son, her love and eventual husband. After she bears him two children he leaves her and marries the daughter of the King of Corinth. Medea then proceeds to use her children to deliver gifts laced with violent poison to the princess. The princess dies and so does her father. Jason then goes to Medea’s home to find his children dead by their mother’s hand. Euripides used topics that many audiences in ancient Greece thought were unsuited for the stage . Medea is one of the plays that contained these topics. Look at the character Medea. She is not Greek, she is from a distant land to which she can never return. She is responsible for the death of her brother whom she killed and cut into pieces. She spread them into the sea to delay her father’s pursuit of Jason and his Argonauts . Medea is a complex and ruthless woman. Her actions before and during the play correspond with the opinion that she is a woman driven by passion not logic. Also examine Medea’s actions during the play. She laces ornate gifts with fiery poison and then uses her children to deliver them to Jason’s new wife. Then in an act of revenge towards her former husband, she brutally murders her own children. There is no greater crime than killing your own children. She commits the act because she believes it is the only way to bring justice to Jason’s actions, as the chorus explains:“Today fate fastens its talons on Jason, these disasters he has deserved.”The narration from the chorus, which a group of Corinthian women, makes an attempt to justify Medea’s actions. Audiences must have found themselves unsettled by similar justifications made in their own minds. Should Jason be punished so severely for his infidelity? Can Medea’s murderous actions be seen as just because of the situation Jason put her in? Questions like these with no definite answer, and the fact that Euripides even raised these quest...
