When Jason leaves Medea to marry the King of Corinth’s daughter, Medea grieves deeply for she loves Jason very much. When she first falls in love with him, she must kill her brother to escape with Jason. Her father then exiles her in her home country, and Medea goes to Corinth with Jason. After she has borne him two children and sacrificed much for him, he leaves her for another woman. “And poor Medea is slighted, cried aloud on the vows they made to each other, the right hands clasped in eternal promise. She calls upon the gods to witness what sort of return Jason has made to her love” (l.20-24). Naturally, Medea is crushed because Jason not only abandons and destroys her family; he now intends to exile both her and her children, leaving them without the means needed to support themselves. Medea is stunned because she loved Jason very deeply, and he not only left her for another woman, he also abandoned their children. Medea is now facing being exiled from Corinth, which would leave her stranded, without the means to support herself and her children.
Medea plans to take everything away from Jason, wants to make him suffer through as much emotional pain as she is going through, in order to punish him for his unfaithfulness to her and her family. “If I can find the means or devise any scheme to pay my husband back for what he has done to me—him and his father in law and the girl who married him…for when a woman is wronged in the matter of love, no other soul can hold so many thoughts of blood” (l. 260-266). In order to do this, she murders his new wife, the princess of Corinth by presenting her with the gift of a cursed cloak and diadem. King Creon also dies while trying to save his daughter, which Medea wholeheartedly approves of. Creon had given his daughter in marriage to Jason, and sentenced banishment upon Medea, thereby he was one of her enemies and Medea believed he deserved punishment. Also, she believes that when she leaves Jason with nothing, she will have true revenge upon him for destroying her family and breaking her heart.
Medea then proceeds to kill her own children, all in efforts to inflict revenge upon Jason. The murdering of her children shows the extent she will go to in order to avenge the hurt Jason has done to her. A mother’s instinct is to protect her children, and Medea reaches past her love for her boys in order to hurt Jason. “And when I have ruined the whole of Jason’s house, I shall leave the land and flee from the murder of my dear children…for it is the best way to wound my husband.”(l.704-796; 817) Medea’s murdering of her children is the ultimate act of retribution for Jason’s unfaithfulness to his family. She takes away his bride, his father in law, and his future. Just as Medea had planned, Jason is left utterly void of hope and without those he loved most of all.
When a family tie is broken it can cause irreparable damage, as is demonstrated in Euripides’ tragedy, The Medea. Family can be an awesome thing, in most cases family loves and supports you, even through all the arguments and difficulties that many families face. In today’s society, people not only need to uphold and protect their families, but they need to forgive them when someone makes a mistake, possibly betraying the family. If a family does not issue forgiveness, it can possibly turn mother against daughter, father against son, and completely destroy a family. When revenge instead of forgiveness occurs in a family, it tears that family apart; therefore, people in today’s modern society should strive for forgiveness instead of revenge.
Citations
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Montgomery, Lucy. Anne of Green Gables. Special Collector's Ed. New York: Bantam, 1998.
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Euripides, . The Medea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944.
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Fitzgerald, . "Family Quotes, Sayings about Families." Quotations about Family. 07 Apr. 2006 <http://www.quotegarden.com/family.html>.
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U.S. Census Bureau, . "Divorce Statistics." Divorce Magazine. 2005. 10 Apr. 2006 <http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml>.
