Download Medea: Discussing Euripides* intention

Medea: Discussing
Euripides’ intention
What are the key views and values that
Euripides presents in Medea and how
does he promote these views/values?
October 2015
How to use this
powerpoint…
 Be active
 Write (with pen – penetrates memory better) your
reactions as you travel through
 Argue with the points made, revisit the text and your
notes to find evidence to support or challenge each
viewpoint
 Review and rewrite
 Play with some essay questions and see where you
can incorporate these ideas
Why bother?
 The answer is obvious when you consider the examiner’s
description of a 9-10/10 text essay :
Demonstrates a close and perceptive reading of
the text, exploring complexities of its concepts and
construction. Demonstrates an understanding of
the implications of the topic, using an appropriate
strategy for dealing with it, and exploring its
complexity from the basis of the text. Develops a
cogent, controlled and well-substantiated
discussion using precise and expressive language.
Important considerations …
 Remember characters’ actions are designed to
encourage audience reflection and assessment of
existing social norms and attitudes
 Characters and the plot are symbols – therefore not
meant to be reflective of everyday life
 Euripides was not a popular playwright and a
polemicist (purposefully provocative)
 The audience is now and was then made up of many
individuals who bring their different perspectives of the
world. Show this through your avoidance of neat,
simple answers
Audience and performance
issues: Then and Now
 Then…
 Male
 Athenian
 Free
 Whilst many races in Athens,
power and influence held by
a homogeneous group
 Performed once during the
festival of Dionysius
 Actors male
 Use of masks
 Sung
 Vast venue – 1000s in
audience
 Today
 Males and females
 Broader social views born
from a heterogeneous
society with a myriad of
social values
 Performed regularly also for
the purpose of study
 Actors male and female
 Limited stylistic restrictions
 Smaller venues – 100s in
audience
Key messages
 Sophrosyne
 Athenian values: logos, pathos and ethos, and the importance of balancing
these elements
 Humans are both logical and emotive: not one or the other, but both
 Religious attitudes and approaches
 Greek gods are revered and feared –they are called upon by humans as
witnesses to their behaviour and like humans are shown to be capricious
 Above all, the gods avenge broken oaths mercilessly
 The gods’ intervention be used to explain & excuse behaviour
 The other – Gender and Race
 Status of women & differences in gender behaviour
 As Athenians considered themselves highly sophisticated in determining
their civil and political systems, non Athenians were considered barbarians
and were viewed with suspicion and mistrust
 Cautionary tale - don’t forget humans are also base creatures with
loathsome qualities
Evidence? Sophrosyne
 Athenian values: logos, pathos and ethos, and
the importance of balancing these elements
 Evidence =
 Implications for discussion =
 Humans are both logical and emotive
 Evidence =
 Implications for discussion =
Religion
 Greek gods are revered and feared. Capricious like humans.
Message?
 Evidence =
 Implications for discussion =
 Above all, the gods avenge broken oaths mercilessly
 Evidence =
 Implications for discussion =
 The gods’ intervention can be used to explain & excuse
behaviour
 Evidence =
 Implications for discussion =
Other – gender & race
 Status of women & differences in gender
behaviour
 Evidence =
 Implications for discussion =
 Athenians viewed themselves as culturally
superior & non-Athenians as barbarians - viewed
with suspicion and mistrust
 Evidence =
 Implications for discussion =
Cautionary tale
 Humans are also base creatures with loathsome
qualities and Athenians are all too human.
 Evidence =
 Implications for discussion =
This can be considered as an overarching theme
which will draw together a number of the
messages.
Euripides’ changes to
traditional story: Impact?
 Original story:
 Corinthians killed Jason and Medea’s children
 Medea killed the Princess and Creon only
 Impact of change?
 Filicide is utterly abhorrent - shock
 Sons – representation of Athenian society
 Medea is supported by Helios to evade justice
 Medea – colder, more calculated, more shocking,
less human and more Tuscan Scylla
Feminist, misogynist or neither?
YOU need to be aware of the differing interpretations of Euripides’
character Medea. Euripides is …
 rightly accused of misogyny because Medea is calculated,
malicious, hell-bent on revenge and she escapes without
debilitating consequences: thus representing the ultimate
cautionary tale for males via an unholy nightmare
 purely a conservative who is presenting a cautionary tale of the
perils of giving women voice and sympathy
 a feminist because he choses to have a female protagonist and
chorus, who intelligently articulate their social grievances.
Furthermore, Medea escapes to Athens through the aid of the gods
and fate, justly leaving Jason as a pathetic shell with nothing
 neither a misogynist or feminist because he articulately (and
provocatively) outlines the many concerns that faced women in
Ancient Athens through a female protagonist and a female chorus,
and whilst there is little sympathy for Jason throughout the play, by
the end, the audience’s sympathy does extend to the now forlorn
Jason
Representing your
interpretation: example 1
The playwright sets up the protagonist to confirm
the audiences’ beliefs by having her destroy well
respected homes and commit murders, deceive
unsuspecting men in power and escape
punishment with the assistance of the gods. The
Athenian audience of predominantly males would
have feared the end and clung onto their
ingrained beliefs about women, gods and
foreigners. (Mrs Stathatos)
Example 2
The playwright sets up the protagonist to challenge the
audiences’ beliefs by having Medea straddle the civil and
political worlds and extend the principles of democracy to
the role of women. The lines she speaks about her plight
and the plight of women are designed to garner the
sympathy of the audience. She has support from other
characters too who are pushing the boundaries of thinking
about reciprocal respect between the sexes. The actions of
killing her children and escaping punishment with the help
of the gods highlights her absolute desperation to make her
point, sacrificing her own children and thus her happiness.
