Anger can take over one’s actions, causing them to change from good to evil. This is explored by Euripides in his masterpiece, Medea, where the main character Medea goes from someone the audience feels empathy towards, to a crazy maniac, killing the innocent to satisfy her anger. In the beginning of the play, the viewers may feel pity, as the chorus does, towards Medea as she talks about the the tragedy that she had been going through. Medea was filed a divorce by her husband, Jason, who wanted to marry the princess in order to continue life with his social status. To add onto her troubles, the king of Corinth, Creon, had ordered for her and her two children to be exiled out of the city. She expresses her anger towards this situation in her…show more content… Through all the ups and downs, of fighting with Jason, finding her place in society, and solving her future, Medea’s frustrations and anger take over her brain, causing her to do the unthinkable from the audience’s eyes. The audience first hears her plans after her conversation with Aegeus, the king of Athens, who agreed to support her, “by a trick I may kill the king’s daughter. For I will send the children with gifts in their hands To carry to the bride, so as not to be banished… She and all who touch the girl will die in agony… Next after that; for I shall kill my own children” (Euripides 25-26). In this, the audience and chorus hear words that are horror. Medea expresses her plans to kill not only her ex-husband’s new fiance, but her children and any other innocent people who even lay a finger on the princess. Clearly, this is not the success people had hoped for her. The devilish thoughts had taken over her thoughts changing her from a poor girl to a scary killer. This makes Medea a morally ambiguous character, as the audience may not know whether to cheer for her, or discourage her actions. Again, people feel bad for what Jason and Creon had put her through, but many agree that killing people was not the right choice for her to make. Medea releases her evilness when she sees the messenger coming with the news of the deaths, stating “for long I have waited For the event” (Euripides 36). The event being the death of the princess and the king. Medea leaves the audience in awe, negatively, as her evil character is made visible in front of them. In just 40 pages, Euripides had changed Medea’s character from a girl whom one would hope for success in her life, to a scary woman who killed according to her emotions. Anger led Medea to do such actions, creating her to be a morally ambiguous character that experiences, but also
