Medea as a Woman

Medea as a Woman:

• This is one of the main themes of Euripides Medea. The play is concerned with the plight of Medea and the lot (or plight) of oppressed women in general.

• Women in Greek Tragedies - a very interesting topic- gender issues at play.

• Note: Majority of the audience were male. Male actors performed female parts.

• Male dominated environment.

Q. 2001: “There can be no doubt…………that the Medea is very much concerned with the problem of women’s place in society.” (Knox).

Q. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”.

• Dramatists- reflect & intensify the thought of their time.

• In 5th century Athens, the problem of women’s role in society and in the family was a central q. /topic of discussion.

• Concern for the lot of women was not only reflected in Euripides work.

• For example Sophocles was also concerned with this.

• In Sophocles play Tereus, written in 414 is also concerned with the lot of women.

• Tereus is the story of an Athenian princess, Procne, who is married to Tereus. She persuades him to bring her sister Philomena to Athens to join her. On the journey back from Athens he rapes her and then cuts out her tongue to silence her. Philomena weaves the story of outrage on embroidery and so Procne learns the truth. She kills her son by Tereus, Itys, and cuts him up and cooks him and serves him to Tereus. The Gods in disgust turn them all into birds.

• One of Procnes speeches, re: the wronged wife:

“Now separated (from my family), I am nothing. Many a time I have observed that in this case our sex, the female sex is nothing. When we are children in our father’s home, our life is the most pleasant in the world; young girls grow up in the thoughtless delight. But when we reach maturity and intelligence, we are expelled, bought and sold, far away from the Gods of our fathers and from our parents, some to barbarians, some to houses where everything is alien, others to houses where they meet hostility. But all this, when...