THEA101- M 3 - Professor Michael Poblete PDF

Preview

Summary

Professor Michael Poblete...

Description

1 Fiaui Kylie Fiaui THEA101 17 February 2019 Medea Play Worksheet Question #3 When reading the ending of Medea, I was shocked. I could not believe that a mother would go to such extent to murder her own children. Throughout the entire play, Medea kept repeating, “the children have to die” (37). At first, I did not understand why the children had to die, after all they are just as much of victims to their father’s new marriage as she was. However, as the play progressed, it became apparent that Medea’s motives were of pure vengeance. After killing Jason’s new wife, and utilizing her own children to manufacture it, Creon is an unplanned victim. Satisfied with her work, Medea comes to the conclusion that the only way to get true justice is to kill her children. When speaking to the chorus, Medea is asked, “But, lady, can you stand to kill your children?”, to which she responds, “Yes. It will be a mortal blow to Jason” (25). The chorus then states, “But as a woman it will devastate you”, and Medea simply replies, “That’s beside the point” (25). Here is where I truly got the sense of this is how Medea sees her own justice system. She feels that Jason must suffer above all else. Although she cared for her children before, as soon as Jason married his new wife, her love for them vanished. Medea does not even account for how she truly feels about all of the death around her. Her only motive is to make Jason feel as bad as she does, maybe even worse. After killing her children, she is faced with Jason. Jason appears to be torn apart seeing his children slaughtered and cannot believe Medea would go to such an extent to hurt him. He refers to her as “child killer” to which she does not even react to (42). When Jason first arrives, they have an interesting conversation:

2 Fiaui JASON. O my children, you had such an evil mother! MEDEA. O my children, victims of your father’s evil actions! JASON. At least it was not my hand that killed them. MEDEA. No. It was an insult—your new marriage. (41). I thought it was really interesting that Medea would not take any blame for harming her children. Although it was her doing for killing them, she is prideful of the fact that it hurts Jason. She is known to show no mercy, for the crimes she committed to her own father and brother in the past, but for her to not even shed a tear over her children was alarming. Even when Jason tells her he hopes the children haunt her she replies, “The gods are aware who began this fight” (41). It becomes apparent that she never intends on thinking it is her fault. Her children could have easily lived whilst she went on with her other devious plans, yet she truly believed with all her heart the best way to get to Jason would be through the children. She will take no responsibility for her actions because she finally sees justice for herself....