Medea and Power

Alexander Reckford

English 126 – Lupton

January 23, 2014

Medea and Power:

In addition to the fairly obvious focus on gender roles in Euripides’ “Medea,” the main point in the play centers on the idea of power. Power is an interesting concept and can come in many different forms. It is an ultimate justification, and an obsession that can drive people mad. After giving up everything to help him find the Golden Fleece and attain power and influence, Jason abandons Medea – his wife and the mother of his two kids – to elevate his power further by marrying the daughter of King Creon. While it seems as though Jason holds all of the power in the play since he is the one marrying into the royal family, abandoning Medea and calling all of the shots, it is Medea who holds the true power in the end. Despite being exiled and lacking political or social influence, Medea has the ability to take away everything that Jason loves. By murdering her own children, Medea proves that she is willing to do anything and go to any length to hold true power over Jason in the form of everlasting revenge. Lines 1332-1344 show the argument that ensues between Jason and Medea after Jason discovers Medea murdered their children:

Medea: So now you may call me a monster, if you wish,

A Scylla housed in the caves of the Tuscan sea.

I too, as I had to, have taken hold of your heart.

Jason: You feel the pain yourself. You share in my sorrow

Medea: Yes, and my grief is gain when you cannot mock it.

Jason: O children, what a wicket mother she was to you!

Medea: They died from a disease they caught from their father.

Jason: I tell you it was not my hand that destroyed them.

Medea: But it was your insolence, and your virgin wedding.

Jason: And just for the sake of that you chose to kill them.

Medea: Is love so small a pain, do you think, for a woman?

Jason: For a wise one, certainly, but you are wholly evil.

Medea: The children are dead. I say this to make you suffer.

            Within this passage, Jason calls Medea “wicked,” and Medea backs her actions by saying that they were used to make Jason “suffer.” These words are key to understanding Medea and her actions. Jason, as many others would agree, finds Medea “wicked” for murdering her own innocent children for her own selfish desires of revenge. Medea even calls herself a “monster,” but has no qualms about what she did because she is able to make Jason “suffer,” and thus holds the most terrible form of power over him. Euripides chose these words because they evoke strong emotional reactions and demonstrate the extremes Jason and Medea are driven to in search of their own ideas of power.

            When looking at the highlighted section of the play on its own, one loses perspective of the play as a whole. Throughout the play, Euripides portrays Medea as a woman driven to desperation and extreme action in order to maintain some sense of dignity and hold some sort of power over her own life and that of the man who attempted to ruin her. While she eventually embarks upon a terrible and extreme course of action by murdering four people, two of them her own children, she struggled greatly with herself about what to do. This narrow section of the play makes it seem as though she is far more evil, or “wicked,” then I believe her to be. While she was driven to do a terrible thing by her desire for power and revenge over Jason, these few lines make it seem as though the decision was far too easy for her.