An Analysis of How Medea Embodies Greek Dramatic Conventions

This essay examines Euripides' play, Medea, and its reflection of key characteristics of Greek drama, particularly tragedy. The essay analyzes how Medea embodies the modification of myths, focusing on the darker aspects of human relationships as seen in the protagonist's actions. It explores the role of the chorus in underscoring ideas and influencing the audience's perspective. The essay delves into Medea's motivations, presenting her as both a victim of societal constraints and a figure driven to extreme actions by grief and betrayal. It also discusses the play's impact on the contemporary Athenian society, highlighting the themes of infanticide, maternal love, and the subjugation of women. The essay concludes by emphasizing the significance of Medea's actions in challenging the patriarchal norms of the time.

Running head: GREEK PLAY
Greek play
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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How "Medea" reflects Greek Drama?
Media refers to an ancient Greek tragedy novel that has been written by Euripides. Media
is based on the Myth associated with Median and Jason and was first produced in the 431BC.
Within limited amount of time, the play gained high popularity amongst the Greek audience.
According to Morales, (2019), one of the major characteristics of Greek drama, specially,
tragedy drama is to modify old myths associated with mythology and bring out the darkest aspect
of human relationship. Media clearly reflects this characteristic of Greek Drama. The
granddaughter of Sun God Helios, in Greek mythology, Medea runs away from her father's home
to marry Jason, the hero Helios. Euripides has rebuilt her tale in her playing and introduced the
dimension that makes her known today as the Medea, the mother who kills her own children in
avenge of the deceit of her husband. While in the original play, Medea’s children were killed by
an angry crowd of Corithians, however the storey was modified by Euripides in order to make
Medea breach the fundamental taboos associated with her bond between a mother and a child
and the concept of unconditional maternal love (Villalba-Lázaro, 2020). Though the shocking
story of Media resulted in its last position in Athenian tragedy competition of 431 BC, the play
became a classic in Greece within a limited amount of time and the infanticide version of the
story supplanted all other versions.
Another way the play Medea has reflected Greece drama is though chorus. In Greek
drama, chorus is used for underscoring the ideas of the drama, providing the audience with a
specific point of view and focusing on the major issues of play. In Medea, Euripides have
depicted the Chorus of the “women of Corinth” as a group of fair minded representatives of the
community, who are sympathetic towards Medea and supports her campaign to justice. On her
trip through this play, the Chorus follows Medea. They say about crucial events in the drama, but

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also serve as a tool that Euripedes uses to influence the audience's views. He does so by
providing a positive speech in the chorus to the crowd like “Medea, poor Medea!”
Why Medea does what she does in the play?
The character of Medea, although was shown in the Drama as the murderer of her own
children, was demonstrated as the victim of the conservative Athenian society and disloyal
husband. Medea had left her family to marry Jason but was eventually rejected by the latter for
fame and prosperity. In the drama, Medea act of infanticide has been shown as an extreme
emotion associated with rage and grief (Lauber, 2018). Since Jason, for whom she had once left
her family, left her to marry Glauce, for political and financial benefits, Medea was left to suffer
with her children and was even drove outside Corinth. Her helpless condition made her
determined to take revenge against Jason and his new family. The act of killing her own children
were shown in the drama as an act of cutting of the Family line of Jason (Van Weyenberg 2016).
While the act of Medea to kill her children was not only unethical but also highly unexpected
from a mother, her reason behind performing the act was made clear by Euripedes. Media, as a
character, gave voice to the contemporary women in Greece who was subjected daily mental and
physical torture by the society. Finally, it can be said that though the act of Medea was not
morally correct, this act was needed in this dram a in order to impose a strong impact on the
contemporary patriarch Greek society.

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References
Lauber, M. S. (2018). The Murdering Mother: The Making and Unmaking of Medea in Ancient
Greek Image and Text.
Morales, H. (2019). feminism and ancient literature. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of
Classics.
Van Weyenberg, A. (2016). REBEL WOMEN TRANSFORMED: Antigone and Medea as Irish
Heroines of Justice.
Villalba-Lázaro, M. (2020). Outlawing the Myth: Legouvé’s Medea in Victorian England from
the Lens of Feminist Literary Jurisprudence. Law & Literature, 32(1), 107-133.