Medea and Revenge

The Revenge

Medea, a play by the Greek playwright Euripides, explores the differences between Greek and Barbarian through the character of Medea. In ancient Greek times, men had right to revenge on another man for betrayal or hurting him. The man who caused the misery had to take the revenge from the other man. In the play ‘Medea,' Medea kills Creon's daughter and her own children to get revenge on Jason for betraying her for Glauce. Because of the Greek Society and Jason's betrayal, Medea feels she needs revenge to relieve the pain that Jason caused. As it is stated in the book, the cause of Medea's grief is Jason. Therefore Medea's revenge was acceptable because of the hardships that Jason left Medea after he got all the help from her.

To begin with, the reader can see how lonely she is and what she has done to be with Jason when the Nurse says, "She is learning what it is to be a foreigner, cast out, alone and despised. She will never learn to be humble, she will never learn to drink insult like harmless water." (pg86) As it is said, Medea could not bear the pain that Jason gave her, therefore, she thinks there is only one way to get rid of the pain which is to do the same thing to Jason. Since Jason gave her so much hardship, Jason should have the same as Medea. Therefore, Medea finds a perfect way to make Jason collapse which is to kill their children. When she tells the chorus of the plans to kill the children, they wonder if she has the heart to kill her children. Medea says to Aegeus, "you'd kill the man's children first. Unchild him, ya?" (103) this quote shows that she believes that by killing her children, she will basically ruin Jason's life, effectively getting her revenge. Also, since Medea gave up many things that she had, Jason must lose things that he really cares. Therefore, it was right for Medea to revenge.

Similarly important, Medea is a princess from the barbarian land of Colchis. Throughout the book, it becomes evident to the reader that Medea is not an ordinary woman by Greek standards. From this quote, "I do not know what other women-I do not know how much a Greek woman will endure," (pg 90) the readers can see the difference between the Greek Women and Medea. Since she is from the land of barbarians, she is not good at enduring things and she is very intemperate, however, she is also clever. As mentioned aboce, she had another reason to kill her children. If she left her children with Jason, they would be living in a society that would look down upon them because