A Close Reading of Euripides Medea :: Euripides Medea Essays

A Close Reading of Medea   Medeas first public statement, a sort of protest delivery, is one of the best severalises of the play and demonstrates a complex, at sequences even contradictory, representation of gender.  Medeas calm and reasoning tone, specially after her following out bursts of despair and hatred, provides the first display of her tycoon to gather herself together in the middle of crisis and pursue her hidden docket with a great determination. This split in her personality is to a definite degree gender bias. The lack of emotional restraint is typical of women, and the healthy attention to moral action is a common trait of heroes. Medea in reality uses both of these traits so that her wild emotions fuel her ideals, thus producing a image that fails to fit into a clear mold.   The language itself highlights womens subordinate status in ancient Greek society, particularly in the public eye. When Medea points out that women, especially foreign wome n, require some knowledge of magic and other backstairs arts to exert influence over their husbands in the bedroom, she argues for a assortment of alternative power that women set up enjoy. A power that remains covert to men and unknown by society, yet sways each with unquestionable force. Medea alike supplies a method for interpreting her own character towards the end of her speech (lines 251-257) we should read her history of exile as a metaphoric caricature of all womens alienation in fact, her whole predicament, past and yet to come, can be read as an allegory of womens suffering and the heights of calamity it may unleash if left unattended. Under this model of interpretation, Medea portrays the rebellion of women against their wretchedness. such(prenominal) a transparent social allegory may seem oblige or clichéd in our own contemporary setting, but in Euripides time it would have been revolutionary, as tragedy generally spoke to the sufferings of a generic (perha ps idealized) individual, rather than a group. It would be a mistake, however, to claim that Medeas speech elaborates a clearly progressive political message, as her concluding remarks greet to womens natural talent for devious manipulation (line 414). While Euripides play manifests many an(prenominal) revolutionary political sentiments, its social criticisms remain sporadic, forming just a part of some of the many trains of thought he follows.   Aside from providing a time frame that initiates a sense of urgency to the play (Medea only has a day to complete her plans), the exchange between Creon and Medea introduces the theme of her cleverness.