Medea quotes PDF

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This quotes document investigates foundamental themes of the Medea text, including: Themes, Techniques & Character Analysis....

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Deception Quote

Page

Device & Meaning

I fear you.’ - Creon

pg 25

Creon fears Medea’s deceptive powers

‘I am in no position - A woman - to wrong a king.’ Medea

pg 26

‘She still clings to him’ - stage directions

Pg 27

Medea is calculated when attempting to display her helplessness to Creon

I ‘have fawned’ on Creon to ‘carry out my schemes’ Medea

Pg 28

I have sucked - up to Creon in order to execute my plans

‘I'll carry out this murder Cunningly and quietly.’ - Medea

Pg 29

‘I willingly deceived my father … [with] little wisdom’ Medea

pg 31

‘I could never bear ill-will to you’ - Jason

pg 31

Jason is lying

‘I have two children still to care for … I saw my foolishness’ - Medea

Pg 44

Medea is callous as she uses her children (that she intends on killing) to coax Jason.

“I won’t say we are bad by nature but we are what we are” - Medea

Pg 44

Medea is lying here

‘Why flood these tears?’ - Jason

Pg 45

Are these crocodile tears?

‘I know it’s foolish’ - pg 27 Creon (dramatic irony)

Although Deception is not a centralized theme, it displays how actions are calculated and hence how one reasons their behaviour.

Reason vs Passion Quote

Page

Device & Meaning

‘You’re a clever woman, skilled in many evil arts” Creon

Pg 26

Medea is cunning and optimises reason and logic.

‘Think yourself lucky… I have tried to calm them down ‘ Jason

Pg 30

Referencing banishment

“This is not the first occasion - what fatal results follow ungoverned rage” - Jason

pg 30

Jason labels Medea’s behavior as ‘ungoverned’ = unreasonable

‘Respect for oaths has gone to the wind’ - Medea

Pg 31

Jason didn’t respect the covenant of marriage

‘You are guilty of perjury to me’ - Medea (dishonesty)

pg 32

‘You have intelligence … [but] helpless passion drove you’ - Jason

Pg 33

‘My action was wise, not swayed by passion’ ‘I wanted to ensure… that we should live well and not poor’ - Jason

Pg 33

Medea can’t ‘govern you’re sex jelousy’ - Jason

Pg 34

Medea’s actions (from Jason’s perspectives) are lustful instead of reasoned

‘ A wicked man who is also eloquent seems the most guilty of them all’ - Medea

Pg 34

Claiming that Jason is a liar and is trying to justify his actions by casting aspersions.

‘If you were honest … [you would have] not married behind my back ‘ - Medea

pg 34

‘Be more sensible… you’re fortunate’ - Jason to Medea

Pg 35

“It was your choice. Blame no one but yourself” - Jason

pg 35

In reference to Medea’s exile

Aphrodite’s ‘inescapable arrow’ - Chorus

Pg 36

Love and its associated passion are seen as being pernicious

‘I never did him (jason) wrong’ - Medea

Pg 38

‘What coward I am… spare your children!’ - Medea

Pg 49

Medea tries to reason but she is guided by her hubris

‘Anger, the spring of all life’s horror, masters my resolve” - Medea

Pg 50

Anger guides Medea as opposed to reason

‘Arm yourself, my heart; the thing that you must do is fearful, yet inevitable … forget that you once loved them’ - Medea

pg 55

“Out of mere sexual jealousy you murder them!” Jason to Medea

pg 58

Jason becomes emotional however Medea remains reasoned in this situation

Medea: ‘ your father’s treachery cost you your lives’ Jason: ‘It was not my hand that killed my sons’

Pg 59

Contrasting views/values

Appearance / Reputation → Revenge Quote

Page

‘Life has no pleasure left … I want to die’ Medea

pg 24

‘There is no justice in the world's censorious

Pg 24

Device & Meaning

Justice cannot be achieved in

eyes’ - Medea

critical/judgemental environments

‘You must not invite laughter from Jason and his new allies’. - Medea

Pg 29

‘Honour remains no more.’ - Chorus (reputation)

pg 30

‘She is not shaken with weeping, but cool and self-possessed.’ - stage directions

pg 23

(Medea in the next stage of grief & cares about reputation)

‘I’ve no power on my side’ - medea

pg 40

Talking with Aegeus

‘I have no land, no home, no refuge from my despair’ - Medea

Pg 41

‘I can endure guilt … laughter from my enemies i will not endure’ Medea

pg 41

‘Spare your children’ ‘By all the fiends of hate… I’ll not leave sons of mine to be the victims of my enemies’ rage’- Medea

Pg 49/50

‘Why should i hurt them, to make their father suffer, when i shall suffer twice as much myself’ - Medea

Pg 49

Medea would rather murder her children, than have her enemies exact revenge.

