Describe and Account for the Emotional States Experienced by Medea.
J. Medea’s emotions. Trace describe and account for the various emotional states experienced by Medea.
This universality of the play can be seen in a number of interpretations we can put on the central figure, Medea herself. Some of the more important emotional states that are shown through the progression of the play are Medea as a champion of woman rights, as a wife, as a savage, as a venerable rejected woman and as a goddess.
- Medea as a champion for woman rights
Medea suffers intolerable wrong at the hands of Jason and decides to wreak her revenge. Even though as a queen and a foreigner, she talks to the chorus as an equal woman and immediately, despite their previous affirmation of loyalty to Jason’s house wins them to her side. She complains to the sympathetic woman of the hardships of marriage and even though they are perhaps submissive by nature as well as a dint of there being a neutral chorus, they are roused to a pitch of indignation which leads to their trumpeting the woman’s cause and looking forward to the time where the female sex is honoured. Medea’s herself shows to be a clever woman whom Creon fears, by completely outwitting her male opponent. Creon is tricked by false flattery, despite his fear of her, and his blustering threats, into letting Medea have the one day which will be enough to fulfil her plans. She immediately lets the chorus know of her true intentions and what she has in store for Creon and his daughter. Next is the verbal fight between Jason and Medea which she easily won, showing us that Jason; who we thought to be a hero, nothing more than a man enslaved to his own desires and lust. Finally is the scene with Aegeus the king of Athens. She uses her wisdom to interoperate the prophecy from the Delphic Oracle, and thus wins his favour. At the end of the play, we feel that the male characters have been foiled or been used as tools in order to suit Medea’s greater plan.
