Literary Analysis Of Medea

In Greek theater it was very common to take myths and write about them either as they are or with a different spin on them, or to make a continuation of the myths. The Greek playwrights loved to write plays that involved myths or the gods themselves to entertain or teach the audience, and the audience loved to watch these plays. One such play that is a continuation of a well-known myth and is given its own spin is Medea by Euripides. Medea is about Jason and Medea and their life after the Golden Fleece. Medea is a good example of this because this play adds on to the story that everyone knows and also makes it so that the audience can connect with the characters in the myth easier. Euripides wrote Medea for the understanding of human nature

He was curious into how human nature worked. He explored this with Medea by having her be a tragic figure, one who is possessed by her tragic actions. She thought not of just getting her revenge through killing Jason, that didn’t seem enough for her; she needed to make him pay for hurting her. She first thought of killing his new bride and his children, the fact that they were her children as well did not stop her for long. She is more driven by her passion than her rational, which would have been satisfied with Jason’s end. To Euripides Medea is “not merely the betrayed and vindictive wife, but as the impersonation of one of the blind and irrational focus in human nature” (Kitto pg. 202). Euripides concentrated on the passion of human nature in Medea. He showed what a person who is ruled entirely by passion is like. He made Medea a person who is all passion and nothing else. She is a person who is easily swayed by her feelings and almost never thinks out her actions and when there is an obstacle in her way she overcomes it. For Medea the human characteristic that Euripides wanted to show was mainly passion, Medea is ruled by her passion and that is the reason everything happens in the

The normal tragedy for the time would be a Sophocles tragedy or one that follows the rules that Aristotle believes every tragedy must follow. For Aristotle a tragedy is “a representation of an action which is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude …. [and] must have six elements which make it what it is: they are plot-structure, character, style, thought, spectacle, lyric poetry” (Aristotle Poetics). While Medea does include the definition of what a tragedy is for Aristotle it lacks some of the elements that he says are essential for a tragedy. The plot-structure of Medea is complete, but Aristotle says that if any one part of the play if taken away it should immediately noticeable. Euripides put several pieces and dialogues in Medea that are not essential to the plot of the play and can be removed. The character development is only sophisticated for Medea and Jason, all the other characters in the play could easily be changed and no one would know the difference. The main character of the play is not a tragic hero which is something that Aristotle believes to be important for if an evil man suffers no one cares, if a good man suffers everyone is repulsed, where as those like the audience are the tragic heroes that moves the audience the most. Medea is not a tragic hero, but a tragic figure one whose actions is always tragic. For Aristotle Medea should not have been a tragedy at all