Medea

Tragedy of Medea

Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by the famous Euripides in 431 BC. This play is a myth based on the fall of Jason and Medea’s marriage. This marriage ends with Medea killing their two sons in order to get her revenge.

The idea of double standards shows up in this play when we think about men and women. This play leads me to think of the tragic death of Casey Anthony’s daughter, Caylee Anthony, and comparing the two shows how consequences of murder and the reaction of society to such an event has changed over time. The murder of a child is heart wrenching in all time periods, yet it is interesting to compare these two stories to see the similarities and differences.

Medea is a love story gone wrong between Medea and Jason. Jason’s choice to divorce Medea in order to marry a native Corinthian princess causes Medea to become depressed and angry. In the beginning, the reader views Medea as the “victim” of the bad relationship but she does not necessarily play the role; she stands strong. At first, the reader tends to sympathize Medea for what she is going through because of Jason, which leads them to think poorly of him. As the play goes on, the reader quickly realizes that Medea is violent and driven crazy for revenge due to what her husband did to her. What Jason did was wrong and the anger from Medea is well deserved yet the actions that occurred were extremely outrageous and unnecessary. In order to get revenge, Medea killed the princess and her father. This made Medea feel much better but knew that there was only one other way of fully getting back at Jason and that was to kill their sons. Medea could have thought of a more appropriate and rational type of revenge if she was driven on getting back at Jason. The thought that Medea found joy out of these deaths proves to the reader what type of person she is. This also foreshadows what is to come next with her. The idea of killing her sons troubled Medea because she...