Medea

We have already spent a good deal of time exploring ancient Greece’s complex social code of mutual obligation. It is the single most important lens for understanding why the characters in Medea behave as they do. For the ancient Greeks, every relationship carried with it a powerful sense of obligation. Who is this person to me and my allies? What level of honor or loyalty do I owe to this person, by nature of who we are to each other? While these questions are at play in every scene and conversation between various characters, they are spotlighted most starkly in the work’s focal dysfunctional relationship: Jason and Medea’s marriage. Throughout the play Jason and Medea have a fundamentally different understanding of what they are to each other and, consequently, of what they owe to each other. This generates the tragedy’s central unsolvable paradox: From a certain point of view, both Jason and Medea are right.

Jason sees Medea as his wife, first and foremost. In the eyes of the law she is his wife, just as she is in the eyes of Corinthian culture. In this light, Jason argues—quite rightly—that he is doing everything he is supposed to do. In wanting Medea to keep the house, in offering her his assistance even after she is exiled, Jason goes above and beyond what society dictates he owes her. From his point of view, he is not shaming Medea; in fact, he might be giving her a bit too much leeway.

Crucially, Medea does not see herself as merely Jason’s wife. Before they married and settled down, they were Argonauts together, comrades and equals in their adventures against mythological and mortal foes. Medea earned her keep as an important member of the crew; her assistance was invaluable. Jason even supplicated her at some point for her help (497-99). So while Jason sees her as a woman, his social inferior, his wife, Medea does not self-define as wife—or as mother, for that matter. She wants to be treated as Jason’s martial equal. She wants to be treated as a man, or more specifically, as a hero, the role she played on the Argo. And in this light, Jason treats her most shamefully indeed.

Medea considers herself a hero, and she behaves as many famous Greek heroes do. Superficially, many of her actions resemble famous plot points in heroic mythology—in fact, Medea almost always goes further than other male heroes would dare to do. Like Hercules, for example, Medea kills her children; but unlike Hercules, she was not driven mad by the gods—in fact, she kills her sons in a moment of cold-blooded rationality. Like Homer’s Achilles, Medea is defined by her stubbornness. But unlike Achilles, who relented in his anger when King Priam of Troy begged to bury his son Hector (Book 24 of the Iliad), Medea triumphantly crows “Impossible!” when Jason requests the same (1352-55). Compare Medea’s bold “heroic” behavior in these scenes to the Messenger’s description of her romantic rival, the Corinthian princess, when Medea’s sons arrived with her gifts: “when the children came into view, / she veiled her eyes, and turned away” (1115-17). This is the “proper” ladylike reaction to shame—and could not be further from how Medea behaves.

Like any hero, Medea is sensitive to the threat of ridicule. She is not afraid of death—in fact, she welcomes it at various points in the play. It is the thought of being mocked that she simply cannot abide. She brings it up time and time again (e.g., 772; 781-82; 787-88; 1026-29; 1330; 1335). While Jason thinks he is showing his ex-wife her due, Medea perceives that as a valuable comrade and friend, she is being shamed and discarded. She is not being treated with the respect their relationship dictates she deserves—and like a hero, she refuses to take it lying down. As Burian and Shapiro note in the introduction, her behavior would be quite recognizable to the Greeks, if strange coming from a woman: “[Medea] is only doing what other heroes before her had done—what loyal Greeks always still did—when confronted with an enemy. She schemes, she tricks, she deceives” (16).

This tension between Jason and Medea’s incompatible understanding of their relationship is the play’s central conflict. Is Medea a hero or a wife? As both parties make their arguments, the ancient audience would be wrestling with the same questions we are. Who is behaving appropriately here? Who is behaving inappropriately? Euripides provides a thought-provoking answer. By having Medea escape at the end of the play without facing any punishment, mortal or divine—by having the gods provide her with an escape vehicle that lifts her from the realm of mortal punishment—he may be encouraging us to wonder if Medea had it right after all.