Medea Flashcards
(12 cards)
how does Medea get revenge?
why does she do these things?
quotes
she kills her children - this stops Jason’s legacy
she says “you as you disserve shall die an unheroic death”- all he wanted was fame now he has infamy
she killed his wife- turning the people of Corinth against him “ go home your wife waits to buried”
she disempowers him
- “stop be quiet” and fly’s away while he is speaking
she makes him be what he hates in her
-“I am sane now but I was mad before”
Character of Jason
misogynist
arrogant
ambitious
show Jason is a misogynist
Jason believes women are emotional and irrational - “only natural a woman is angry”
“if my wife values me at all she will yield to me”
quotes and scenes to show he is arrogant
“i shall show you now that my action was wise not swayed by passion”
“although you hate me i am ready to listen”
“tread down my enemies” (solipsistic)
he believes her saying she’s changed (hubris)
dismisses what she did for him as Aphrodite
everyone is a means to an end for him
misogyny and arrogance
“no be quiet” - dismissive
“you’ll soon stop thinking good is bad”
he thinks women are inferior objects that should be submissive and that they’re controlled by jealousy and sex
ambition
“Jason has betrayed his own sons and my mistress for a royal bed” -nurse
“its royalty and power he’s fallen in love with”
“his head shattered by a timber from the Argos hull”
POSITION OF WOMEN IN SOCIETY MEDEA’S MONOLOUGE
“Of all creatures with life and will we women are the most wretched”
dowries signifying men own them - “we have bought a husband, we must accept him as possessor of our body’s”
“for women divorce is not acceptable to repel a man not possible”
its even harder for foreign women because they have to figure everything out on their own
childbirth- “fools! I’d rather stand three times in the front line then bare one child”
how is Glauce a stereotype?
She’s a girly girl
- “many times she would twist back to see how the dress fell”
- “she could not resist such loveliness”
she never speaks in the whole play - feminine thing of seen and not heard
how is the nurse a stereotype?
she’s motherly - “I am sick with fear for you”
she’s resigned - “the men of old times had little sense to call them fools you wouldn’t be far wrong”
how are the chorus portrayed?
they are like old women resigned to the ways of the world
- they hear about what Jason did and say “the thing is common why let it anger you?”
they support Medea until she thinks about killing her children
how does Medea contrast from the other female characters?
she separates herself from the women in the play
- “let no one think of me as humble week or passive”
- “I am of a different kind”
what do the chorus say in their monologue about Athens and Medea if she kills her kids
the chorus imply that Athens would be too good for Medea if she did this
-“such a city watered by sacred rivers” - this line shows their superior complex because they wont even give help to someone in desperate need
