“Great Themis, lady Artemis, behold, the things I suffer, though I made him promise. My hateful husband. I pray that I may see him, him and his bride and all the palace shattered for the wrong they dare to do me without cause” (Medea, 2005, p. 694). “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned”, is a great way to describe the play of Euripides’s Medea, In “Medea” we see a Greek tragedy of a woman filled with grief and rage becomes so obsessed with revenge that she turns to means of violence as a source of escape. When someone is hurt as badly as Medea, it is only natural human nature to want revenge and justice. Medea, feeling abandoned and betrayed by her husband, Jason, meticulously creates and executes a plan to ensure that he suffers as much as she is suffering, even at the expense of killing her own children. What would lead a person to such measures? In Medea case, her sources of anguish could have easily been contributed to the disloyalty and betrayal of her husband, or due to the unjust treatment of women by society, or even her struggle with moral conscious of right or wrong. Medea defied perception of gender by exhibiting both man and female tendencies.
“It was everything to think well of one man, and he, my own husband, has turned out wholly vile” (Medea, 2005, p. 695). When Jason left Medea to marry the princess of Corinth, Medea was plagues with sadness and anger. The news of Jason’s betrayal brought Medea to such a low point in her life that she cursed her very existence. How could a woman of great intellectual power and influence result to such a low point in her life? Perhaps it was because of Medea’s love for Jason that she sacrificed and gave up everything for him and for him to abandon her for another woman was more that she could bear. In Greek society, women had no choice or say so in decision that were made by men and their main purpose was to do housework and bear children. Men were considered powerful and women were totally submissive to the husband. However, in Medea’s case she was a woman once of great strength and power who humbly submitted herself to Jason now speaks and acts out against the women status in the Greek society. Although her actions of revenge did not show that of an average Greek woman, they were typical of an emotionally hurt woman. Medea’s ultimately sacrifices everything including her children, her pride, and a life free of remorse and guilt to ensure that her revenge is perfect. It is apparent in this case what could happen when one allows their emotional rage to consume them to a point that their sole desire and being is to get revenge. As Christians, the bible lets us know that we should not seek our oven vengeance but allow him to handle those who have wronged us.
Medea’s anguish