‘What a coward I am’ - Medea pg 49

‘You’ll give me double pleasure if their death was horrible’ Medea

Pg 52

“My pain’s a fair price to take away your smile” - Medea to Jason

pg 59

The children ‘live’ ‘to haunt your life with vengeance’. - Jason

Pg 59

She is not malignant, she wants to trump her enemies

Note* Due to Medea’s hubris she seeks to enact revenge as a means of upholding her honour

Justice vs Revenge Quote

Page

Device & Meaning

“I am afraid a dreadful purpose is forming in her mind. Nurse

Pg 18

Foreshadowing

‘After a good dinner why sing songs?’ - Nurse

pg 23

(analogy = be happy with what you have got)

‘To punish Jason will be just’ - the chorus

pg 25

‘You have uttered threats of revenge on Jason’ - Creon

Pg 26

I ‘have fawned’ on Creon to ‘carry out my schemes’ Medea

Pg 28

“I have in mind so many paths of death for them” Medea

pg 28

No one ‘shall hurt me and not suffer’ - Medea

pg 29

Enacting justice

‘They shall repent this marriage, repent their houses joined, repent my banishment’. - Medea

Pg 29

Repetition

‘Here you have known justice… your gifts are widely recognised’ - Jason

Pg 33

Jason argues that Medea wanted a luxurious life in Corinth

I have sucked - up to Creon in order to execute my plans

Stateless refugee ‘I am on the road to victory… I shall see my enemies punished as they deserve’ - Medea

Pg 41

‘This is the way to deal Jason the deepest wound’ Medea

Pg 42

Revenge or justice?

“You, for jealousy of your marriage-bed, will slaughter your children” - Chorus

pg 47

Chorus believes Medea is guided by jealousy

‘The will of Heaven … bring down on Jason justice and calamity’. - chorus

Pg 55

‘Guilty of gross pollution? May the gods blast your life’ Jason

Pg 58

Creon ‘thought he could exile me with impunity’. Medea

Pg 59

‘Now you have loving words, now kisses for them; then you disowned them, sent them into exile’ - Medea

Pg 60

Jason believes that the gods will uphold justice, however they don’t.

Medea achieving revenge

The Chorus (who they side with) Quote

Page

‘You are acting wrongly in thus abandoning your wife’ Chorus

Pg 34

“Never may the dread Cyrian (Aphodite) craze my heart to leave old love for new” -Chorus (pg 36) ‘My own heart suffers too … for that is where my loyalty lies’ - pg 21 Chorus (empathising with Medea)

Device & Meaning

Criticising Jason’s choices - instates the Chorus’ bias

‘Tell her we are on her side’ - the chorus pg 23 Chorus shows passion through this quotation, generally unusual for them to convey such outright bias. They are usually more subtle

“May dishonour and ruin fall on the man” - Chorus about Jason (pg 37) ‘You must not do this (medea)’ - chorus

Pg 42

‘O cursed, miserable woman!’ - Chorus

Pg 56

“What wickedness, what sorrow you have caused on the earth” - Chorus to Medea (pg 57) ‘Go no further!’ - Chorus pg 44 ‘They are of your golder race’ - chorus

Pg 55

‘I pray for death first’ - the chorus not wanting to be in Medea’s predicament of ‘desperate helplessness’ being ‘deprived of native land’ - CHorus

Pg 36

‘We beseech you, do not slaughter your children!’ chorus

pg 43

Faith Quote

Page

‘God grant she strike her enemies and not her friends’ - pg 20 Nurse ‘If Fate banishes me’ I will ‘kill them both’ Medea pg 29 (fate) ‘Be more sensible … you’re fortunate ‘ ‘I have done my best’ - jason pg 35 ‘Innocence, the god’s loveliest gift’ - chorus pg 36 Chorus label Jason ‘so sure of destiny, and so ignorant’ pg 47 ‘The gods and my own evil-hearted plots, have led to this’ - Medea pg 48 ‘The will of Heaven … bring down on Jason justice and calamity’. ‘Leave me to mourn over my destiny’ - Jason pg 58

Pg 55

Device & Meaning

‘The Sun has sent to save us from the hands of enemies’.

