Medea-Villain_Analysis

Medea is a villain because she does not give up any barbarous means to get what she wants. As the nurse describes, she is a violent and dangerous woman ( “I am afraid she may think of some dreadful thing, for her heart is violent. She will never put up with the treatment she is getting. I know and fear her”, line 37-39). In the beginning of the play, she already appeared as a wicked woman. She is willing to steal Golden Fleece from her father for Jason and even kill her brother to help him escape from the pursuers. Her love for Jason is so great that she can do anything including murdering people, betraying her family and abandoning her homeland to be with him. However, it is also this passionate love that turns her into a terrible villain when her husband betrays her to marry Glauce - the princess of Corinth to gain his power in this land. This is the time when she obviously expresses her weakness. At first, she seems powerless to face this bitter truth ( she wishes she might die and she cursed her husband and her children), but then she can overcome this sufferings and decide to take revenge of him by making him brideless and childless. Medea uses her strength which includes cleverness and resourcefulness to make a perfect revenge. She subtly uses her children as a pawn in the murder of Jason’s new bride by asking them to bring the poisoned dress and coronet as a gift to her. She then continues to revenge her husband by killing her innocent children mercilessly. This inhuman action of her is completely unforgivable. For this reason, Medea is a brutal villain. Medea, originally created in ancient Greece in 431 B.C., the year when the Peloponnesian War just started, seems very much a villain for the world and culture that created her. According to ancient Greece’s culture in that time, women and foreigners had almost no rights at all while men took control over women and were free to enjoy their sexual appetites. In this case, Medea is both woman and foreigner and therefore she had to suffer much more pain than other women in Greece. Although the Greeks felt pity for her, they discriminated against her because of her gender and her exotic origins. Therefore, when Jason repudiated her, she had no other choices but to take revenge of him. While Greek women had to learn to endure the sufferings caused by their husbands, Medea was brave to fight for her sufferings. This action may be received praise from today society but it is unacceptable in ancient Athenian society. Thus, Medea is considered as a villain in Greek culture. Moreover, the action of killing her own children is not only an unpardonable offences but also a deviant behavior against any cultures. It is a warning about depraved ethics to human beings all over the world.