A Close Reading of Euripides Medea :: Euripides Medea Essays

A secretive Reading of Medea   Medeas first public statement, a sort of protest speech, is wizard of the best parts of the play and demonstrates a complex, at times take down contradictory, representation of gender.  Medeas calm and reasoning tone, especially after her following surface bursts of despair and hatred, provides the first display of her ability to gather herself together in the middle of crisis and pursue her hidden agenda with a great determination. This give way in her personality is to a certain degree gender bias. The overlook of emotional restraint is typical of women, and the strong attention to moral follow up is a common trait of heroes. Medea actually uses both of these traits so that her wacky emotions fuel her ideals, thus producing a character that fails to fit into a separate mold.   The speech itself highlights womens subordinate status in ancient Greek society, especially in the public eye. When Medea points out that women, especially foreign women, require around knowledge of magic and other covert arts to exert work on over their husbands in the bedroom, she argues for a kind of alternative power that women butt enjoy. A power that remains invisible to men and unknown by society, yet sways each with unquestionable force. Medea also supplies a method for interlingual rendition her own character towards the end of her speech (lines 251-257) we should read her history of expat as a metaphoric exaggeration 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 tragedy it may unleash if left over(p) unattended. Under this model of interpretation, Medea portrays the rebellion of women against their wretchedness. Such a transparent cordial allegory may seem forced 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 gene ric (perhaps idealized) individual, rather than a group. It would be a mistake, however, to claim that Medeas speech elaborates a clearly continuous tense political message, as her concluding remarks appeal to womens natural talent for circuitous manipulation (line 414). While Euripides play manifests many revolutionary political sentiments, its friendly criticisms remain sporadic, forming just a part of some of the many trains of popular opinion he follows.   Aside from providing a time frame that initiates a perceive of urgency to the play (Medea only has a day to complete her plans), the permutation between Creon and Medea introduces the theme of her cleverness.