Pg 58

Deus Ex Machina Capricious nature of gods

The ‘unexpected God makes possible’ - Chorus

Pg 61

Capricious nature of gods

Role of Women Quote

Page

Device & Meaning

‘Before Jason’s house in Corinth’ - Stage directions

Pg 17

Emphasis on Jason’s house!

‘To Jason she is all obedience’, marriages are saved ‘when a wife obediently accepts her husband’s will’ -Nurse

pg 17

‘We must accept him of as the possessor of our body’ Medea

pg 24

‘Of all creatures that have life and will, we women. Are the most wretched.’ - medea

pg 24

‘Divorce us not respectable: to repel the man, not possible’ - Medea

pg 24

Women are ‘useless for honest purposes, but in all kinds of evil skilled practitioners’ - Medea

pg 29

‘You’re a clever woman, skilled in many evil arts’ Creon

Pg 26

Clever women still aren’t respected in society

‘I am in no position - A woman - to wrong a king.’ Medea

pg 26

(feeding into stereotypes)

Women are ‘useless for honest purposes, but in all kinds of evil skilled practitioners’ -Medea

pg 29

‘A time comes when the female sex is honoured’ - the chorus

Pg 29

Poets with ‘their ballads of faithless women’ ‘shall go out of fashion’ - Chorus

pg 29

‘if women didn’t exist human life would be rid of all its miseries’ - Jason

Pg 34

‘If my wife values me at all she will yield to me’ - Jason

Pg 46

Techniques - Medea Device & Word

What is the device/word?

Men assume control of women

The Chorus believes reform must come as women are not respected.

Subordination

Deux ex machina

Deus ex machina is a literary technique where a conflict in the plot is solved in a sudden or unexpected way.

Hubris

(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride towards or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.

Stichomythia

Dialogue in which two characters speak alternate lines of verse, used as a stylistic device in ancient Greek drama.

Psychomachia

Internalised conflict / conflict of the soul

Peripeteia

A sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances, especially in reference to fictional narrative.

Proem

introduction/preface → ask lynchy whether this can be analysed?

Choral ode

An ode (from Ancient Greek: ᾠ δή, romanized: ōdḗḗ ) is a type of lyrical stanza.

Sophrosyne (n.)

Synonym to temperance, where one is of a sound mind, controlling emotions & being reasonable as opposed to forcing someone to agree.

Tragic flaw

The undoing/downfall of a character/hero (hamartia).

Additional Quotes ‘I have to children still to care for ‘ - medea

pg 44

Are children ‘a blessing or a burden’, parents are ‘burdened and worn with incessant worry’-Chorus

pg 51

(callous)

‘What thanks she has received for her fidelity (loyalty to Jason)’ - pg 18 ‘What man is not guilty … everybody loves himself more than his neighbour’ - pg 20 Tutor (insightful deduction) ‘The middle way … is best by far’ - Nurse

pg 21

(Sophrosyne, Nurse contempt with her place in society)

‘After a good dinner why sing songs?’ - Nurse

pg 23

(analogy = why do we need excess in our life)

‘Young heads and painful thoughts don’t go together’ Nurse pg 18 (innocence) ‘Her husband who has betrayed her’ - the chorus pg 23 She glares at us like a mad bull’ - pg 23 Nurse (zoomorphism) ‘Young heads and painful thoughts don’t go together’ Nurse pg 18 (innocence) ‘ For Medea the ‘world has turned to enmity’ - pg 17 Nurse ‘Mad with love for Jason’ - pg 17 Nurse ‘I want to die. Jason was my whole life.’ - pg 24 Medea ‘I was taken as plunder’ - pg 25 Medea (objectification) ‘My husband’s the most evil man alive’ - Medea pg 38 ‘What god destroyed your life’ - pg 54 Creon...