What is the thought of Medea?
The play explores many universal themes: passion and rage (Medea is a woman of extreme behaviour and emotion, and Jason’s betrayal of her has transformed her passion into rage and intemperate destruction); revenge (Medea is willing to sacrifice everything to make her revenge perfect); greatness and pride (the Greeks …
What happens in the beginning of Medea?
The play begins with Medea in a blind rage towards Jason for arranging to marry Glauce, the daughter of king Creon. The nurse, overhearing Medea’s grief, fears what she might do to herself or her children. Creon, in anticipation of Medea’s wrath, arrives and reveals his plans to send her into exile.
What was Jason’s oath to Medea?
Medea and Jason swear an oath that in return for her aid in capturing the Golden Fleece, they will marry. After they are successful, they flee to Corinth, and there Jason decides to leave Medea and marry the princess Glauce.
What mental illness does Medea have?
She struggled since adolescence with what she called manic depression, and what I remembered the medical establishment describing – as I asked around, desperate to understand– as close to schizophrenia. She suffered from severe postpartum depression bordering on psychosis after my birth and, before me, my sister’s.
Why is Medea significant?
Medea, in Greek mythology, an enchantress who helped Jason, leader of the Argonauts, to obtain the Golden Fleece from her father, King Aeëtes of Colchis. She was of divine descent and had the gift of prophecy. She married Jason and used her magic powers and advice to help him.
What was the purpose of Medea?
Medea’s motivation is a desire to punish her husband, a major category used by researchers investigating the background to such crimes. One research article even suggests that mothers are more likely to kill male children if their motivation is vengeance: Medea’s is, and her victims are both sons.
What happens to Medea?
After Medea leaves Jason in Corinth, she marries the king of Athens (Aegeus) and bears him a son. Other accounts, like Euripides’ play Medea, focus on her mortality, although she transcends the mortal world at the end of the play with the help of her grandfather Helios and his sun chariot.
Which God does Medea invoke to help her?
Medea calls on the goddess, Hecate, mistress of the underworld and the patroness of black magic, to serve as her accomplice in this mission. She also vows to restore honor to her lineage (Hyperion, the Sun-god, was her grandfather) and shame Jason’s own tribe, which descends from Sisyphus.
Who is Themis and why does Medea invoke her?
Themis: Themis is the personification of what is right according to custom and morality. Medea invokes her because Jason has violated these rights by taking another wife. Contrast the invocation of Themis here with Medea’s later invocation of Hecate, the goddess of witches (p. 29).
Was Medea a psychopath?
The characterisation of Medea has changed curiously little over the years, and she is often portrayed as a monstrous psychopath. Dame Judith Anderson (best known for her turn as the creepy Mrs Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca”) gave a terrifying and career-defining performance on Broadway in 1947.
Is Medea insane?
He doesn’t use that explanation, and Medea isn’t insane. She’s rational. It would be easier if Medea were some inhuman monster, a vampire or some other ghoulish abomination. But she isn’t.