Jason and Medea Flashcards
Summary of Jason and Medea Play
When the play starts, Medea and Jason are back in Greece and have sons together - but far from being eternally grateful to the woman who enabled “his” quest, Jason is planning to marry a Greek woman, Creusa, daughter of the Corinthian king, Creon – and Medea will be cast out and homeless. At the beginning of the play, Medea is presented as a highly sympathetic female victim of male selfishness and patriarchal/ androcentric social structures: the Chorus, who are also women, sympathizes with her plight. Medea supplicates Creon to grant her just one day to make plans before she has to get out of town, and he grants the reprieve, a little hesitantly - he knows time matters and that she’s powerful and clever, and on both counts, he is very right. Jason, who is clearly a bit of a scumbag, tells Medea that it’s all for her own good; she is very mad. The king of Athens, Aegeus, shows up and explains that he has problems with fertility – Medea supplicates him and promises to fix his problem with her witchy drugs, if he grants her sanctuary in his city, to which he agrees. This interaction gives Medea an idea. In her next convo with Jason, she acts all nice and offers to give presents to his new wife, sending them via the kids, who are featured on stage, and carrying the presents to Creusa. Medea says goodbye to them, knowing it will be the last time she sees them safe – she’s hesitant at what she’s thinking of doing, and we know it’s gonna be BAD, whatever exactly it is. The Messenger comes on and explains that the presents – a head-dress and robe – were actually poisoned: when Creusa put them on, they burned off her skin and she died in agony. Medea goes inside (where she is talking to herself and not sure about what to do, in the end, decides to kill her children), and we hear the screams of the children from the palace: Mom is killing them. Jason comes on and is horrified. Medea appears in the MECHANE (the pulley above the stage, usually used for gods - she’s the dea ex machina), and taunts Jason: she gets to leave Corinth for Athens, in the chariot belonging to her grandfather, Helios, the Sun God.
Who wrote Jason and Medea’s play?
Euripides
What is the central theme of Medea?
Time
Medead gets Creon to give her one more day
“If only the Argo had never set sail”
Children = future
When was Medea written?
431 BCE at the start of the Peloponnesian War, in which a lot of young people are going to die
Who is Medea?
She is a princess with a family relationship to the sun, magic
Her grandad is Helios, the sun god
The background of Jason and Medea play
Jason was heir to Iolcos in Thessaly, Greece. But his uncle Pelias wouldn’t let him rule until he brought back the Golden Fleece. So he built the world’s first ship, assembled the best crew of warriors from all over Greece, & sailed to Colchis, on the Black Sea, to get it. The king of Colchis wouldn’t let him have the fleece unless he did three tasks: plow a field with fire-breathing oxen, sow dragon’s teeth that popped up as armed men, and defeat the sleeping dragon. King’s daughter Medea fell for him and helped him do the tasks. To distract her dad in pursuit, as they sped away with the Fleece, she chopped up her brother. Back in Iolcos, she persuaded Pelias’ daughters to boil him alive. Pelias’ son didn’t like it and exiled them. So they settled in Corinth and had a couple of lovely kids.
Μέτοικος
stands for with + household
Suggest those who live along with us (Athenian citizens)
Metic
Legal term for resident alien in a Greek city-state - a person like Medea in Corinth
Athenian tragedy
Emerged in late sixth century BCE (but we don’t have any that old)
Thematically: tragedy is interested in how individuals relate to groups
How was Medea at the start of the play?
The enslaved characters – Nurse and Tutor – and the Chorus of Women all sympathize with her and blame Jason.
She articulates her vulnerability, as both a woman (and women always get a rough deal) and a foreigner/ metic (ditto).
σοφία (Sophia)
more abstract/ academic kind of cleverness
A distinguishing feature of Medea
Medea has two kinds of Sophia:
witchcraft and skills with words, people, plots and ideas
Medea’s gender performances
She’s smart and sneaky: which could be masculine, or feminine, or neither
She’s jealous, which Jason treats as “typical woman”
She loves her children, but so does Jason: debatable whether it’s presented as extra-unnatural for Mom to kill the kids, rather than Dad
She’s great at magic: which could be about being female, or about being semi-divine
She can’t bear to be mocked, she needs a little respect – like a Homeric male hero
Creusa fulfills gender stereotypes – she’s a woman who likes pretty things, and they kill her
Medea uses the stereotypes about women to trick Jason: “I’m female, that’s all. Tears are in my nature”.
Euripides inventive take on myth
Before Euripides, the myths about Medea as a magical foreign princess who helped Jason get the Golden Fleece existed
But Euripides probably invented the idea that she KILLED THEIR OWN CHILDREN
Who is Creusa?
The Greek woman, Jason is going to marry instead of Medea
Who is Aegeus?
King of Athens, gives Medea asylum due to her helping him with his fertility issues
