an idiot.

Ryan.