Euripides shocks his audience out of their complacency
while the protagonist’s words and actions have been taken
up by the subsequent generations as a call to fairness and
the horrible consequences if it is not acknowledged and
forthcoming. (Mrs Stathatos)
Example 3
The playwright sets up the barbarian Medea, archetypal Athenian Jason and the
action of the gods as a cautionary tale illustrating the absolute necessity of living
within the spirit of sophrosyne. Medea is intelligent, capable of reflection and
moderation but she allows her intelligence to be held hostage by her pride. Her
obvious intelligence prevents the audience from characterising her actions as
mindless rage. It is Medea’s controlled, logical mind which hatches the plan of
“impious bloodshed” in response to Jason’s calculated plan to improve his status.
It is her emotions, unchecked, that allow her to consider filicide, however, it is also
these same emotions which would have permitted mercy. Interestingly, the chorusleader accuses, Jason, the hero of the Argonauts, of being “unjust” when he
dismisses Medea’s reaction to his marriage as “embittered jealousy” illustrating
Euripides’ warning not only of the excesses of emotion, but of pride, cold logic and
heartless action. Without the children’s murders, this is yet another story of a broken
heart, however, Euripides’ alteration to the traditional ending and his
representation of Helios’ active support of Medea also challenges any glib
reductive moral to be attributed to this play. Through the use of Jason, the symbol
of logical Athens, we see the tragedy fall most brutally, and it is here where the
Athenian audience are issued their warnings: ignore the seemingly powerless in
society at your peril, and, logos without ethos and pathos is ultimately destructive.
Now your turn…
Activity
Write your interpretation
complete with evidence and
explanation which enable
your discussion of Euripides’
views and values
Considering other
analyses…
From Wikipedia
 Euripides' characterization of Medea exhibits the inner
emotions of passion, love, and vengeance. Medea is
widely read as a proto-feminist text to the extent that it
sympathetically explores the disadvantages of being a
woman in a patriarchal society,[4] although it has also
been read as an expression of misogynist attitudes.[5] In
conflict with this sympathetic undertone (or reinforcing a
more negative reading) is Medea's barbarian identity,
which would antagonize a 5th-century Greek
audience.[6]
Continued…
When we talk about Medea, we might begin by thinking about how
reversal plays an important role in understanding Euripides' intentions. First,
as the play opens (prologue), the Nurse gives us history and a view of the
"diseased love" between Jason and Medea. There is no equivocation;
Jason has wronged Medea. The audience (and the reader) will perhaps
feel sympathy for this woman and Corinthian women in general. Obviously
the patriarchal elitism and the consequent double standard of masculine
behavior is put on display. Women live oppressed lives. Jason himself will
confirm these sympathies as his reasoning and thus his words (in the second
episode) are visibly absurd. He is transparent and vain.
What strikes me as important in reading this play is the notion of reversal as
[sic] mood. Medea kills her own children and in doing so nullifies any initial
sympathy we might have for her. In fact by the end of the play, one might
have a great deal more sympathy for Jason instead of Medea and in this
Euripides has reversed the sentiments of the audience through dramatic
action. It appears that the idea of having Medea kill her own children was
solely the creation of Euripides. So while Medea gets away with murder…
she also brings destruction on Athens (in the future) for King Aegeus offers
her sanctuary in that city.
http://public.wsu.edu/~hughesc/medea_notes.htm
And…
The ending of Medea has caused debate for thousands of years. It's full of contradictions and conundrums. For one,
it defies the conventions of tragedy by letting its protagonist off the hook. Medea commits four murders, the most
horrendous being the slaughter of her own children. Instead of making his heroine pay for her crimes, Euripides saves
her using a deus ex machina. …What are we to make of Medea's escape?
It's doubtful that an audience is supposed agree with Medea when she says she only did what was right. Clearly
Jason did break his oath to the gods and to Medea, but is killing their children really the appropriate response? Even
Medea recognizes this when she says, "Why damage them in trying to hurt their father?” . In the end, though,
revenge is more important to Medea than maternal love, and she kills her children in order "To get at [Jason's] heart”.
Her methods are effective; Jason is decimated at the end of the play. It's highly unlikely that the majority of audience
members, modern or ancient, would think the jealous slaughter of innocent children is acceptable.
Therefore, if we're not suppose to condone Medea's monstrous actions, what exactly are we supposed to take from
all this? Is there a moral to this story?
Some scholars think that Euripides’ great sympathy towards women is the reason he lets Medea fly away. Medea's
violence is the result of oppression. She's put upon by a male dominated society and cast aside by her husband.
When faced with this incredibly unfair treatment, Medea responds with a shocking act of bloody resistance. By killing
her children, she's rebelling against the dominant role of women in her time: motherhood. Also, notice that the
children she kills are both males. In a way, she's stopping another generation of potential oppressors from gaining
power. The fact that she gets away with it, makes the ending even more unsettling. It's almost as if Euripides wanted
to leave his all-male Athenian audience with a note of warning – beware those you oppress. One day they might not
take it anymore, and you may not be able to do anything about it.
http://www.shmoop.com/medea/ending.html with some minor editing
Over to you…
Review your interpretation
Be able to present, consider,
discuss and use other views