Euripedes Medea Greek Drama
The play titled Euripides Medea describes the narrative of Greek tragedy that involves Medea and Jason, a husband and wife relationship that falls apart due to Jason’s love for Glauce, the cause for the death of their children. Jason’s ambitious but yet unsympathetic character revealed in words and actions depicted in the play. For instance, Jason’s statement, “I am escaping the howling gape of your verbosity, woman. Well, since you are making a mountain out of the favors you have done me, I’ll tell you what I think” (Euripides 226), reveals Jason’s unsympathetic and insensitive character towards Medea. Jason’s use of the word woman in the phrase is an indication of disregard
for Medea’s position as a wife.
The conflicts in the play Euripides Medea can be grouped into three categories. Firstly, is the conflict between Medea and Jason. Secondly, the conflict between Glauce and Medea, and thirdly, the conflict between Creon and Medea. The first conflict begins with Jason, the antagonist whose relationship with Medea fails and chooses to marry Glauce. Jason’s failed relationship results in revenge and murder of Jason’s children by Medea. Another conflict arises when Creon King of Corinth hears of a revenge murder plot against her daughter Glauce hence banishing Medes and her children. Finally, Creon banishes Medea together with her children from the city, which also resolves the final conflict.
The main themes in Euripides Medea Play include passion versus rage, revenge, the position of women, greatness, and pride. Medea’s sacrifice and passionate love for Jason transformed into anger when she plots to kill Jason’s children. According to Medea, “Passion is master of my reason, a passion that causes the greatest suffering in the world.” She insists that her passion governs actions rather than reason. Medea’s revenge on her husband is evident when she kills her children, thereby portraying the theme of revenge in the play. In her statement “If I devise some ways and means of making my husband pay for this suffering of mine: your silence.” Medea portrays determination for revenge on Jason.
The theme of women’s position comes in when Medea mentions that women live only to please their husbands. Euripides also recognizes the social order of women’s subordination to men and social injustices in women. In Euripides’s work, Medea’s greatness is as a result of her heroism, which gets distorted when she brutally murders her children. Mede’s statement “Now I have hope my enemies will get their deserts! …so that I may kill the king’s daughter for I shall kill my children I will wreak havoc on Jason’s house, ”indicates her resolution towards murdering her children.
According to Aristotle’s point of view, Euripides Medea faiils to achieve peripeteia and anagrosis because Medes the protagonist is determined to revenge against Jason. Aristotle describes that for a play to perform its intended catastrophe, peripeteia should precede anagrosis, which determines the resolution of tragedy. Medes is aware of her inability to change the marriage between Creon’s daughter and Jason, posing challenges for reversal of intentions that lead to anagrosis. The lack of peripeteia in Euripide’s tragedy play provides no reasonable explanation for changing Medea’s fortune. Hence the characters and the plot in Euripides’s play do not attain peripeteia and anagrosis in the anticlimax resolution of tragedy.
In my view, the performance of Modern Greek drama would consist of theatrical semiotics, which refers to the utilization of visual signs that reflect the mood, theme, emotions, and style of a play. Visual semiotics would also indicate the geographical and historical context of production. The setting for the performance would merge naturalistic, abstract, and architectural impression designs to depict the action of the play. For instance, a sand-strewn sand cloth would emphasize an act on the beach. The design of the costumes would explore a variety of fabric choices signifying different states. For example, smooth fabrics may signify royalty, while coarse material expresses barbarism or poverty. The importance of augmenting costumes is to enhance dramatic effects.