Medea

Villianness, Victim, or Both?

Medea has emerged from ancient myth to become an archetype of the scorned woman who kills her own children to spite her husband, who must then suffer the fate of outliving them. The story itself is horrific, and yet it remains strangely fascinating, and into the mouth of its maniacal heroine many writers have given philosophies which were too subversive to be voiced in open discourse. Many Medea have been crafted, and though the story remains consistent in every version, there is a degree to which the spirit of the age -- or at least the artist -- regarding women, violence, deity, and self-will is solidified and embodied in the central character. This difference is clearly seen in the difference between the way that Seneca presented Medea in Rome and the way it had originally been presented on the Grecian stage by Euripides: to the...
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